What Did They Do For Three Years? A Diploma Grad Tells Of Her Nursing School Days

Very similar to my experience in my diploma program in the early 1980s, except that we did two days of class and three of clinical our second year, and one day of class and four days of clinical our senior year. Three month rotations through every clinical specialty (including OR and ICU). Two weeks off at Xmas and two weeks off in the summer, and we were in school full-time the rest of the time (a total of 33 months of full-time study). Ready at graduation to be dropped down anywhere nursing was happening and be able to do the job. The longer I've been out of school and the more I've seen in nursing, the more I appreciate what an excellent nursing education I got.

On the one hand can truly appreciate the type of nurse that such programs produced, sadly fear it wouldn't be possible today to run a BSN or even an ADN school with such a strong focus only on nursing. There just aren't enough days in the week for students to take the other classes required for a degree.

Should add could see *how* it *might* be done but it would mean running a nursing school marathon for three or four years straight with a very tight schedule and little time off.

Our first year included (in addition to our nursing courses and clinical) a year of standard Freshman English, A&P, Micro, full year of Organic Chem (the same course the chemistry majors and pre-med majors took), Intro to Psych, Intro to Soc, and Nutrition, all taken at a local college (and, therefore, transferable credits). We also had the option to take a nursing theory course our senior year if we wanted to, as part of a program to allow us to transition directly into the college's BSN completion program when we graduated. Granted, we didn't take the other sorts of general ed and elective courses typically go along with a degree.