What is nursing school like?

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What is nursing school like? How do you get through a program that makes you take 3 exams in one day a week and math tests 100%? How do you study for that? How do you read 7 chapters in a week? and then 2 quizzes the following Monday? Does the board of nurses really hate their students that badly?

Why is the program accelerated? Quantity over quality is more important? It seems like the instructors don't teach you anything. Is it pretty much a "knife to your throat while you cut a wire to disarm a bomb" type of education? It seems like nursing school is for those who were born with luck. Or am I completely wrong? Is it doable? can you pass tests with 100% with no problem like you could in a biology class? I hear nothing but students that look like they're living in fear. What is this? The Soviet Union? Where you and your family can't smile in family pictures, businesses have to share their success with other businesses and people can only wear dark colored clothes? Are you not supposed to have confidence while in nursing school? What about the math test that requires you to pass with a 100%? What kind of god awful idea is that? Is that the schools way of saying "we taught you the easiest way possible and if you can't get a 100%, you're ridiculous and not advancing"? Or "Because **** you is why"? Does the school pretty much teach you the job or is there more for you to learn to where you can't actually know the job?

I can see saving lives being the staple of being a nurse so then that means there's no OJT when you work at a hospital? It seems like a job that is hard to maintain beside maintaining the mental and physical part of it?

It seems to me in my experience from nurses and nursing students that the school doesn't teach you **** except slam heavy deadlines and tough tests in your face.

The nursing students I know never speak to me and never come off as positive...

Is being in nursing school make you a snob? Where you're better than all the others except the nursing students you're supposed to graduate with?

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Ok calm down.

Not all programs are accelerated. Yes you do have to absorb a lot in a short period of time. Yes there are many tests and a lot to read. Yes dosage calculations need to be passed with 100%. There is no room for mistakes with meds. Nursing school will teach you the basics and the rest you learn on the job. Yes it is a mentally and physically demanding job.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

For someone who seems to have a ton of questions about nursing programs, you have a whole lot of pre-conceived notions.

In fact, your questions are posed in such a manner that they are simply vehicles for your complaints about nursing students/programs.

What is your point? No need to ask rhetorical questions. Just spit out your beefs.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

What about the math test that requires a 100%?

OP- would YOU like to be on the receiving end of the 10X the dose fatal drug error because your nurse wasn't good at math?

Your child?

You mother?

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Is it an act of complicity to explore nursing school? I mean I'm 2-3 semesters away from applying but the expressions of students I talk to look like it's not worth going to or all the teachers suck or something.

I take it your school was amazing and perfect and there was nothing bad about it? If I could go to that school that had excellent reviews I would but not all of us have the luxury of doing whatever we please. The schools where I live have poor reviews. I don't know if it's the school itself or the program itself. There was one student I met who didn't like the Med Surge instructor because I guess he was condescending when it came to asking questions and later he found out he was also the president of the state of boards of nursing so he relied on other classmates to record lectures while he stayed at home to read the material.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

OP- I am very confused. WHAT exactly do you want from us? Because this is really disjointed and I truly cannot tell.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Did you just come here to rant?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
Is it an act of complicity to explore nursing school? I mean I'm 2-3 semesters away from applying but the expressions of students I talk to look like it's not worth going to or all the teachers suck or something.

I take it your school was amazing and perfect and there was nothing bad about it? If I could go to that school that had excellent reviews I would but not all of us have the luxury of doing whatever we please. The schools where I live have poor reviews. I don't know if it's the school itself or the program itself. There was one student I met who didn't like the Med Surge instructor because I guess he was condescending when it came to asking questions and later he found out he was also the president of the state of boards of nursing so he relied on other classmates to record lectures while he stayed at home to read the material.

Again, is there a sincere question? What is it? Just ask your question without relaying secondhand accounts of bad nursing schools/instructors.

(BTW, there will always be students who gripe about the school/instructors/grading scale. Get a grip. You're in higher education. There are no perfect institutions/instructors/students.)

And what's up with "act of complicity" to explore nursing school? Seriously?? Do you even understand the meaning of complicity?

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What about the math test that requires a 100%?

OP- would YOU like to be on the receiving end of the 10X the dose fatal drug error because your nurse wasn't good at math?

Your child?

You mother?

No, but when you take the class to learn how to do it, are the teachers condescending or are they helpful in showing you the entire processes on how to calculate dosage? Are there some instructors out there who teach for the paycheck and lower workload? or are a majority of nursing instructors helpful and friendly? If that's a weird question, it's because to me nursing school is not business school hence why I ask. Are nursing instructors passionate people.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

It's like any other program. There will be teachers you like and ones you don't like. They will reach you dosage calculation but they are not going to spoon feed you or hold your hand. You will have to be a big girl and take responibility for your own learning.

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There are good and bad teachers everywhere. If the schools in your area are really that bad, then you should consider moving for nursing school. Many of my classmates moved cross country to go to our nursing school.

Regarding the dosage calculations, it's high school level math. Mostly converting metric units and some dimensional analysis to get from one system to another, e.g. 2000 units heparin in 500ml of NS, how many Mls per hour if the dose is 500 units. Stuff like that. Just buy Calculate with Confidence on Amazon if you have questions.

Also, chill just a little.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
No, but when you take the class to learn how to do it, are the teachers condescending or are they helpful in showing you the entire processes on how to calculate dosage? Are there some instructors out there who teach for the paycheck and lower workload? or are a majority of nursing instructors helpful and friendly? If that's a weird question, it's because to me nursing school is not business school hence why I ask. Are nursing instructors passionate people.

Do you always see the worst? Is your glass always half-empty?

And last I knew, "passion" is not a legitimate requirement for any position. Nor can any group of folks (i.e., nursing instructors) be stereotyped into a single description such as "passionate."

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