What does your school have you wear to the Pinning Ceremony?

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Hi Everyone!

I'm the Co-President for our SNA here at American River College in Sacramento, CA. I'm trying to research what each School of Nursing has the students wear for their Pinning Ceremony and how much you have to pay for it. What do you guys wear to your pinning? Right now we wear our clinical scrubs to pinning. The same ones we've been in clinical in for the past 2 years. :-/ We are trying to change that but need to do a bit of research.

I'd love it if some recent grads from any Northern California nursing schools could respond! :) Sacramento City College, Sierra College, Delta Community College, Yuba College, De Anza College, Cabrillo College, Chabot College, Sacramento State, Chico State, Stanislaus State... we would love to get your input! Thanks!

Graduated from sac state. They allowed us to wear any formal wear we wanted and honor cords

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Specializes in CVICU CCRN.

I graduated from a 4 year Uni. We wore formal dress attire (no issues with short/weird dresses, etc) and our honor cords. We had several in our group who were ROTC; they came in dress blues and honor cords. We had a champagne brunch/reception afterward. We organized our pinning as a class with input from the lead faculty for the final semester. Everything was done on campus and there was no direct expense to us other than if we chose to buy new duds for the occasion. (Oh, and the "after" party held later that night.) :)

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Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

Our class voted on cap & gown because we didn't want to walk in the giant commencement with no special recognition for nursing. Other classes wore Sunday best. It was $25 for cap/gown. $6 for an SNA cord. School supplied cords for cum laude, magna cum laude & summa cum laude. Those of us in Phi Theta Kappa (honor society) were allowed to wear our honors regalia.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

I graduated in December 2003 so not very recently, but we wore whites just like we did to clinical. The expectation was that we kept our whites white -- if we couldn't get the stains out, we had to replace them. So no dingy ones were on the stage either.

One girl did buy a white nurse's dress especially for the occasion. She looked so pretty! :nurse: It was the horribly impractical kind (although a LTC I'd worked in had the RNs/LPNs wear white, and some did wear the dresses), but it was special for her and she wanted to dress up. :)

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My cohort had the option of either a retro white women's nursing dress/uniform and nurse's hat or black slacks & white shirt. Men needed to wear a plain black tie.

I always thought the retro white dresses were an odd choice but I'd say about 85% of my female colleagues really wanted them. It gets discussed every term.

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Specializes in L&D, Postpartum.

We had to wear business attire for the pinning ceremony. Prior to that the school was wearing the traditional white top, skirt and nursing cap. I would have liked to keep it traditional.

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I'm in Washington, not California, but we just wore a nice outfit. Skirt, dress or pantsuit for women, most men wore a shirt, slacks and tie. Just like what you might wear under your gown at graduation. I liked that option. I would've hated wearing our 2 year old, beat up scrubs, or worse, some

useless white ones.

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Specializes in kids.

Back in the day, we wore our school uniform which was a shortsleeve button down dress, while stockings, white shoes and white cap. I still wear my on my everyday street clothes.

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Specializes in LVN.

I'm in socal and my school gives each class 2 options. 1 is a traditions cap and gown and the other is most popular which was the guys wearing a white scrub set $23 and the ladies wore Dickies nurse dresses. Our dresses were only $22 because we got a group discount for ordering all together. I believe the original price was $26.99. I attended a private school not a cc but I thought our ceremony was really nice.

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Specializes in kids.
Back in the day, we wore our school uniform which was a shortsleeve button down dress, while stockings, white shoes and white cap. I still wear my on my everyday street clothes.

I still wear my pin everyday. I love to wear it to a regional conference in hopes that I run into a fellow alum!

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Specializes in ICU.

We wore whites to pinning. When several students mentioned buying new scrubs for this one ceremony, one of my professors said to look at it kind of like a cheaper wedding dress. I know that may sound silly but your pinning is your commitment ceremony to the profession. After I thought about it from that perspective $30-40 bucks didn't seem so bad.

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Specializes in Tele, Interventional Pain Management, OR.

I graduate in December. We have a pinning ceremony that's separate from the general college graduation ceremony.

I'm pretty sure we just wear nice clothing under our white lab coats (which most of us purchased in first semester and have NEVER worn) for the pinning.

I am so happy to be done, I'll wear whatever. Seriously--tutu, white dress with nursing cap, jeans and sneakers. Whatever. Just let me know what needs to be worn, and I'll wear it! I've had a fantastic nursing school experience, but I will be happy to move on from the land of exams and care plans!

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