What was the toughest part of Nursing school for you?

[LADYFLOWER]

For all of you that have graduated, tell me what was the worst or most difficult part of your Nursing school experience?

[noyesno, MSN, APRN, NP]

Getting adjusted to each clinical site.

The first couple of days were always really stressful because you don't know the staff, you don't know where anything is, and you aren't familiar with the sites' policies and procedures.

By the last clinical day, you start to feel you've got things down and then GAME OVER the semester ends.

[earthcrosser]

Nursing school subjects weren't hard, but the stress from fear of failing (despite making very good grades) and of not always knowing how to please my clinical instructors caused my ED to spiral out of control during that time. The best thing you can do is take time for yourself...don't fully lose yourself in school for 2+ years - you need some down time, even if it's just a little bit a day.

[AddisonLawrence03]

is the nursing program 2 years including the prerequisites?? how many years are the nursing classes alone?

[CrazierThanYou]

Waiting for my turn in the end-of-rotation clinical evaluation line. I was always worried that a clinical instructor was going to ding me for some fault that I was unaware of and hadn't corrected, and that this would go into my permanent record. Fortunately, my instructors were reasonably fair- but waiting for my turn was hard.

This is a little different but back when I was working on CNA, we had an instructor whom I swear was senile. It was like she had receptive aphasia or something. She would totally misunderstand whatever you said. I went in to help her pull a resident up in bed. I was more than willing to do it. She asked me if I had been checked off on that particular "skill". I answered that yes, I had been checked off. She asked me a question and I answered it. She proceeded to chew me out, saying that I had a responsibility to do whatever I needed to do for my residents, regardless if I'd been checked off and blah blah blah. I could not get her to understand that I wasn't refusing, I was only answering her question! When evaluation time rolled around, I lost ten points for being "uncooperative"! Whatever...

By far, the absolute worst part of nursing school for me was writing all those CARE PLANS!!! I would take a test any day over doing care plans.

SO FAR, I'm only just finishing my first semester but so far, care plans haven't been that bad. Time consuming, yes.

The worst part of nursing school has been the downright evil attitudes of a few instructors and the backbiting of some of my classmates. I actually love clinical, don't mind the careplans and don't think the tests are all that hard.

For me, its the backbiting students. Believe me, we have a horrible group. We are chock full of liars, racists, bigots, etc.

When I was in nursing school we visited a place with tons of mentally retarded /depressed people.. we watched shock treatments given, they actually put padded tongue blade and gave shock to temple areas.... I was so disturbed about it that I have always been determined not to get psychotic...!!!!!

Was this recently?????

Dealing with inconsistencies from professors. I can't even count the times they were wrong according to Perry and Potter and other text references; and believe me it was hell...

Yeah, that. Exactly! And the lame rationales they try to cover their rumps with..

[CrazierThanYou]

is the nursing program 2 years including the prerequisites?? how many years are the nursing classes alone?

Our is 2 years for the nursing classes.

[Servingshots]

is the nursing program 2 years including the prerequisites?? how many years are the nursing classes alone?

It's typically 2yrs for pre-reqs and 2 for nursing classes

[tiredstudentmom]

Even though most of the responses here are from 4 years ago, when the economy was quite different from what it is today, I find the information so very helpful. I can relate to many of the obstacles as I have been through CNA training (even though I didn't end up certified after almost 4 mos because our DON forgot to tell us about the board cert) and Medical Assistant training. I will be starting an LVN program in my area and I am looking forward to it, full steam ahead! I know it will be difficult beyond belief, what with the economy, job market, and the politics being what they are, but I believe in persevering and overcoming obstacles, when it's worth the costs. After obtaining my LVN licensure, I will go for the LVN-RN bridge program at the same school. Good luck to the other students and I thank the OP from '06 for starting this topic.:rckn: