Welcome readers. I have started this blog in order to pass on some incredibly valuable knowledge I have come across. If you've always dreamed of running a nursing school that was so badly run that it robs students of their money and sanity than you've come to the right blog. Why have a nursing school that nutures and supports it's students? Why run a nursing school that feels accountable for all of the rules and regulations that it imposes on it students? Why run a nursing school that makes sense, is affordable, does not prolong the time in the program, does not constantly change educational and health requirements, loses papers, or hires bad adjunct faculty?
I've come across a gold mine of pearls of wisdom on how to run the most shitacious nursing school on the planet after attending the Ivy League of bad nursing schools. I have earned an official Ph.D in the ground-breaking field of "Nursing Student of a Horribly Run University." What can I say, I still (barely) have a pulse after successfully navigating the mine-fields of never-ending health requirement deadlines, registration foul-ups, financial aid screw-ups, curriculumn changes, poorly written exams, crazy skill check-offs, threats, warnings, and other multifarious mind-blowing obstacles and hoops that my school layed on my doorstep. Let me do the honor of passing on to you what I have learned. Please, if you have information, tips, and other pearls to pass on and add to this blog feel free to email me. I know that every day that I spend at shitacious university I learn more and more on how to run a bad nursing school.
Top 10 Tips on How to Treat Your Nursing Students like they're a C. Diff Infection:
1. Treat students like low-lifes instead of the customers, like idiots instead of the reason the university even exists, like scum instead of the hard-working individuals that they are. We don't want them to know that they actually should be treated well, supported, and listened to.
2. Pound the catch phrase "critical thinking" into the students heads. But instead of really meaning critical thinking, have it mean "makes no sense." Have professors write tests that are so poorly written, so asanine, so nonsensicle that it fails half the class. In other words, when you read something that makes no sense what so over, call it "critical thinking." Instead of students reading, learning, and being tested on information in a straight forward manner make it as confusing and out of left field as possible no matter how hard they studied. Also delude yourself with thinking that this "critical thinking" is going to translate itself into more students passing the NCLEX.
3. After students have worked their hearts out to realize their dream of starting nursing school give a nursing school orientation that is boring, useless, threatens, and demeans them rather then welcoming them into the school and the nursing profession. You don't want the students starting their nursing education excited, enthusiastic, and hopeful for their future.
4. Use students as guinea pigs for ill-fated curriculum changes that prolong the program, cause them to pay at least a semester more in tuition at a tune of over $10,000, assign coarseloads that aren't even human, and just SEE how they do-GPA, standing in the program, and sanity be-damned!
5. Assign $700-$800 per semester in books and then change texts every semester so that students can't ever sell their texts back. Better yet- have professors assign $100 books and then never use them.
6. Treat ALL of your students like they are 5 years old.
7. Increase tuition on a constant basis. Charge $200 for parking a semester when the school is out in the middle of nowhere. Have the nursing students paying thousands of dollars more than any other major in the university with no reasonable explanation why and treat them worse than any other major. Offer few scholarships, a poorly run financial aid office, and keep changing the curriculum or keep failing students so that they take longer to graduate and therefore have to pay more. Have the financial aid office send letters to students denying them any further financial aid just to see if they can lose a few students off the financial aid roster.
8. Do not be accountable, what so ever, for the disorganization of the university. Financial aid office poorly run?-students problem. Health requirement office losing papers-students problem. Academic advising office telling the students the wrong information-student's problem. Summer school costing students thousands more than fall and spring semester for no good reason-students problem. Adjunct faculty crazy, stupid, unprofessional, in-over-their head, or all of the above-it's the student's problem.
9. Threaten them around every corner with academic warnings, pass-rates for exams, and general expolsion from the program. This does wonders for student anxiety levels and moral!
10. Hold a lunch meeting to hear what the students have to say about problems in the nursing program and then do absolutely nothing to address or resolve any of their problems.
If you think all nursing schools are like this-wrong! I've included below a blog posting from a nursing school student that is having a nursing school experience that is actually supportive and fulfilling. Why would anyone want that? I've included this letter from a happy nursing student in order to show you what to avoid. I would hate for any nursing student to make it through their program feeling like they've learned a lot, that their university cared about them, and that when things went wrong the school was there for them instead of threatening to kick them out of the program. Please avoid any of these wonderful situations that this nursing student mentions below. Remember, we want the students experience to be as shitty as possible!
I've come across a gold mine of pearls of wisdom on how to run the most shitacious nursing school on the planet after attending the Ivy League of bad nursing schools. I have earned an official Ph.D in the ground-breaking field of "Nursing Student of a Horribly Run University." What can I say, I still (barely) have a pulse after successfully navigating the mine-fields of never-ending health requirement deadlines, registration foul-ups, financial aid screw-ups, curriculumn changes, poorly written exams, crazy skill check-offs, threats, warnings, and other multifarious mind-blowing obstacles and hoops that my school layed on my doorstep. Let me do the honor of passing on to you what I have learned. Please, if you have information, tips, and other pearls to pass on and add to this blog feel free to email me. I know that every day that I spend at shitacious university I learn more and more on how to run a bad nursing school.
Top 10 Tips on How to Treat Your Nursing Students like they're a C. Diff Infection:
1. Treat students like low-lifes instead of the customers, like idiots instead of the reason the university even exists, like scum instead of the hard-working individuals that they are. We don't want them to know that they actually should be treated well, supported, and listened to.
2. Pound the catch phrase "critical thinking" into the students heads. But instead of really meaning critical thinking, have it mean "makes no sense." Have professors write tests that are so poorly written, so asanine, so nonsensicle that it fails half the class. In other words, when you read something that makes no sense what so over, call it "critical thinking." Instead of students reading, learning, and being tested on information in a straight forward manner make it as confusing and out of left field as possible no matter how hard they studied. Also delude yourself with thinking that this "critical thinking" is going to translate itself into more students passing the NCLEX.
3. After students have worked their hearts out to realize their dream of starting nursing school give a nursing school orientation that is boring, useless, threatens, and demeans them rather then welcoming them into the school and the nursing profession. You don't want the students starting their nursing education excited, enthusiastic, and hopeful for their future.
4. Use students as guinea pigs for ill-fated curriculum changes that prolong the program, cause them to pay at least a semester more in tuition at a tune of over $10,000, assign coarseloads that aren't even human, and just SEE how they do-GPA, standing in the program, and sanity be-damned!
5. Assign $700-$800 per semester in books and then change texts every semester so that students can't ever sell their texts back. Better yet- have professors assign $100 books and then never use them.
6. Treat ALL of your students like they are 5 years old.
7. Increase tuition on a constant basis. Charge $200 for parking a semester when the school is out in the middle of nowhere. Have the nursing students paying thousands of dollars more than any other major in the university with no reasonable explanation why and treat them worse than any other major. Offer few scholarships, a poorly run financial aid office, and keep changing the curriculum or keep failing students so that they take longer to graduate and therefore have to pay more. Have the financial aid office send letters to students denying them any further financial aid just to see if they can lose a few students off the financial aid roster.
8. Do not be accountable, what so ever, for the disorganization of the university. Financial aid office poorly run?-students problem. Health requirement office losing papers-students problem. Academic advising office telling the students the wrong information-student's problem. Summer school costing students thousands more than fall and spring semester for no good reason-students problem. Adjunct faculty crazy, stupid, unprofessional, in-over-their head, or all of the above-it's the student's problem.
9. Threaten them around every corner with academic warnings, pass-rates for exams, and general expolsion from the program. This does wonders for student anxiety levels and moral!
10. Hold a lunch meeting to hear what the students have to say about problems in the nursing program and then do absolutely nothing to address or resolve any of their problems.
If you think all nursing schools are like this-wrong! I've included below a blog posting from a nursing school student that is having a nursing school experience that is actually supportive and fulfilling. Why would anyone want that? I've included this letter from a happy nursing student in order to show you what to avoid. I would hate for any nursing student to make it through their program feeling like they've learned a lot, that their university cared about them, and that when things went wrong the school was there for them instead of threatening to kick them out of the program. Please avoid any of these wonderful situations that this nursing student mentions below. Remember, we want the students experience to be as shitty as possible!
Here's what she wrote:
“A Love Letter to the School of Nursing” written by Renee
Yes, the accelerated program is difficult. Yes, nursing is difficult.
However, not once in this school, have I ever felt alone. That may seem like an obvious statement seeing as how every morning over one hundred fellow classmates rush into the main lecture rooms, and there is ALWAYS a line during class break at Me Latte, but that is not exactly what I mean.
Any time there is a computer glitch and your final paper disappears into oblivion, or anytime you click 'Submit' and instead of the screen telling you your score on the online quiz, you get an error page or you're kicked back to the Honor Pledge page, anytime you completely go blank on how to study for that first exam in a class and find yourself in your professor's office having to "discuss" your grade... EVERYONE, and I mean, EVERYONE here at the School of Nursing has consistently bent over backwards to help the students.
Melinda Rose has sent me emails over the span of a month, searching and digging for current masters students or alumni who have done exactly what I want to do... just so I can ask them "Are you still alive after doing your masters full time and working full time?"
Kathie Reese has walked me through a basic dosage calculation problem, as I stare at her blankly... not giving her much to work with.
Mindi Levi and Patty Wilson have worked with me for over a month to get my clinical health requirements in order, no doubt wondering how this could be such a source of confusion for me.
And the most recent reason why I love this school, and essentially the purpose behind this post:
My dad went into the hospital over a week ago for a heart attack, and during a routine cardiac cath procedure, had another heart attack on the table. His lungs filled up with fluid, just like Laura Taylor said they would in Pathophysiology. He became short of breath, watched the medical staff around him become panicked, he yelled out a quick "Come on, boys! Tighten up" before they rushed him to bypass surgery.
Mom and dad are in Richmond, VA, a quick 3 hour drive, 4 hours if you take Route 301, 2 hours on 301 if youre worrying about your dad. I could drive home that night and be with mom while dad was in surgery, but I would most definitely miss clinical hours... which incidentally this school nails it into your brain that you MUST NEVER MISS CLINICAL... EVER... unless you, not a relative, YOU, are dead. So with trepidation, I called my clinical instructor, Germaine, and told her the story, said I would try to make it back for the second day of clinical, which she promptly responded with "Renee, if you need to miss Friday as well, that's completely understandable."
I didn't entirely believe her, and on the 2 hour drive back to Richmond that night, I had come up with several alternative plans for how I was going to finish my BSN/RN degree. I could move home for a bit, maybe dad and I wouldnt argue so much if he gets percocet after this surgery, Im SURE we could live together just fine. I'd go to some nearby community college and finish up MedSurg and the rest there... what a lovely little jaunt I had into Hopkins, so sad it's surely over.
But Germaine was serious, and Meg Bernstein was in on it too. Arrangements were made for me so that I was not super behind on clinical hours, and there was no mention of having me pack my things to move back to Richmond. Everyone was simply concerned about the health of my dad and welcomed me back to school with open arms. Instructors and course coordinators were helping me the entire time.
“A Love Letter to the School of Nursing” written by Renee
Yes, the accelerated program is difficult. Yes, nursing is difficult.
However, not once in this school, have I ever felt alone. That may seem like an obvious statement seeing as how every morning over one hundred fellow classmates rush into the main lecture rooms, and there is ALWAYS a line during class break at Me Latte, but that is not exactly what I mean.
Any time there is a computer glitch and your final paper disappears into oblivion, or anytime you click 'Submit' and instead of the screen telling you your score on the online quiz, you get an error page or you're kicked back to the Honor Pledge page, anytime you completely go blank on how to study for that first exam in a class and find yourself in your professor's office having to "discuss" your grade... EVERYONE, and I mean, EVERYONE here at the School of Nursing has consistently bent over backwards to help the students.
Melinda Rose has sent me emails over the span of a month, searching and digging for current masters students or alumni who have done exactly what I want to do... just so I can ask them "Are you still alive after doing your masters full time and working full time?"
Kathie Reese has walked me through a basic dosage calculation problem, as I stare at her blankly... not giving her much to work with.
Mindi Levi and Patty Wilson have worked with me for over a month to get my clinical health requirements in order, no doubt wondering how this could be such a source of confusion for me.
And the most recent reason why I love this school, and essentially the purpose behind this post:
My dad went into the hospital over a week ago for a heart attack, and during a routine cardiac cath procedure, had another heart attack on the table. His lungs filled up with fluid, just like Laura Taylor said they would in Pathophysiology. He became short of breath, watched the medical staff around him become panicked, he yelled out a quick "Come on, boys! Tighten up" before they rushed him to bypass surgery.
Mom and dad are in Richmond, VA, a quick 3 hour drive, 4 hours if you take Route 301, 2 hours on 301 if youre worrying about your dad. I could drive home that night and be with mom while dad was in surgery, but I would most definitely miss clinical hours... which incidentally this school nails it into your brain that you MUST NEVER MISS CLINICAL... EVER... unless you, not a relative, YOU, are dead. So with trepidation, I called my clinical instructor, Germaine, and told her the story, said I would try to make it back for the second day of clinical, which she promptly responded with "Renee, if you need to miss Friday as well, that's completely understandable."
I didn't entirely believe her, and on the 2 hour drive back to Richmond that night, I had come up with several alternative plans for how I was going to finish my BSN/RN degree. I could move home for a bit, maybe dad and I wouldnt argue so much if he gets percocet after this surgery, Im SURE we could live together just fine. I'd go to some nearby community college and finish up MedSurg and the rest there... what a lovely little jaunt I had into Hopkins, so sad it's surely over.
But Germaine was serious, and Meg Bernstein was in on it too. Arrangements were made for me so that I was not super behind on clinical hours, and there was no mention of having me pack my things to move back to Richmond. Everyone was simply concerned about the health of my dad and welcomed me back to school with open arms. Instructors and course coordinators were helping me the entire time.
