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Losing my cool when it comes to school
Bucketman
Call meSkraggRegistered User regular
Call meSkraggRegistered User regular
Hello forum,
I know I've posted about similar stuff before but I'm kind of reaching my wits end and can use all the advice I can get.
So I've been pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from my school. I entered in in 2009, slacked off a bit, and really started in the last half of 2010. Then a little ways into it they changed the program, making several of my classes worthless and adding a year to my prenursing time. Then they did it again adding another extra semester. Whoo. Then I got in! Turns out nursing school is CRAZY HARD! I made past semester 1 but about 1/3rd of my class didn't. Semester 2 was rougher, and I almost squeeked it out, but was dropped from the program for getting a D in a class. Ok then, I've been in school for almost 7 years now for a 4 year degree, what the hell, but I need to figure out what I'm doing. My school is trying to push me into a degree in Health Studies...which from the research I've done is worthless. I'm 28 years old, still in school, have 160 credit hours of classes under my belt, and no idea what do with them all.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I know I've posted about similar stuff before but I'm kind of reaching my wits end and can use all the advice I can get.
So I've been pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from my school. I entered in in 2009, slacked off a bit, and really started in the last half of 2010. Then a little ways into it they changed the program, making several of my classes worthless and adding a year to my prenursing time. Then they did it again adding another extra semester. Whoo. Then I got in! Turns out nursing school is CRAZY HARD! I made past semester 1 but about 1/3rd of my class didn't. Semester 2 was rougher, and I almost squeeked it out, but was dropped from the program for getting a D in a class. Ok then, I've been in school for almost 7 years now for a 4 year degree, what the hell, but I need to figure out what I'm doing. My school is trying to push me into a degree in Health Studies...which from the research I've done is worthless. I'm 28 years old, still in school, have 160 credit hours of classes under my belt, and no idea what do with them all.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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What school do you go to?
Getting a single D (1.0) likely wasn't the cause of getting dropped from your program as it seems to require a set GPA over time. It could be they are a one grade and you are out, but typically limited access programs like nursing require continued overall or institutional GPAs of C (2.0) or better as their private partners (your local medical employees) do not want students with lower GPAs than that. You should take some time and actually read through your undergraduate catalog for the specific policies and graduation requirements for your degree. I found this on the Purdue North Central website in about 2 minutes and three clicks: https://www.pnc.edu/sa/connections
These GPA reqs generally come down to two reasons:
Going into the medical professions, best grade on first attempt is the golden rule. If you have been skating by through your classes with Cs (2.0) or lower you likely will not be able to get into most medical programs without extensive out-of-school work experience or spending another 100 hours bringing up your overall GPA. You may want to consider the difficulty of the coursework in relation to your lifestyle and figure out what is causing the disconnect between you and academic success. Maybe this is a professor issue (it happens), but in the professional world you will be matched up with terrible bosses and superiors that will still expect excellence even when they are crap, so blaming your professors for your grades (especially for multiple professors in multiple classes) isn't really a legitimate excuse. Purdue North Central may actually be a hot mess of incompetence, but it is up to you to deal with the realities of that and find a way to move forward academically. If that means changing campuses or schools, you should be the one choosing to do so early. If it is a time to focus issue, how can you better maximize your time to work on your courses (maybe go part time at school to focus on getting better grades on first attempt, or lowering your other obligations such as work and fun things to offer more time to your schooling).
You get 168 hours a week. Assuming a 12-14 hour student workload that should translate to about 38-42 hours of school time (in class and labs plus studying) for STEM majors, plus about 38-40 hours of sleep a week and another 30 or so on the misc life things like driving, shopping, eating, chores. What are you doing with the remaining 50 or so hours? If you are working for 40 hours, that only leaves about 10 for fun and downtime. Is that sustainable? Balancing your overall schedule is essential to ensuring you complete your classes successfully and you typically can only control your schooling 100% (how many classes you take is generally only limited by financial aid, and part time financial aid packages do exist).
That said, you currently have 160 completed credit hours and in most states the average to complete is about 120-130. If you are still in your mid-level coursework changing your major now will set you back for a long, long time. Changing your major is also usually how your school can get away with changing your major requirements. If you stay in the same program typically they are required by accreditation standards to honor the requirements of your major in the term you entered the major (if that is your admit term, perfect. If you change majors though it will become the semester you change your major). With 160 hours, changing your major now should only be done into a program that will actually see you to graduate.
If you are paying for your courses via student loans you likely already have a massive balloon hovering above your head. You may want to contact your financial aid office and calculate what your monthly payment of such loans might be upon graduation. If it is already extremely high per month now, will changing majors entirely and adding another 60 hours to your studies be worth it?
In your boots, I would probably try to find whatever program would be open to me with my current GPA and offer the most straightforward path to completing the BS degree with the minimum amount of courses, and in those remaining courses do 1,000% focus to get strongest grades on best attempt to try to salvage what you can. Having a bachelors in hand will not get you a job in and of itself as well, so you should be working very closely and consistently with your career services office while you are still enrolled to begin networking into medical related professions now. Not upon graduation, but now. So that once you have diploma in hand you already have dozens of contacts to work with on the job hunt.
Remember: Degree is not destiny. Getting a bachelors degree only qualifies you for certain jobs, it does not (ever) get you those jobs. That's up to you and how much legwork you do. Who you know through networking (cold calls of current employers, job fairs, internships and volunteer work, family/friend/professor connections) is what will get you your job, your bachelor's degree will make sure you are qualified enough to allow the HR department to hire you.
College education is a product and a service, but these are not what most people think. The product is knowledge (not placement) and the service is the opportunity to gain knowledge (not a 100% assurance you will gain that knowledge). No school is obligated to get you through their degree plans, only to provide the opportunities to try to do so via their catalog rules.
Lab Tech programs are the same. What type of courses are you failing? Is it the pre-req courses or is it the nursing courses themselves?
You should be approaching a degree with 160 credits. Where did the bulk of these credits come from?
An AA biotech can get you a nice job in biotech sectors but to be a licensed medical technologist you need a BS and a certification.
Also medical lab and employment requirements do vary slightly state by state, so unless you both are in Indiana this argument might not be 100% relevant.
I'm actually looking into a bachelors program for a lab tech, but the issues wasn't so much how hard the classes were (and it was the actual nursing courses and NOT the prereq courses) but the professors, in every case, of help students who came to them or discussing tests or anything because they had be told not to by the department head. Yes if we felt a question we got wrong was correct the department heads response to it was "Well its not." most of my courses are from what transfered from my last school when I was a Computer Science student, and prereq classes. I got into the program first time I applied but getting there took 4 full years because they changed the required classes drasticly twice while I was working up to it. I have 2 full semesters of courses that don't count for anything with my major.
I'm sorry that this program isn't working out for you. You need to consider two things:
1) How many of your credits are transferable? Can you transfer to a different school altogether?
2) What is worth your time and investment?
Community college definitely allows for less than full time, because it's typically for associate degrees. When you stepped into a full nursing program, you got the full 4-year experiences. Most of the 4 year nursing degree programs I know about are intensive and that is unavoidable no matter where you go.
Can you get a job and maintain half-credit status so that your loan clock doesn't activate?
Does the amount of loans you have accrued at this point start to worry you?
What's your motivation for getting a degree and what degree do you really want?