KevinSauls.com

Since I started the MSN program I’ve struggled with the “fit” of the program with my own personality and situation. About the time I was getting ready to start classes a home that I’ve been renting out is coming available and it needs a fair amount of work to get it up to selling state. I don’t have that money. With the changes in the economy of late, that financial challenge has become even more acute as I’ve had to accommodate some fairly significant cost of living changes. So, after a whole lot more emotional turmoil, I finally hit that last button last night to withdraw from the program. While I feel a significant weight lifted from my shoulders, I’m also a bit distressed by the fact that I didn’t complete something.

Before I get too wound up about it though, I am trying to get re-enrolled in another MSN program that I was in prior, one that is on-line and doesn’t require the same time commitment in terms of travel time and classroom time. I don’t mind doing the work; I mind having my time wasted which was a lot of my problem with the program I was most recently in.

Either way, with the economy in the shape it is, there are likely to be a number of changes — including a possible job change. I can drive a few miles more and make considerably more money. And that’s what I need right now but, then again, don’t we all in these challenging financial times?

Well, I’m about a month into my MSN program and I have to tell you I’m more than a little disheartened. The whole process has so far been very disjointed. Since I’m going into nursing education, the school offered me a service cancellable loan through the Nurse Faculty Loan Program. The problem is that nobody knew how to go about handling the loan. I finally got the money last week, after much prodding and complaining. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, and nobody was taking responsibility. Doesn’t speak well to the school, in my view.

On to classes. I can read the damn PowerPoints; I don’t need to drive an hour each way to have someone do that for me. And I have classmates who drive even further. The concept that we have to sit in a classroom while the instructor reads slides, with little elaboration, is disrespectful of my time and energies. I want to be taught. In the advanced assessment class, it would be nice if we actually did some assessments—or at least got demonstrations of them – rather than simply be told about what we’re supposed to do.

It’s not much different in the other classes. The patho guy pulls crap out of the clear blue to test us on. It’s not a matter of whether we know the material; it’s a game of ‘can I stump them?’ The questions don’t test my familiarity and mastery of the material; they are just a bunch of minutiae he managed to dredge up.

But, I think the thing that irks me the worst, and scares me in many ways, is the lack of instruction that is taking place. As I said, they don’t teach, they read PowerPoints. As a nursing education major, I have to ask whether this is what I will be taught: not how to teach, but how to create PowerPoint slides and read them back to the class. I fear the latter. And we wonder why education isn’t what it used to be.