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.

I took the take-home test for patho. I thought I had a fairly good understanding of endocrinology. After all, I’ve worked in nursing for 25 years and I teach the stuff, for crying out loud. But, apparently I don’t.

There were thirty questions on the test. I was comfortable with maybe half of my answers. While the other classes emphasize focusing on broad concepts, apparently the Patho guy didn’t get the message. There was quite a bit of minutiae on it. Well, I guess it really wasn’t minutiae, but it required a level of thinking and synthesis of information that exceeded both the assigned written material and the lecture material. Some of my answers I literally divined an answer to.

Oh, well. my graduate education, part II, may be ending sooner than I thought.

Okay, several months ago I decided that I needed to go back to school for my MSN to further my career. Attending school Friday evening, all day Saturday and part of a day on Sunday every other weekend didn’t sound so bad when I first heard it. I should have known there was a catch. I’ve read something like 1000 pages in the past two weeks, written two assignments and taken one test. The next one comes tomorrow by e-mail and I’ll have until Wednesday morning to complete it. Now, if you’ve ever taken a “take home” test, you already know that it’s not going to be a simple select the right answer and move on, do it in 30 minutes kind of thing. I forsee hours of digging through the text to find an obscure piece of information that is critical to the answer. And, it won’t be regurgitation, either. It’ll be those wonderful synthesis questions that require you to create new information from a lot of little clues.

My significant other, I’m sure, will be happy 15 months from now when this is over. I’m not exactly the nicest guy to be around when I’m feeling stressed. Does a bull in a china shop have a familiar ring? Or, perhaps, I was just a bear — and not the cute little cuddly kind, either. Well, maybe with the extra load of reading to catch up with the first week’s work, and trying to get ahead of the second week now behind me, I’ll settle down. But more than once in the past two weeks I’ve questioned my sanity. And remember, I may one day be providing your nursing care ….