Of all the questions/issues that my MEPN friends and I lost sleep over during the first quarter, two of the most disheartening might have been: Is an accelerated nursing program really for me? And, am I crazy, stupid or lazy for feeling this overwhelmed?
Question 1: Is an accelerated nursing program really for me?
I learned over the break that a classmate is dropping out. She wrote an email to the whole class, explaining that she decided a traditional BSN was more suitable for her. I know her email resonated with many of us, either because it was our worst fear or our deepest desire.
Normally a pre-licensure program occurs over two years; MEPN is one year. In creating the one year curriculum, an administrator told us, the school took a hard look at all the types of courses in a normal nursing program and whittled them down to the knowledge and experiences they thought were vital to being a nurse. They also whittled the credits down to the minimum number required by the Board of Registered Nursing. Apparently we’re taking only one credit more than what the BRN requires.
This compressed, bare bones curriculum can be a dream come true for people who want to become a nurse but who are short on time and money for a long program and/or who have already demonstrated their academic competence and maturity in college and on the job. Most of us were probably good students and hard workers in the past, so, in theory, a lot of reading and weekly quizzes are not outside the realm of impossible. I went into the program prepared for the workload and at peace with the fact that I wasn’t going to read everything or get an ‘A’ on every test.
But what I hadn’t anticipated was how we would be skimming the surface of subjects like Pathophysiology and Pharmacology, and how fast… The Pathophysiology class, for instance, was offered in the summer for a mere 10 weeks. It’s a critical piece to understanding our patients’ illnesses but there was no time to do it justice.
Many of us came to realize one or more of the following:
- Either we want a deep understanding of concepts, or we don’t mind skimming the surface.
- Either we like didactic class work, or we live for clinicals.
- Either we find it exciting to run around like headless chickens, or that scares us shitless.
- We can find the time we need for studying, but there’s no time left to process how our identity, language and outlook are changing.
The last point is the most salient for me. Within weeks I was expected to think and talk like a nurse, but after bending time to fit in classes, clinicals, studying and new people, there was nothing left over for processing and bringing everything together. This is a piece of the accelerated program that threw me for a loop. I felt like a whirling dervish–spinning into a nurse but not able to stop to really feel like one.
Within weeks it also became apparent that the way in which pieces of a person’s life come together can make MEPN either wonderful or stressful. I realized that I’ve got it pretty easy:
- My man is 100% behind me, and is keeping me fed and housed.
- I have a 10-minute commute to school.
- I have no responsibilities to kids or parents.
- I don’t have to take out loans, thanks to my dad’s modest pension. He labored for the City of New York Parks & Recreation for 18 years before dying unexpectedly three years ago. Thank you, Ah Ba.
But others are in the opposite situation. I didn’t have a chance to get to know the woman who dropped out, but I know she faced a very long commute to school, which would be enough to make me think twice.
She was also an older woman and a person of color.
I can’t say for sure whether her background had a bearing on her leaving the program, but as a woman of color from a working class family and the first person in my family to go to college and graduate school, I know color, class and culture most definitely inform my experience in MEPN and as a MEPN, as they do in any school and setting. No one seems to want to talk about the color, class and culture of the MEPN class, so I’ll post about this in the near future.
I give the woman props for making her decision. If her situation was like other people’s, she most certainly felt caught in a bind: What are you to do if you arrive at a place after months, maybe years, of dreaming, hard work and agony, and only want to run the other way but feel stuck because you don’t want to have wasted your hard work and/or because you can’t imagine what else you’d do?
And then there’s that feeling that you should feel lucky and privileged and even grateful to have been accepted to UCSF MEPN, because by god, it’s one of the top nursing schools in the country and there were hundreds of other applicants who didn’t get in, so what are you complaining about…&#!$&@?
Again, the decision could have been a piece of cake for this woman, but the agony about whether an accelerated nursing program–and UCSF MEPN–is really the right choice is very real to some students.
The question that bugged me in the beginning was whether I really could be a nurse and whether I really wanted to be a nurse. Fortunately, after a few challenging, life-changing clinical days, I felt I had made the right decision. UCSF MEPN, with all its problems, is the best route for me at this point in my life. But I know that if my circumstances were just a little different, if like in Jenga, one little piece was out of whack, things could easily crumble.
Question 2: Am I crazy, stupid or lazy for feeling this overwhelmed?
I’m going to have to finish this part another time…
