Pursuing My Associate's Degree In Nursing

I have always maintained that one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life was obtain my Associate’s Degree in Nursing. It was a vigorous and competitive program in which I found myself sometimes laughing and crying at the same time. I have always been pretty realistic about life, not too much of a dreamer, no delusions of grandeur, and never an anticipator of special treatment. My parents were old school, always taught us kids that we should expect to receive back only what we put into something; hard work always pays off. When I began my academic journey, late into my thirties, I was nervous about how I would measure up to the younger students, I mean, they were pretty used to going to school so they were already sort of
It was in my third semester of nursing school where I hit a major roadblock. I was taking a required class called Complex Health Alterations (CHA), this class in particular spanned two full semesters and was taken in two parts; my roadblock came at the end of the second semester. This class was challenging for me and I had to put a great deal of time and effort into preparing for exams, I found myself either doing moderately well or sometimes not too well. At the end of the semester when final grades came out I was .02 percent below the passing grade to move on to the final semester of the program. I was devastated, but pragmatic enough in knowing that I didn’t pass, remembering what my dad had always told me, “move on, it is over and in the past, you need to look forward, what is done is done”. I genuinely planned on moving forward but had heard from fellow students that the one of the other students that had technically “failed” the course was being allowed to move on because she had only received .01 percent below the passing grade; this had stopped me dead in my tracks. I contemplated how I was going to handle this, should I step up and say something? Should I keep my mouth shut and retake the
I thought about all of the work I had done and all of the money that I had paid for that class, most importantly I realized that this was going to put me back an entire semester and I would have to graduate with an entirely different class; I decided that I was going to say something. I placed a call to the Dean of Health Occupations because I figured that time was of the essence and I wanted to get the problem resolved quickly. When I spoke to the Dean I plead my case, stating that I had worked really hard and that I felt it was unfair that this other student was allowed to move forward in the program and I was not. The Dean stated to me that she understood how I felt however, the other student did not call her and in fact had gone to her supervisor and plead her case. It was the Dean’s supervisor the Vice President of Academic Affairs, that had made the decision, without consulting her, to allow the other student to proceed; she contended that if it had been up to her, she would not have allowed the other student to continue, I challenged her and stated that if he would allow .01 percent, why not .02? At what point did that become ethical to allow one student who failed, even by only a fraction of a percent, to continue on with a program when the policy