Excelling Students survive “make it or break it” classes Every department on campus had their own “make it or break it” class, which challenged its students with harder material and more difficult assignments. Many of these classes forced its students to reevaluate their major and possibly change their collegiate courses. For other students, however, it gave them confidence as they moved through the rest of their major classes. The students in the College of Nursing seemed to be bombarded by these classes.Most of their upper level courses dealt more with hands-on learning rather than theory, which for some, was considered to be harder to make the grade in. Nursing 352, commonly referred to as “Acute” since it dealt with acute illnesses, was one of the challenges that the future nurses had to face. “Acute is really important because you learn how to take care of postoperative patients and patients who are having acute illnesses,” senior nursing major Kala McNally said. The course was designed to give the students an opportunity to put into action what they had learned in the classroom. Nursing 352 was a combination of theory and practice, allowing the students to see their newly learned theories at work in the real world. The core of the class dealt with understanding and treating acute diseases. “An acute disease is any kind of surgery or infection that lasts less than three months,” senior nursing major Sara Moon said. “The theory part of the class teaches us how to treat people’s reaction to diseases.” For many, the theory portion of the class proved to be more daunting than the clinical part. “People do really well in the clinical part,”Moon said. “If they struggle in clinical, they’ll probably struggle with the theory. But it’s definitely do-able.” Students like senior Ashley Thompson were fearful of the class after hearing about it from others who had already gone through it. “I was really nervous about taking this class before hand,”Thompson said. “Now that I’m in it, it’s not as bad as I thought, but if I don’t pass this class, then I’m done.” Thompson felt that, nearing the end of the semester, her grades would be decent and that she would learn a lot that would further her in the rest of her courses. “I feel good about it so far though,”Thompson said. In addition to learning the theories and enduring the horror stories from the upperclassmen, the class also placed the students with patients for the first time.The struggle of learning the theories coupled with the students’first in-hospital experience showed some that nursing might not be their calling. For some, the course empowered them. “I was more determined after that class,”Moon said.“I made it through this course and felt that I could make it in any.” [Cesia Martinez and Jennifer Harris]
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