Poorly Written Exams, Hastily Graded Papers; Burdens Put Upon Professors Hurt Students Most

I've heard and read so many professors complain about their disappointment in students and the level of work that students are generating. I've heard complaints along the lines of "students today are lazy" and "they all just want easy A's" to "they love to complain" (ok, this one is true) even as harsh as"they're just not that bright these days." Let me start off by saying that for the most part I really respect professors. But some of the trends I'm seeing among my professors are becoming increasingly worrisome and I think it's time that students offer some constructive criticism back in the face of some of the criticisms they've offered to us.

I had a midterm in one of my nursing classes yesterday and let's just say it didn't go well. It wasn't that the amount of material covered was vast like in Pharmacology, or concepts complex like in Organic Chem, or that I didn't adequately prepare for the exam. The problem was that the exam was written so poorly that it was incredibly difficult to discern just what the professor was asking for most of the questions. I think in her attempt to oversimplify or "dumb up" the material my professor lost clarity and the ability to ask us straightforward questions. If I had to take a guess I'd say another professor teaching a different section of this class wrote the exam for the department. I believe my professor, busy as she is, gave this exam to us without reading it over. This seems to be a popular mode of action among instructors around here but to me it's simply unacceptable.

I can imagine that writing exams is not an easy nor a favorite task for a professor. If I were to put myself in my professors shoes I'd say that writing clear, carefully poignant questions that are also within the scope of students knowledge of the subject matter is an incredibly time-consuming, tedious, and difficult task. With that being said, it is one of the most important tasks that a professor has to do. I realize the pressure they are under. They're doing research, publishing books, writing journal articles, fighting for tenure, giving speeches, sit on professional boards, busy with membership in academic committees, having to be involved in school bureaucracy, meanwhile trying to keep on top of their classes, working in the hospital if they're still practicing nurses, and maintaining their personal lives. That's a tall order.

But the truth of the matter is, is that if they weren't teaching they wouldn't have a job to begin with. Teaching, in my opinion, should be their priority ONE, professionally speaking. And I'm seeing so many professors put their attention to their classes aside to attend to other things. What I'm starting to see is professors who are demanding a higher level of work from students yet failing to meet that challenge themselves. I'm sensing that instructors are slacking on dedicating the appropriate amount of time to read and grade over papers. I'm seeing professors cut corners, not have the time to be interested in students, even instructors who genuinely don't seem to be present in class. At the very worst I had a professor not show up for class without prior warning twice, both on exam days.

To the peril of university students everywhere the academic world has shaped itself over the years so that prestige comes from research and publishing and not from the level of instruction given or dedication to students shown. Why is this? It's the economy, stupid. Research and publishing draws both dollars and prestige to a university. So of course universities have research and publishing requirements that professors have to meet in order to keep their jobs. To meet these ever-increasing requirements professors are taking on staggering amounts of commitments outside of the classroom. But isn't the quality of teaching almost directly proportional to the quality of students that these universities are graduating? Aren't any of you concerned that your nurse or doctor or the engineer of the bridge you'll be driving over for that matter just graduated from a university where his/her professors were more concerned about their latest publishing then they were on taking the time to adequately prepare the student to meet the challenges of their new career.

Ultimately, I just want instructors that challenge themselves at acheiving excellence in the classroom as much as they challenge us to become exceptional students/nurses. Yet because professors are so overburdened by the constraints placed upon them in the modern academic world they often times fall short at fulfilling their teacherly obligatons to us as students and its the students that ultimately suffer. For the future of students out there and for my own future as well I hope that the emphasis in the academic world goes back to focusing on outstanding academic instruction so that students and professors can unite with the common goal of bettering ourselves for the service of others.

Baffled by Burnout

It's inevitable as a student to have burnout from time to time. After talking with some of my classmates they usually experience burnout around midterms or at the end of a semester. It seems that most students don't seem to experience burnout too often nor is it something say, a day at the beach, a long run, or a stiff drink can't handle. Am I the only one out there that gets plagued with burnout every semester that just won't go away? When I started on the magical odyssey that is nursing school three years ago I did not experience burnout. I studied so much for my anatomy class and was so sleep deprived I found myself out driving around at 5 AM listening to recorded lectures, watching the sun rise, and going over anatomy index cards (man was I a loser).

With every arduous academic challenge a professor threw my way I was like the old Animal House adage, "thank you Sir, may I have another." Then suddenly the old signs of burnout that I experienced from a previous career started creeping in. I began to get migraines more frequently, I was driving more aggressively, I couldn't handle my cell phone ringing anymore with yet one more thing I needed to deal with, and the most disturbing sign was my motivation was draining faster than shit down a sinkhole. As much as I love nursing, and believe me I LOVE nursing, I'd sit for hours on end with my textbooks open but surfed the web instead because I just couldn't bring myself to study Organic Chemistry for one more stinking hour.

I have this professor that I really like this semester who actually admitted that students experience burnout. (I've had many professors who refuse to acknowledge that they've ever experienced academic burnout, or fail to see why students would ever suffer from such a phenomenon. I'm starting to really think that when they bestow you with a PhD they also put a microchip in your brain that makes you forget all of your own experiences as a student or have selective memory as to what their experience was as a student, but I digress).

I was so thankful that a professor was keen to the fact that students grapple with burnout that when she mentioned it my ears perked up just waiting to hear the pearls of wisdom she was going to offer me so I never had to experience this treacherous academic malady again. She offered, "Now for those of you who are going to do academic work throughout your spring break remember the importance of taking an hour or two off for yourself." An hour or two? Are you kidding me? An hour or two off after a half a semester and doing a full week of continuous studying would do me as much good as a swift kick in the ass.

Who are these super humans that can fully recover from the stress and pressure of a whole week of work and the whole semester of school in an hour of two? Like watching Stephen Colbert make Eliot Spitzer cracks for an hour or two is going to erase the countless hours of lost sleep, intracranial vessel damage from the multitudes of migraine episodes, and the non stop right eye-twitching that is very disconcerting. I've tried every remedy for burnout I can think of and sadly enough I've done them so many times that I'm getting burnout from my burnout. I've gone on long runs (there's nothing like being exhausted and then forcing yourself to go on a run, you feel better afterwards but man does the run suck), soothed myself with Carmel Frappacinos, I've gone to wiser authorities to look for sage advice and no, neither watching Oprah nor reading Deepak Chopra, did any good. I've tried meditation, surfing more frequently, taking naps, staying in and doing nothing, going out and having some drinks (I thought maybe my problem was that I didn't have a life, and then when I got one, I realized I did not have a life for a reason, oh yeah school).

Basically nothing has worked as more than a quick fix. I know I need to take this summer off but there is so much I want to do. Should I finish my pre-med requirements in case I decide somewhere along the line I want to go to med school? (what am I nuts?) I really want to travel and was contemplating doing nursing exchange programs in Africa, Nepal, or Cambodia but I don't have the money for these programs (funny how the universities want to charge you $5000+ to work in 3rd world countries, all in the name of "academic credit" of course). I know one of the answers to this burnout thing lies in me taking some time off this summer but I just feel like that's such a waste. I've always admired those that can cram as much stuff into a summer than I can fit into a lifetime. We all know those types of people, people that can knit their grandmother a quilt, film a documentary on the effects of schistosimiasis on corn maize farmers in Venezuela, de-worm infants in Tanzania, write a dissertation on post-Stalin neoeconomic theory of the Soviet Union, while procuring government grants for their new ecofriendly non-profit all within the space of a summer. Seriously, how do these people do it? And how can I become one of them?

I know what's really important is having a way to create balance in my life and being OK with the fact that sometimes I'm going to be off balance and need to find my way back. I just hope that I find a new formula for myself that works and that I get back to being the masochistic student that loves pulling all-nighters.

The Den of Pharmacology Hell

So it's a Friday and a rare day off from nursing school for me. I should be enjoying this beautiful day at the beach or at the very least giving my best attempt at pretending I still remember what it is like to be a normal human being. Instead I'm inside snoozing on top of my Pharmacology Book which has the exceptional ability of sending me into long bouts of narcolepsy.

I'm not sure how many of you out there have been lucky enough to be able to enjoy the sufferfest that is Pharmacology. My school is unique in that this class was specially "crafted" by our dean who apparently thinks that shoving as much information as humanly possible down students throats in the shortest amount of time is the the perfect recipe for concept retention. I'm not sure what parallel universe she's from but here on Planet Earth most people have a hard time teaching themselves, memorizing, and then regurgitating mind-boggling amounts of information with any hope of remembering the information for more than, oh I don't know, say one minute past the exam. If I thought this was just a weed-out class to see if we were capable of the academic challenge I would understand but we've already jumped through those hoops. If O-Chem and Anatomy weren't academic weed-outs then I don't know what one is. Not to mention that Pharmacology is information that we're really going to need a solid foundation of. I just don't understand why the class was crafted to be a rapid onset of acute pharmacological info diarrhea.

It's frustrating to know that I am putting so much effort into the relentless process of learning and memorizing all of this information with only the slightest chance of remembering any of it. I know I am not alone in the feeling that if we were given more time to learn, understand, and build a foundation of knowledge around the prototypes we would 1)have better grades in this class 2) actually remember the information 3)be able to recognize and know the clinical application of these drugs 4) utilize our knowledge of Pharm for the NCLEX. But silly me, why would we want to craft a nursing lecture class that actually is logical, humane, and effectual?...that would make too many people happy and just make too much darn sense.



What's also unfortunate about the whole thing is that I like my Pharm. Professor but she's just as frustrated with it as we are and since she's the only place we have to vent our frustrations and we're the only place she has to vent hers we look at each other in mutual annoyance and just continue to slog through the hell that is Pharm. class. So to all of you out there going through it this semester whether it be Anatomy, Pharm., Patho-Phys, or Med-Surg Clinical just remember that when we started nursing school, whether we consiously knew it or not, we signed up to be professional hoop-jumpers and this is just another large hoop at the circus they call nursing school...