Frustrated RANT

This is my rant for the evening, maybe even for the week.

I just need to put out there how terribly disappointed I am with college. It's nothing like it EVER should have been and I'm so frustrated that I HATE college more than I like it. Besides the fact that I've gone NO WHERE and I am constantly looking at people's pictures who have gone to all these contries and studied abroad and just had a great time, I am so incredibly disappointed with the Nursing Program. ( Getting married and the expanding family have not put a damper on anything, mind you. Even if I'd never met Justin I don't think i would have been able to travel because I have bills [car, insurance, phone, etc] that I can't just pass off on anyone else to take care of on my own, so I have to work. I also don't have parents that can just fork out the money for me to study abroad. And while I know many people use loans, I haven't take one loan out yet for school, and the thought of doing so to cover both travel AND my bills makes me shudder. I don't regret for one minute my decision of marrying Justin and having this baby. There's nothing I want more.)

I never really wanted to go to Towson ( I had my heart set on UD, however despite my 3.98 GPA, my 3 varsity sports, being president of my class, being involved in a mentorship/internship, being part of the yearbook and taking 4 AP classes [two of which I got college credit for because I passed the exams] they did not feel I was good enough), however since I've been there at Towson, I have not been able to complain about the gen-ed classes (except the one teacher who suggested I was on drugs because I fell asleep in class after working 50 hours that week). I don't particularly care for the campus or many of the people. But MOST OF ALL... I absolutely HATE the nursing program... the one thing I should love. I tried so hard to get into the damn program and was so bummed when I was put on the wait list TWICE... but ever since I've gotten in the program I have absolutely NOTHING good to say about it. Every semester they have managed to do one, two, three, usually more things than that to screw us over. There is NO communication in the program and there is EVEN LESS organization. None of the professors are consistent with what they teach, and some of them are too busy with their own lives to make sure their students are well prepared. I have had an amazingly wonderful advisor while in the program, but beyond her and the one or two decent professors, I can't say many other good things. The clinical instructors are all SO different that there's no consistency there (especially when a paper my instructor gave me a 65 on would have gotten a 90 from another instructore.. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!). It's been horribly terrible since the VERY FIRST day, and it just doesn't seem to be getting better.

The latest is that we just got our schedules: Clinical one day a week (for 8 hours), Lecture one day a week (for five hours), and another class one day a week for a few hours, plus any gen-eds or pre-reqs we might have signed up for individually. So two days off.
Well then I find out tonight from a friend that apparantly we have clinical TWO days a week, which was not mentioned at all on our schedules, and the instructor that told her this assumed that it was common knowledge. Now I don't have a big issue with my schedule, but some others have already given their jobs their availability for the spring (jobs that are already frustrated that they had to wait THIS long for these schedules) and now they have to go back and change things. Had we not found out about this tonight, and had I not emailed the professors requesting a mass email to all students about this info, we may not have known for another week and a half, so at that point when people go to their jobs to explain the mix-up their bosses might not be so thrilled about it, and some people might even have lost their jobs because of this.

AND... I found out yesterday that we are REQUIRED to receive a flu shot this semester. FIRST OF ALL, I haven't gotten a flu shot since I was maybe 6. When I did get it when I was six, I got a fever and threw up a few hours after getting it. I've never gotten it since and I don't have an intention on doing so, especially now that I'm 15 1/2 weeks pregnant. I would love to know when they planned on telling us about this as well, you know since it's SO EASY to get a doc appt at the drop of a dime.

I am just so disappointed in this program.

Oh.. and by the way, the program is SO bad, and the students are getting so little out of it, that our test scores put us TWO points away from Towson losing their NURSING ACCREDIDATION. Yeah... two freakin points. This is so great to find out through the grape vine, because you know the program wouldn't tell us. We heard it from outside sources and had to research it for ourselves. When we finally questioned a professor about it, she gave in and told us it was true. It is so comforting that I'm busting my ass in a program that is doing so poorly.

It's so hard to enjoy anything to do with school, when all you do is hate what you're doing. I was so excited to finally get into the program, yet ever since I question why I even signed up for it. It is so hard to be excited about graduating and becomming a nurse, when I despise anything that has to do with nursing at this point. I was just telling Justin that what I really want to do is travel every now and again to help people: like going to Africa to work with AIDS patients, and going where there are hurricanes and tsunami's and things like that to help out. But then I told him that having a nursing degree might make that better and should give me the opportunity to do those things maybe one week every six months or so. But even knowing that I really want to do those things doesn't make getting through this hell of 4 1/2 years any easier (actually only 2 yrs in the program).

Anyway. That's all I have. I just wanted to get that off my chest before my hormones get the best of me and I break down in tears.