QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

People e-mail me questions from time to time so I'm going to post them here with answers little by little.

1. What was your g.p.a before the program?

I have no clue.  I completed my B.A. in English from Hunter College.  I minored in Japanese.  I took all my math and science courses at Brooklyn College then applied.  My grades were kind of all over the place.  Brooklyn College has separate grades for lab and lecture courses.  And has courses split over semesters. I went above and beyond their requirements for the program. Took Chem 2.  Many of my classmates took the non pre-med organic chemistry class. 

2. What was your g.p.a. from Downstate?

I have no idea.  I'm sure somewhere around a B+ range.  I'm not sure what number that corresponds to.  And let me tell you.  Nobody asked on my job interview.  And I will tell you one other thing.  I have classmate who worked as a PCT and continued to do so throughout the program.  And she told us on the last day of school she worked with two graduates of our program.  One with a 3.5 g.p.a and one with 3.1.  She said they both have been at the hospital for over a year each, and to this day, the one with the higher g.p.a. runs around like a chicken with her head cut off, while the student with the lower g.p.a. is the better nurse.  I'm not saying this will be the same for all cases.  But just keep that in mind while your obsessing over your g.p.a.

3. How many hours did you study per day?

Some days none.  Some days 3.5 hours.  My tactic for studying was as follows:

Get the reading list.  Read and outline as much as possible until the point at which I got a blueprint for the examination.  Stop.  Cover all areas I didn't cover yet on the blueprint.  Then go back over the material I already covered.

This landed me in the A- range regularly.  And then I would ignore the ATI completely.  Not study.  Take the ATI exam.  Get like a 50 or 60 which was 10% of your grade.  Take my B+ for the course and that was it.

I told this to the people I was mentoring when they were on their 2nd day of school.  And they rolled their eyes at me.  A couple of months later they understood.  Not to say they did what I did.  Some of them are doing much better.  But they at least understood where I was at.  

Some of you reading this right now also won't understand until you get there in the program.  The skills that land you in the program can kind of work against you once you get in.

MORE TO COME...