u/JuneChickpea

I love my mom, and she was doing the best she did with what she had. But I majored in an English field in part because I loved to write but truthfully bc my mom discouraged me from trying college level math and science. Said I shouldn’t take calculus because it’s so hard. (Notably, she did not give this same advice to my brother, whom she encouraged to pursue engineering, despite the fact that I was objectively a harder worker and better student).

Well, I have been working in my field for a decade and excelling in it. But for a lot of reasons I am working toward pursuing nursing. I’ve got two kids, a demanding full time job, and this past semester, I took psychology 100 and biology 150 at night. I said to myself, they’re just classes, If I don’t get into nursing school, nothing ventured nothing gained.

I got my grades back. Both As. In fact, my biology grade percentage was nearly 98%. I was so scared to do this. In part because I haven’t been in school in a decade, in part because I heard my mom’s voice in my head. But more than that … I legitimately really enjoyed biology. Especially cellular biology. I don’t really regret my choices, because my first career was a lot of fun and for a time, I really wanted it. But I can’t help but wonder how differently my life had gone if I’d given math and science a chance when I was young.

I’m proud of myself. I’m enrolled in Micro next semester. And one thing’s for certain … I wont pass on this baggage to my own kids.

I’m a white collar professional in an unstable field that I’m worried will get a lot more unstable as AI advances, so I’m taking prerequisite classes at night at my local community college while I figure out if nursing is right for me (and letting my kids age out of day care while I still have a full time job).

I’m under no illusion that nursing school will be easy. But I’m an excellent student with good study habits (my first degree is from an elite university and I’ve been acing my prerequisites so far), and I am thankfully able to not work during school if I end up enrolling while my husband supports us, so I do believe I can do it.

But my local community colleges nursing programs pass rates are horrendous. They were okay before Covid — anyway from 32% - 52%. But then after Covid they just plumetted and now are in the low to mid *teens.* their nclex pass rates are usually a few percentage points above the state average, nothing phenomenal or anything. My neighboring county, by contrast, has 4 semester pass rates in the 30s-40s and a 100% nclex pass rate. The only thing I can think of is my county is twice as large per class.

I’ve read some horror stories from people who dropped out, but every nursing school has dropouts so it’s hard to know what to make hi of them.

It’s just SO cheap to stay in county, but I also have the luxury of (at least for now) staying at my current job until I figure out moving or something, which we have thought about doing anyway, though not seriously.

How would you interpret these pass rates??? What is going on???