UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing students, Kyle Loose, Anna Neal, Madison Proulx, Alaina Davis, and Michael Fleck, teamed up to compete in the Student Nurses Association of Pennsylvania’s NCLEX Challenge Bowl during their recent annual convention.
The group swept the floor, winning first place overall out of over 100 schools that competed in the bowl game, beating out St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing in the final championship round. Conducted in a bracket-style tournament fashion, each faceoff consisted of four rounds of nine trivia questions that related to NCLEX exam questions.
For Penn State Nursing, who hadn’t won the bowl game since 2008, first place was a very special moment for the team. “I think it really speaks to the opportunities that we receive at Penn State. While we learn much of this information in class, many of us have also seen a lot of the questions that were being read to us in clinicals and internships that we got because of the Penn State connections and reputation,” said Loose.
Some of the other teams who competed in the bowl against Penn State Nursing included St. Francis University, Messiah University, Alvernia University, and Misericordia University.
The team’s first-place win was accompanied with a trophy, NLCEX study books and a ton of pride. “We were definitely the underdogs, considering it has been over ten years since the last time Penn State won,” commented Loose. “It was a lot of strategizing, but we were absolutely overjoyed. It was definitely a sense of pride given we went up against teams like Drexel and Pitt.”
The Penn State crew as a whole walked away with more than just a bowl win at the SNAP Convention. Loose won the Upper-Class Scholarship from Dr. Carol Weingarten; Kayla Orner, Kieran Cook, and Carinna Carlisle each earned the SNAP First-Year Scholarship; and Sarah McCloskey won the Upper-Class Scholarship from UPMC Pinnacle, and the Leader of Leaders Award from SNAP Alumni.
“I am very proud of our students. The NCLEX Bowl win is a wonderful tribute to and reflection of our students’ knowledge. It’s also a testament to the strength of our college and undergraduate nursing program,” said Paul Logan, assistant research professor and Student Nurses’ Association at Penn State Adviser at Hershey.
To learn more about SNAP and the NCLEX Challenge Bowl, click here.