Originally Posted by askater11
It depends how it is structure. In UCSF for example, they have a 3 year master programs for people with a second Bach. If you look at the program in detail, they basically do your normal nursing in 1 year and you take the board exam to get an RN. The next two years are for master program. If you look at the pass rate for UCSF, they are extremely high.
Or another example at another university that I know of, they have an accelerated program that lasts 1 1/2 year (for a BSN). If you look at the details, it is exactly the same as their regular 3 years nursing program. What they did was they squeezed out or the "down" time. What you do is there are absolutely no breaks, no summer breaks and no winter break. The summer sessions tends to be killer as you are not taking one or two classes, but a full load. Also during regular semester, you usually have one extra nursing class than a regular nursing program. This school also require the person in the program to sign and promise certain things like "will not work", and it is advised that one has minimum relational commitment because you are not going to have a life period. Last, it requires the student to finish EVERYTHING already except nursing courses. So all your upper and lower GEs are done. In a regular nursing program, sometimes you can sneak in a nonnursing class here and there to get rid of other non-nursing requirements. With these accelerated programs, that is not possible, you have to get them all done first.
Last example, another college I know of also does it in one year (BSN). But the prereqs is a bit more like it require you to have pharm already. Their pass rate is decent (this is Samuel Merrit in California; cost an arm an a leg for one year, something like over $40,000).
If you think about it, say a typical ADN nursing program that lasts 2 years (4 semesters). If the program start in Summer and ends in the following Summer, you would have roughly 4 semester worth of works (2 regular semester, 2 summers, 1 winter break sessiion). Now summer is going to be a killer since it is a full load plus it is going at a accelerated pace. This can work especially if you push a few courses like pharm or even patho into the nursing prereq category instead.
What else, when one see it advistise that one can be a nurse in 1 year, it is misleading. Because they don't count all the years that you need just to get the prereq done (especially the ones that pushes a few courses into the prereqs).
So in my opion, you have to look at how it is structure and also the pass rate. Not everyone is right for these kind of progroms. Probably the ideal person for these kind of program is a single person who is not in any relationships and is not currently looking for any relationships for the duration of the program; do not have to work at all for the duration of the program; have demonstrated prior academic achievments; has a huge passion for nursing (huge motivation); willing to not have a life period for the duration of the program; and a few other things I can't think off.
-Dan
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