Wow.......lol. I've been trying to prepare myself for this first semester of nursing class & I thought I was doing pretty well--until going to class today. She took it easy on us, just went over the syllabus & the standard procedures for our nursing program, handed out a calendar of what we'll be doing each & every day for the next four months & our test schedule. All I can say is WOW.
We start lecture tomorrow & our first test is on Monday covering 5 chapters. Then we have a test 2 weeks later covering about 7 chapters......and so on for a total of 8 tests. We have a separate math for meds test two days after that in which we need to pass with a 90 or better. It is not averaged in with our other test grades. If you don't pass the math test after 3 tries, then you're out. We need a 78 or better on our regular tests, otherwise we are sent to remediation. She said they came up with 78 as being the cut-off point because when they used to have it at 75, they only had a 75% passing rate on the nclex. When they moved it up to 78, they now have a 94% passing rate on the first try---so basically they are doing it for our benefit (so they say...lol).
We have a few projects to do...they don't seem difficult, just time consuming. I'm *hoping* to get a headstart on those....hoping anyways...lol.
Our professor is 6 months pregnant & she goes on maternity leave about halfway through the semester. I'm not too happy about that because I think you get used to the way a professor teaches & to switch halfway through might throw us off. Then again, maybe we'll end up with someone that's even better, although it looks like this woman has it together. We shall see. She doesn't even look old enough to be a professor!
We only have a total of 11 clinical days...5 in a nursing home & 6 in a hospital. We don't start that until March 12th.
When we were leaving today, she told us not to feel intimidated. She knows it's a lot of work, but we will get through it together. I'll let you know if she's true to her word after our first test on Monday. :roll
My advice to those of you that are starting in a few days or a couple of weeks....start reading your basic nursing textbook if you want to get ahead. Like I said...we don't even really start until tomorrow & I'm already feeling behind. In fact, I'm off to read my 5 chapters before class tomorrow.
Please post how your first day went also....I'm curious to see how similar or different our programs are. Good luck to you all!!
