Best community colleges for Nursing prerequisites

U.S.A. Washington

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Hi! I am going to start taking prerequisites this Fall to hopefully finish Fall 2014 in order to apply for RN programs in 2015. I am wondering if anyone has any info to offer on the colleges they went to for their prerequisites, especially for science classes and colleges/professors you recommend. I live in Snohomish, WA and will try to take all the classes I need to be qualified to apply for NSCC, EVCC, Shoreline, LWIT and possibly Bellevue. I am especially interested in hearing about your experiences with science classes at the colleges and if you could do it over what would you have done/path would have taken/what did you find helpful.

With Lake WA Tech, you may take their BIOL 211 class without any prerequisites really, while other places at least require CHEM 121. Has anyone done that and did ok without having taken CHEM 121 first? I also saw that Everett CC has a learning community class with BIOL 211 and CHEM 121 together. Anyone here taken that and how did you like it?

Thank you so much for your help!

Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.

My classes are too old to help you and I went to school near Tacoma. However, my biggest regret was not getting my BSN and skipping the ADN altogether.

Hi there- I took chem 121, developmental psych, and math for health professionals at North Seattle C C, and I had a great experience! All the professors I had were great, and fellow students nice and helpful.... I hope that helps!

I am not exactly in your area, but my advice is this... research your instructors and the classes you need. I have a BA and I am returning to school at a community college to do my pre-reqs for nursing. The quality of classes is no different at the community college level than what it was when I went to the university - it varies more by instructor and the material they are teaching. So, talk to your fellow students, use ratemyprofessor, even audit classes if you have the time. You will get a feel for who is good and who is not in pretty short order!

Definitely take the time to see what you will need in the future. I am planning to apply to several programs, both ADN and BSN, so I need to make sure that I have all my bases covered. If I stay local, I don't need many of the same credits that I will need if I get into the BSN programs - so I am making sure to take the extra courses, just in case. I'd rather spend the time and money now than be kicking myself later for not having some darn psych or math class that is required.

I took all of my prerequisites at North Seattle CC. I really liked the teachers there, and since its fairly difficult to get into the RN class at NSCC, I figured it would be a good place to take my prerequisites. I always let my teachers know that I am taking the class for my RN prerequisites and they are usually very helpful and encouraging about it. I have not attended any other CC's in Washington but I did go to UW briefly, and I actually liked NSCC better because of the smaller class sizes. The tutoring for sciences is OK, but don't expect a good tutor for statistics. They never have any.

I was in UW for a couple of years, left, took prerequisites in Edmonds CC mostly because it's five minutes from my house. Took one class in NSCC. Now I'm back in UW (nursing).

My thoughts: taking the prerequisites in a cc was definitely the best for me. I found that both the teachers and classmates were supportive and I liked the smaller class sizes. After taking classes in uw that consisted of 300-400 18- to 22-year-olds it was nice to come to a class of 30-40 people who looked different,had different backgrounds and experiences, and were overall more interesting. Anyway, I digress... I LOVED Edmonds. I paid for classes myself (no financial aid) and they had an easy payment plan and were super understanding if I ever had to pay a couple of days late for any reason (if I called in advance). My teachers were good enough that I don't remember any in a bad way except for one, but she's insanely difficult in edcc and in other colleges.

I enjoyed the one class I had in NSCC, but couldn't get over the feeling I was going to class in a dungeon. I got out of class at like 9:30pm during the winter and it was pretty scary.

I've heard shoreline is not very good for your sanity... unless you're a masochist. I HEAR that the classes are super competitive and that a lot of the teachers are mean. But I can't speak from personal experience.

I've heard neutral things about Everett cc. What I like about them is that they offer tons of classes at different times (evening, online, etc) while Edmonds does not. Usually,edcc only offers one class time per quarter.

I agree with the person above who said it really comes down to the instructors more than the school. I have noticed some instructors teach the same class at different cc's. I suggest you use the rate my professor website.

Excuse my rambling, I'm super tired and typing on my phone. Good luck on your journey! :)

Thank you so much for all of your comments! I didn't know about the Rate My Professor site, so that has definitely been helpful. I have also heard great things about NSCC from a friend, so I was glad to see more comments on NSCC. :)

puffalo5, are you still taking prerequisites at NSCC, or have you entered a nursing program yet? I saw that NSCC will require being a CNA as a prerequisite now. Did you take that course there too, and if so, how did you like it? Are there any professors you would recommend? You could private message me too if you want. Thanks so much for help! :)

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