accelerated asn olol

ParkerBC,MSN,RN, PhD, RN · Nov 22, 2008

I am in an accelerated program. I work very part time and spend a significant amount of time on my school work. There are students in my class who work full-time, but who are doing exceptionally well in class. There are a couple of student who I know do not work, but whose performance isn’t quite up to par. With all of this being said, I think it depends on the person. I can say with absolute conviction that superior time management skills are needed. Before I decided to go into nursing, I oversaw about 110 restaurants. So, time management was a necessary skill for my position. Perhaps that is why I am able to work and go to school. I think what happens is that people look at the program as being a “quick way” of getting their RN; therefore, they pursue it, only to find out it is too challenging for them. Everyone will not do well in an accelerated program. That is not to say the person isn’t smart enough to be a nurse. It simply means the accelerated route isn’t compatible with their learning style. When I attended a university for my first undergraduate degree, I never took summer classes because the summer was broken up into two separate semesters. Therefore, the courses were only six weeks long. There was no way I was able to take the class and perform well in it. Don’t let the statistics of the accelerated program be your first set of data to determine whether or not you will perform well. You know yourself the best. Can you reasonably absorb the same amount of material in 18 months that traditional students do in 24?

Good luck to you.

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · Nov 22, 2008

Moving to Louisiana Nursing forum for more responses

snickersBRaccel · Nov 24, 2008

I'm in OLOL's accelerated program right now, and there isn't any one reason why people don't make it. I know 3 students who were wait-listed for acceptance (but did get a spot due to people declining their acceptance) who made As in pharmacology (which we were told was the hardest class, with the highest drop out/failout rate.) ... so I just because someone isn't accepted initially, doesn't mean s/he won't do well in the "hardest" class. Here's how it went so far... 40 were accepted. 38 showed up to orientation/first day of class. 29 made it through pharmacology, and one more left in the middle of our fundamentals class to move back to her home state. So right now we have 28, with 3 weeks left of fundamentals, so we're at 70% retention right now. We won't know until January how many of us will continue, I hear a few students are now worried about passing fundamentals (79.50 is passing).

snickersBRaccel · Nov 24, 2008

also, Pharm is all memorization and understanding A&P. I don't think someone could do well in Pharm if she didn't do well in A&P. Fundamentals so far has been mostly application of knowledge... and knowledge alone will not get you through.

Eliag · Nov 26, 2008

I did well in AP but it was a long time ago. Do you have any pointers on topics in AP I could brush up on to be better prepared for Pharm? A lot of what I'm seeing on the board points to this being tough right out the gate. Thanks.

snickersBRaccel · Nov 27, 2008

the biggest topics so far are autonomic nervous system, heart (conduction system), & Kidney A&P, but everything physiology wise is important. Understand what the different hormones do to blood pressure, and what factors affect blood pressure. If you understand the ANS, all of the side effects for different meds will make sense and you won't have to memorize them.