Advice for school Rn to Bsn

cll30 · Jan 3, 2016

It would be helpful to know which nursing classes you have already taken and what you thought about the workloads of those classes for comparison. When I took each of the classes you mentioned I worked three 10 hour shifts per week, but most students work 36 to 40 hours per week and are still able to get their school work done. If you are not working, you will have plenty of time for either class.

I thought that overall Holistic Health Assessment (HHA) was easier than Research, but that HHA was in some ways more time-consuming and tedious. Research was a bit more stressful in large part because the course material was somewhat new to me. Research isn't so much about nursing (except to the extent that it pertains to evidenced-based practice) as it is about research. We used nursing topics to study research, but the course is still mainly about research. With Research you really have to get into the material more and really understand it to do well. We've all studied assessment before. HHA just goes into somewhat more detail than what we've learned previously.

hawaiin_ginger · Jan 3, 2016

Thank you so much for responding back to my post. I have slowly taken all of the required nursing courses except for the two mentioned above and of course the Capstone. As mentioned above, I am taking 5 weeks off of work. Do you feel that it would be too much and too stressful to take both the HHA and Research together? Again, thank you for your feed back.

cll30 · Jan 4, 2016

I never took two courses at the same time, so it is a little difficult for me to say. I have also worked throughout the program so never simply had school by itself. If you are not working I think you could do both, but you will still be very busy. Some people have posted that they worked and took two courses at a time, but to me that would just be way too crazy. Maybe others will chime in here share their experiences with these courses also.

#proudtobeanurse · Jan 16, 2016

I think that if you would like to enjoy some of your time off, the best thing may be to take only one course. I would prob take Research instead of Holistic care across the lifespan because i think you can take advantage of being off to learn the material. For the other class i would expect not too much learning on your part but just time to do the assignments; this is stuff we are all familiar as nurses.. Well that is my opinion but it would be great to hear other opinions..

guest940422 · Jan 17, 2016

Holistic health assessment is identical to the health assessment class you've already taken. Unfortunately since the instructor cannot watch you do your assessment, you are forced to write very long detailed time consuming papers where you describe how you performed your assessment. (I placed the bell of my stethoscope between the fourth and fifth intercostal space at the right mid clavicular line and auscultated clear breath sounds as expected. I then moved the stethoscope down between the fifth and sixth intercostal space.....) You spend the whole class rewording the text book in your own words to avoid plagiarism. It is not difficult, just time consuming and mind-numbingly dull. Research is equally as time consuming but requires intense paper writing, gathering of data, interpretation of data, and statistical analysis of information. You may enjoy it more because it is more challenging. Neither class will leave you with much free time.

Hope this helps