Any DSON students here?

I am also interested in how its going from current students. I just got off the phone with DSON and have an appointment tomorrow to drop off my application for the January class.

I finally decided to go this route instead of the LPN to BSN program through UOP. I guess the important thing is to earn the RN and then work toward the BSN since I have had no luck finding a position for a new grad LPN :-(

Thanks,

~R

I am a DSON student. I am in the BSN prog. so I'm not sure if you're still interested in hearing what I have to say, but if so what would you like to know?

In general I can say that it can be intensive but that also varies a lot from term to term. I have a positive overall impression of the school and feel that I have learned a lot so far. I'm in my 3rd of 7 quarters right now.

I'm really not sure what to say unless there was something specific you were interested in, so if you are, maybe I can help.

Evan

I was wondering what the schedule is like the first few quarters and if you know how the accredidation process is going. Also, about how much were books the first few quarters.

Thanks in advance.

I guess I was just basically curious what the schedule is like, how are the instructors, what is the overall feeling when you go to classes? How many times a week are there clinicals and are they all 12-hours? I am new to the area and know nothing about Denver or the nursing schools, except that there is a ridiculous waiting list at the community colleges!!

My interview appointment at DSON was rescheduled for Friday morning and I will be asking those questions as well. I'd be more than happy to share what I learn if anyone is interested.

Thank you,

~R

again, i can speak directly about the BSN schedule, but it sounds like the adn program has most of the same classes. so, my whole class would agree that the 1st quarter was the hardest. we had pathphysiology (hard), foundations (hard), pharmacology (in between), and pharm calculations (pretty easy). 2nd quarter, medical surgical part 1 was hard but i think that was partly because of our teacher. we had i.v. therapy which wasn't too bad. health assessment was kind of hard. right now we're taking pediatrics and obstetrics, which i think are both of medium difficulty.

as for the teachers, for the most part i like them a lot. they are very knowledgeable and VERY open to talking with you about anything. the school if new and small and i think they still have problems with some administrative issues that come back to bother us students, but you would also have a class advisor who is a faculty member. these advisors are very open to suggestion and take your suggestions to the administrators. we have gotten things changed by our suggestions, including the 1st quarter schedule for subsequent BSN students. i think this gives us a more positive impression of the school.

most of the clinicals are twelve hours. that's rough. i have a 9 hour peds clinical this quarter, the first non-12 hour. mainly they are twelve hours and mainly they run from 0630 until 1900. long, long. scary at first. but it does a lot for your confidence once you got steadied a little. our clinical groups have 4-5 students (mostly from our) class, and about half the clinical groups go once a week (for twice as many weeks), and the other half go twice a week (often two days in a row, which is really hard and i wish they wouldn't do it that way b/c you just want it to end by the second day and you don't learn as much). med-surg is the longest clinical i know of and my group five weeks in a row of 12 hour shifts on back to back days (120 clinical hours).

books will be most expensive for classes like pathophysiology, pharmacology, foundations, and medical surgical. these books are each 100-200 dollars a pop if you buy them full price. DO NOT BUT THEM FULL PRICE. you can go to amazon.com and there are individual book sellers who send you brand new books and you can save a lot. on some, like 10 bucks, but i got a new patho book for $85 that was $250 on amazon. you get to use med-surg twice though, and i still use some of those books as reference. this quarter we only spent about $120 dollars on books.

as for accreditation, we as a class are still trying to figure that our. we were just told last week that the school should be accredited in about a year, which was the most definite and encouraging answer we've gotten. there is still some question as to whether you are "grandfathered in" if the school becomes accredited after you graduate...but actually that shouldn't be an issue if you haven't started yet. so i guess the answer is...good

we have a small class and we get to know each other well and it is a very intimate environment as far as discussion and lecture goes. teachers like to be interrupted with questions in my experience. i don't know what the kids in the larger cohorts feel about this issue.

sorry that was a lot but i was trying to address everything. let me know if there's anything else.

oh yeah, in summary...i am glad i did this and paid the extra money instead of being on a waitlist a community college. if you are able to get out of school 2, 3 years earlier and start nursing that much sooner, you will be able to make a lot more than your tuition cost in those couple years, whether you are BSN or ADN. i think it's a quality education. i just saw last quarter, the pass rate on the NCLEX averaged like 94% between all the classes that took it last quarter, and i know CU and Regis are like 96-97%. and i've heard from faculty that CU especially is watching what goes on at our school and so that probably bodes well if you hope to go there for a master's, etc.

Bridgfor428 ~

Thank you so very much for taking your precious time to type up all that info. Kinda stressed thinking about the long clinical days, but then again that's what we will be doing when we are RNs anyway :-)

Do you have full day classes on the days you're not in clinical? In my LPN program we had pretty long clinical days too, but only 2 days of classes for about 3 hours each. I was reading somewhere that classes run from like 8 a.m. to 4 a.m.

Thanks tons!

~R

your schedule changes a lot from term to term, also depending on how many credit hours you take. the first quarter it was just like you said, from 8am til 4pm mon-thurs. last quarter it was 2 full days and 1 half day. this time it is two full days.

so also, what ends up happening, as you might guess, is since you are only in clinicals part of the time during each quarter, you will be way more busy during your clinical weeks and will get a break before and after your rotations. and since different members of your class have clinicals at different times, the instructors give everyone a certain workload regardless of clinicals.

If you have time to answer a couple more questions that would be great.

About how many hours a week did you study the first quarter?

What is the parking situation like?

Thanks in advance and I look forward to perhaps meeting you in January!

oh yeah, in summary...i am glad i did this and paid the extra money instead of being on a waitlist a community college. if you are able to get out of school 2, 3 years earlier and start nursing that much sooner, you will be able to make a lot more than your tuition cost in those couple years, whether you are BSN or ADN. i think it's a quality education. i just saw last quarter, the pass rate on the NCLEX averaged like 94% between all the classes that took it last quarter, and i know CU and Regis are like 96-97%. and i've heard from faculty that CU especially is watching what goes on at our school and so that probably bodes well if you hope to go there for a master's, etc.

These are the 'pass rates' that the state board posts...last year DSON was at 72% which could be why they aren't accredited yet, just a guess.

http://www.dora.state.co.us/nursing/education/RN-PassRates.pdf

the first quarter (again, i think the schedule was changed to make it a bit easier) i was in class 26 hrs per week and probably studied 20-25 hours per week. that was by far the busiest quarter. no clinicals though.

the parking is cheap ($1.50-$3/day) if you are willing to walk 3-5 blocks. across the street the parking is $7 per day. during rockies games all the lots go up by like 4X so if you want to pay less than five dollars you have to park like a ten minute walk away.

i hope that helps. my name is evan and i will be a 4th quarter BSN student in january. i will be easier to find since i am one of the minority of guys here.

How difficult is the application process at dson? Are you pretty much a lock to get in assuming you fulfill all the requirements and come up with the $$$?