2011-2012 BAT - Decker School SUNY Binghamton hopefuls

U.S.A. New York

Published

Anyone else apply for May 2011 @ SUNY Binghamton BAT program? Anyone else anxiously awaiting a reply like me?? :)

How 'bout anyone that was accepted last year - when did you hear back?

Also, what is the program like - I did some searching on BU Brain and it looks like the schedule (classes back to back with clinicals in the same day) can be a little crazy! Were there ever situations where you have both on campus and far-off (Syracuse) obligations in one day?

Thanks!

I still didnt get the letter yet ...and they told me to wait for another week or two

just wondering ...is there an email before anyone get the letter??

No, I haven't gotten any emails from them.

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Hey Everyone!

I just got my acceptance letter into the BAT program today! I'd love to connect with anyone else who is planning on attending. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about good places to live around Binghamton (or specific areas to avoid). Good luck to anyone who is still waiting to hear! I look forward to getting to know some of you before and during the program!

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Hey Everyone!

I just got my acceptance letter into the BAT program today! I'd love to connect with anyone else who is planning on attending. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about good places to live around Binghamton (or specific areas to avoid). Good luck to anyone who is still waiting to hear! I look forward to getting to know some of you before and during the program!

Hey b419,

I go to bing for undergrad - I actually live in an apartment off campus now but my lease is up in may and they already found someone to fill it. Stonybrook is still my first choice but I won't find out for a couple weeks if I got in. It's hard to say what places to avoid, some streets you can just tell are nicer than others. I'd say westside is pretty good, lots of college apartments there. I was thinking of just getting an apartment on campus to avoid the hassle, but it is a lot more expensive so idk.

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cas89 - Thanks for the info! I'm searching Craigslist all the time to try to find a decent place but it seems difficult. I only live about 1.5 hrs away, so I'm planning to take a trip down soon to try to see some places. Is parking on campus a challenge for off campus students? I hear the bus lines can be sketchy and am hoping to be able to drive to school. I hope Stonybrook works out for you! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Is anyone else going to Binghamton for sure?

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cas89 - Thanks for the info! I'm searching Craigslist all the time to try to find a decent place but it seems difficult. I only live about 1.5 hrs away, so I'm planning to take a trip down soon to try to see some places. Is parking on campus a challenge for off campus students? I hear the bus lines can be sketchy and am hoping to be able to drive to school. I hope Stonybrook works out for you! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Is anyone else going to Binghamton for sure?

Yeah parking can be quite annoying. I mean, you are never not going to find a spot but you might have to walk a bit (its not too bad except when it's 10 degrees out lol), it's a gamble really if you try to go for the closer lots. I've never heard of the bus lines being sketchy though, I've used them a few times and it was fine. I wouldn't want to have to rely on the buses though because they can be cancelled due to weather even if classes are not cancelled. I'd definitely recommend seeing a few places, I think I checked out 4 before I chose this one. If it doesn't have off-street parking then make sure it has a decently wide street cause some streets can be narrow.

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HEYY!!! everyone i received my acceptance letter yesterday!!!! im so excited! has anyone completed the program and have any advice?

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Hi Everyone!

Congrats on getting into the BAT program- I am a current BAT and wanted to share with you some of my thoughts about the program.

The program is not what I thought it would be. While they do have a beautiful learning lab and thousands of dollars worth of simulation equipment (electronic mannequins that have the ability to talk and breathe like real people) you hardly get the chance to take advantage of them. You will spend the summer in the lab learning how to make a bed and perform some simple assessments but you will never step foot into this lab again.

All of your more advanced clinical skills thereafter (foleys, IV's) are expected to be learned at clinical--which would be possible IF: it so happens that your patient needs the treatment you would like to perform during the time you are at clinical, the patient allows you to provide them this service, or if the nurse who is overseeing care of your patient allows a student to perform the task.

For most of your clinical experiences you end up doing the work of the nursing assistant, meaning you give bed baths and fetch your patients ice, water and hair combs. I have nothing against nursing assistants- they are amazing and truly a necessary part of any hospital unit but when I just shelled out $20,000 + to learn how to become an RN it feels like someone robbed me, punched me in the stomach, and sold me to the hospital in return for my free labor.

Well don't lose all hope for learning clinical skills. There is a day they have called "Skills Bootcamp" Where you spend about 7 hours at seven different stations where you PASSIVELY watch demonstrations from your instructors on how to pack wounds, and take care of nasogastric tubes etc. I don't know about anyone else but demonstrations do squat for me. I can watch something all I want, but if I am not getting that hands on experience I am not incorporating the knowledge into my long term procedural memory. The best part about this skills day, is that you get signed off on each of the skills they showed you just for sitting through the demonstration. I'm not sure if the sign off means that you are certified to perform the task or not, actually i don't understand the point of being signed off at all.

The rest of your clinical skill education will be presented to you in the form of lectures. You will see enough power points probably to make you crazy. The most important thing about these are to be mindful of how the information in the powerpoints will present itself in the clinical setting. They test you on alot of minute info and tend to not care if you come away knowing the bigger picture. The lectures are also long and boring, and many times read right off of the slides. Some professors do have passion about the subjects they are teaching, others just want to get their lecture over with.

I took my pre-reqs at a community college with a nursing program, so I know quite a few people getting their degrees there. At the community college they have several annual skill checks, where the students have to perform their skills with a certain degree of accuracy. If they are unable to demonstrate proficiency, they are dropped from the program. BU has nothing like that, they deem that we are ready to start an IV if we take an online quiz about IV's and receive a 90% on it!! You can take this quiz as often as you like, and are even able to see the answers before re-taking it. Starting an IV is not a goal for the program, and we don't even get to practice on each other. Its too much of a liability. However, if the opportunity happens to arise in clinical then you are in luck. There is a reputation in the Binghamton area that the BAT students are not as prepared as their community college counterparts to join the workforce and I completely understand why.

Besides clinical lessons, the BAT program is filled with ALOT of fluff about nursing theorists, communication theories, group theories, etc...the list goes on and on. You will spend your time doing projects and homework that don't really relate to nursing. I'm sure those lesson plans are a requirement of BSN programs anywhere and I'm not sure how much I can blame Binghamton for incorporating them into their classes. After having sat through these classes- I am convinced that the BSN is truly a money making scheme.

In other advice: Do NOT buy all of the textbooks!!! All of the information you need for the exams can be found in the powerpoint lecturers provided, which can all be clarified by wikipedia. The only two books I found helpful are the Fundementals of Nursing by Taylor, and the textbook they make you use for socialization of nursing II.

If there is anyone out there that was a BAT just like I am, I would like to know if your experience was anything similar to mine. I've read a lot of the posts on allnurses about the BAT program and it seems to be pretty well regarded by most. Its strange for me to read such things, when day in and day out my classmates and I find ourselves complaining about this program.

I don't mean for this to discourage anyone. It's just that I chose the BAT program over another because of all of the great things I'd heard from others about it. I urge you to really consider and take the time to research your other options- and by this I mean talk to students at other programs to which you have been accepted. If i had known what I know now, I would not have attended this school.

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HEYY!!! everyone i received my acceptance letter yesterday!!!! im so excited! has anyone completed the program and have any advice?

Hey Rosewater71! Are you definitely doing the Binghamton program?

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Thanks for the advice jujubee1...I was considering going to over Binghamton because I was worried about how well Binghamton really teaches you to be a nurse, the resources that they have and the quality of their hospitals. You have confirmed my suspicions. But really it comes down to how much cheaper the SUNY schools are...you get what you pay for when it comes to state schools vs. private I suppose.

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heyy im pretty sure i am! Are you?

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heyy im pretty sure i am! Are you?

Yes...I am! I don't know anyone in the Binghamton area or anything so I was hoping to connect with some people from the program before it starts.

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@jujubee1 -

Thanks for sharing your experience - certainly different from the school's recruiting info. :) It makes sense to me that a BSN program is more theoretical than applied - this is a criticism applied nearly across the board when discussing the virtues of ASN vs BSN. So the Community College comparison rings true.

Two questions:

Could you let me know where you've done your clinicals so I can either avoid them or at the very least know what to expect?

Also have you or any of your classmates raised these questions with the administration of the program? What was the administration's response?

Finally, I too would love to hear from other Binghamton BAT students or graduates! Does jujubee1's experience reflect yours? Was yours better? or worse? How has your transition into the workforce gone?

Thanks!

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