calhoun community college (huntsville/decatur)

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hi everyone!

i'm planning to begin an RN program in fall of 2006 (still a ways off, i know, but i'm excited!) and i'm just wondering if anyone here has been through the program at calhoun. did you enjoy it? after graduation, did you feel that you had been well prepared? how were the clinicals?

i'm still weighing my options right now, but it makes a lot more sense for me to get an ADN and go for my BSN later, so i don't want to begin at UAH if it isn't necessary. but i am hoping to get my BSN at UAH eventually, so if anyone has anything to share about experiences there, please do!

thanks. :)

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.
hi everyone!

i'm planning to begin an RN program in fall of 2006 (still a ways off, i know, but i'm excited!) and i'm just wondering if anyone here has been through the program at calhoun. did you enjoy it? after graduation, did you feel that you had been well prepared? how were the clinicals?

i'm still weighing my options right now, but it makes a lot more sense for me to get an ADN and go for my BSN later, so i don't want to begin at UAH if it isn't necessary. but i am hoping to get my BSN at UAH eventually, so if anyone has anything to share about experiences there, please do!

thanks. :)

Hello and Welcome to Allnurses.com

Great to have you join us. I do not know anything about the program in question, just wanted to welcome you. Enjoy the forums. You will have much support here.

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thanks for the welcome!

i've been checking in with the forums here daily. it's so great to be able to learn from you all and get an early look into the profession, even if some if it is terrifying.

if all goes well, i'll be coming back here for support through school and beyond. :)

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Hi! I am in my next-to-last semester in UAH's nursing program! There are a million arguments for ADN vs. BSN and I'm not even going to go there! In my opinion, that's a personal choice =) But, what I can help you with is to tell you a little about UAH's program and what I've heard and seen of Calhoun's.

UAH has a great program. It's super intensive and really heavy on "book smarts" and knowledge. One major difference in the nursing curriculum between BSN at UAH is that you have to take a research class and a leadership & management course. The faculty at UAH is very supportive and helpful. I really haven't had any complaints other than my clinicals so far (of course not counting OB or Peds) have been cardiac...which means I haven't seen much other stuff - this doesn't occur with everyone, I just had crappy luck. I hear that they are really good to their grads and are willing to write recommendations and help get jobs and get in grad school, etc. I think that the year that I got in (2004), the GPA cut off was around 3.0 or so.

I had a few pre-reqs that I took at Calhoun, so that is where I know most of my information from about there... They seem to get more clinical time and focus more on the skills and "on-the-job training" aspect. I also know that it is very hard to get in to the program. I'm not sure of the number that they accept, but I think there are only 5 or so required classes for entry into the nursing program (Math, English, and a couple of others) and other classes (Anat & Phys I & II and Micro) are considered *extra points* toward getting you accepted. The only downfall that I heard from people applying to that program was that there were people who took the Math, English, etc. several times in order to get all A's to get accepted into the nursing program. I do know that they were increasing the number that they were going to accept due to the high amount of applicants. The GPA cut off in 2004 was something crazy high, like 3.75 or so.

Both Calhoun and UAH get to do clinicals at Huntsville Hospital, Crestwood, Decatur General, N AL Regional, Athens-Limestone (for preceptorship). My main reasoning for choosing a BSN at UAH is that this is my second degree, so I already had everything for my core classes for another 4 year degree except for Anat & Phys, Micro, and Chem; so, an ADN would have taken me the exact same amount of time. I am planning on getting another Master's at some point, so that's why the BSN was the best decision for me. I really do believe that both schools are great and you won't go wrong either way.

I hope that this has helped some! Please feel free to ask any more questions...I will do my best to answer them!

Amy:wink2:

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hi amy!

i'm so glad to see your response. it was really informative.

right now i'm hoping to get into the adn program at calhoun, but i realize that it is really competitive so i'm not completely banking on it. i'm just trying to come up with a plan b in the likely event that i'm not accepted. for now, that plan b is to go ahead and complete my lower division requirements at calhoun and then transfer to uah, because my goal is to eventually get a bsn at uah anyway.

i'm happy to hear your positive comments on the program at uah. after all the horror stories i've heard here about nursing school, it's nice to hear that you have had a good experience, and since i'm planning to go there at some point, it's very reassuring. :)

thanks for taking to the time to respond.

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why doesn't calhoun count points for BI0103 like Jeff St. does?

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Are u applying for Calhoun's AdN program? How many points do u have out of 200?

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