CCAC Spring 2015 Hopefuls

U.S.A. Pennsylvania

Published

Hi All!

Just sending out a good luck huzzah to everyone applying for the Spring 2015 cohort at the Community College of Allegheny County.

We can start applying tomorrow and the the deadline is August 15.

I am all done with my pre-reqs and co-reqs, so am excited to get this application process rolling. I am going tomorrow to meet with an advisor to be sure all of my ducks are in a row.

Anyone else out there applying?

The staff at Boyce, eh, you'll hear good and bad things. The lecture teachers (Pedro and slagle) are interesting. Pedro is sweet and loves helping and answering questions. Slagle will tell you to figure it out yourself by looking it up and she's very condescending... But she know her stuff. They both do. Lab teachers, I only know mine, and I really like her. Clinical instructors, I liked both that I've had so far... Just look them up on rate my professor. Jeanette Petro and Carrie Slagle. Oh and just a tip, don't argue. For the love of all things holy, just don't do it. They are nurses. MSN's. They know more than you, they make the tests, and They will NOT change answers or throw out questions. But they WILL explain why the correct answer is the right answer. And their tests are HARD. I am actually studying right now for my test tomorrow and I'm scared to death. yay fun!

Do you realize you're openly bashing your course facilitators on a public forum while using your face as an avatar?

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I just wanted to know how everything was as a whole. Staff don't get a fair shake every where.

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I think the staff is great, everyone that I have had so far has been wonderful! Tests are hard but that's to be expected, if it were easy everyone would do it..if i can give any advice it would be to get a nclex book to start practicing critical thinking type questions because that is all your tests will consist of and its hard to narrow down answers that can all possibly be correct in one way or another. When it comes down to it, a C is passing and having a C all the way through nursing school or having an A the whole time doesn't set the record for what type of nurse you will be..I currently have a B in both classes but once your out in the field and specializing in what you want to do as your career you will learn everything you need to know there(facility protocols & just that type of nursing in genera)l and will succeed!

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My total for books and the classes in general was about $3800 I believe, and then I spent $100 on scrubs, $55 on white shoes, and you need a watch, stethoscope, penlight and bandage scissors which prices vary. I can give exact total on class and books price when I get home from class tonight if you still want to know exactly.

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I'm wondering for Cal U students how we go about filling out finical aid. It's kinda confusing, for sure.

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where do I begin? lol let me give u a background on what to expect. I have 1 day of lecture, one day of labs, and 1 day of clinical. im in the fast track but I think with the day program you will have 2 days of lecture. Lecture is just basically a quick overview of the material you need to know. the stuff they test you on is much more detailed, so do the required readings. study whenever you get a chance. there will be 3 different calendars that tell you what is coming up. The text books come with codes for a website that has the ebooks and also videos, activities, and practice questions. these questions are the chunk of what I study. I just do quiz after quiz. the quizzes are in mastery levels, so once you get a certain number right, the mastery level goes up and the questions get harder. 8 mastery levels total. after you take the quiz it tells you the rationale for the answers if you got them wrong and where to look in the book to review it. like I said before, anything below a 78 is considered failing and they don't round up. so if you finish the semester with a 77.9, you fail the course. there are testable skills that you have to demonstrate to nurses. these are so scary. its just you and another nurse and you have to set up an appointment for a 15 minute slot to test off. tests include vital signs, passing medications, im and sub q injections, cleaning and packing wounds using sterile technique, and we have IV pump skills testing coming up. For these, you have 2 changes, and if you don't pass both, you are out of the program. while you are performing the tasks, they ask you questions and its super intimidating. they do have open labs to go in and practice, so that's nice. there's a dosage calculations exam, so I hope math doesn't scare you. its not that bad (but I like math). the exam was 25 questions and in order to stay in the program you can only miss 2. again, you have 2 tries with that exam. I think we lost 9 students because they didn't pass that exam. what else.... the tests are ridiculous. hard hard hard. study study study. I cannot stress enough. study any change that you have. if you're at a dr apt and you are waiting to be seen, pull out your phone and do some practice questions.

lab, lab is fun. hands on. do not be more than 15 min late and make sure you have your required work (sometimes its vocabulary, sometimes you have to do online training for things and print out a certificate) and if you don't have it done, they kick you out of lab. you can miss 1 lab, but you still have to make it up. you miss a second lab you are out of the program.

clinical. your first clinical rotation will be at a long term care facility. its a little intimidating, but by the end of it, I was having fun and enjoyed the residents. the second rotation you will be at a hospital in acute care. now, clinical work is way different. There are focused assessments which are like small research projects (not that bad), prep tools (you go into the patient's chart and fill in the required information), nursing notes (you write down everything you did and saw), and journal entries (which they give you prompts and you relate the prompts to what you experienced-again, cite your source(s)). clinical is pass/fail. you can miss 1 clinical day but you have to make it up and pay 80$. the second time you miss, you fail the course. remember: C=RN!!!

Definitely!!! Very informative thanks so much!! We appreciate it:up:

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Is there a specific Nclex book? That's a good idea!

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No, everyone recommended Kaplan to me before I started but any book will have the types of questions that you will need to get used to thinking critically and how to narrow your answers down to the 'most right' answer!

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So I'm on that certified background website and it says a lot of our stuff was due today, such as CPR certification? How can that be possible

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So I'm on that certified background website and it says a lot of our stuff was due today, such as CPR certification? How can that be possible

It's pretty much all due 12/8/14, the only thing with a different due date was flu shot which is 10/31/14. That's what it says on mine at least! I really don't think it's due tomorrow! So don't worry! :-) it even says in our packet 12/8/14, but the drug test is 12/20/14 something like that.

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Thanks! I just wanted a round about running total! Do they allow payment plans for the nursing program or no?

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Whew, okay! Think I read it wrong. Thank you!! Lol. So where is everyone getting their CPR certifications at?

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