Dallas/north Texas students, need advice on distance courses

spoiled_lil_sister · Dec 17, 2006

Hi there -

I am a student at Mountain View College (part of DCCCD) and am hoping to go thru North Lake or El Centro's ADN program. I have finished all of the support coursework except micro which I am taking this spring. (Oh, and I'm retaking college algebra in their winter semester so that I will have an overall 4.0).

I would recommend that you be VERY careful if you take any of their online courses. Let me put it this way...I will tell you what I would have done if I could do it all over again:

First, I know you said you are currently overseas (or oout of the state, whatever). But, I would highly recommend that you talk directly to the nursing office at Brookhaven BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE!!!!!!!! ALthough the specific classes are listed on the "My Advisor Report" on e-Connect and are also listed throughout the information & application packet, they reserve the right to make changes at any time. I have been a student in good standing & followed their instructions, but one of the classes I'm taking, although it is in THEIR print that it is one of the choices, is now not counting towards my degree because of a "computer glitch" that has not been fixed in 5 years...The nursing office blames it on whoever sets those profiles up and counseling says it is legitimate, and that it is the nursing office's fault.

Also, I would take my college algebra, composition, speech, etc first and leave A & P 1 and 2 and micro til the very last. At DCCCD, they have a 5 year expiration on their science courses.

And no, I do not see any way they can possibly offer science classes online because of the lab activities. They offer some type of self-paced classes but I think we all learn more from being in a physical lecture & lab setting. The reason is, the teacher isn;t the only person you learn from. Other students offer much insight as well, such as how they remember things, etc.

I wish you the best of luck! If you have any questions, I'll be glad to do what I can to help you out.

sunnyjohn · Dec 17, 2006

bumping.

Lady_db,

Funnie and the others will be able to give you the 411.

lady_db_programmer · Dec 18, 2006

bumping.
Lady_db,
Funnie and the others will be able to give you the 411.

Or not. It's OK; I'm resourceful, I can figure it out on my own; I just would have liked to save myself the time.

lexcourben · Dec 19, 2006

Hi Lady,

I took A&P I as a video class Fall, 2005 at Mountain View and A&P II as an online class last spring at Brookhaven. The only problem you may have is that you do need to go to campus to take the lab. I'm not aware of any labs that are done online. They do have the other classes like psych, speech and english online.

I have a Bachelor's degree from out of state and my speech, psych, and english transferred over. The only thing I had to retake was chemistry because that was over 5 years old. At the last info. session I went to at Brookhaven someone asked about transferring credit for AP English and I believe the dean said that was ok. You might want to talk to an advisor about that though just to make sure.

If you are comfortable speaking and reading spanish you can test out of taking the medical spanish class. It's $25 and you can only do if you haven't already taken Span. 1300. Maybe if you got a Medical Spanish book you can brush up on it and give it a shot.

One other thing, since I already had a degree I was exempt from the TSI. I'm sure it would be same for you especially since your degree is from a Texas college.

I was accepted into the pilot program that starts at Brookhaven for Summer, 2007. If you are interested in the program keep in mind that you will have to do an interview for admission. It's a group interview so it can be a little nerve-wracking. The questions they ask want to know what your coping skills are, how do you manage your time and how well do you work with others.

Hope that helps and good luck in whatever you decide.

lady_db_programmer · Dec 19, 2006

Hi Lady,
I took A&P I as a video class Fall, 2005 at Mountain View and A&P II as an online class last spring at Brookhaven. The only problem you may have is that you do need to go to campus to take the lab. I'm not aware of any labs that are done online. They do have the other classes like psych, speech and english online.
I have a Bachelor's degree from out of state and my speech, psych, and english transferred over. The only thing I had to retake was chemistry because that was over 5 years old. At the last info. session I went to at Brookhaven someone asked about transferring credit for AP English and I believe the dean said that was ok. You might want to talk to an advisor about that though just to make sure.
If you are comfortable speaking and reading spanish you can test out of taking the medical spanish class. It's $25 and you can only do if you haven't already taken Span. 1300. Maybe if you got a Medical Spanish book you can brush up on it and give it a shot.
One other thing, since I already had a degree I was exempt from the TSI. I'm sure it would be same for you especially since your degree is from a Texas college.
I was accepted into the pilot program that starts at Brookhaven for Summer, 2007. If you are interested in the program keep in mind that you will have to do an interview for admission. It's a group interview so it can be a little nerve-wracking. The questions they ask want to know what your coping skills are, how do you manage your time and how well do you work with others.
Hope that helps and good luck in whatever you decide.

Thanks for the tips lex. I've decided I'm going to try for Brookhaven's course but I'm also going to do the pre-reqs for TWU's BSN program. I probably won't get them done in time to apply for 2009, which is the next time they run the accelerated course, but I could just apply to upper division nursing and it would take 2 years to complete instead of 16 months. If I do this I want to eventually get a BSN so it might be better to just go for the BSN straight off. TWU requires 37 hours of pre-requisites and many are the same as Brookhavens' though some aren't. I'd like to knock out a lot of them in online courses. I took history and gov't as an undergrad but I don't want to transfer those grades in. :imbar

Some entrance requirements have changed since the last time I looked at these programs and I think I could have a shot at TWU's BSN program even though my grades weren't great in college. Having a BA doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference tho...any way I slice it it seems I'll be in school forever.