why i dont recommend transferring to UCLA nursing

[nursestudent10]

I transferred to UCLA nursing from a community college. When you transfer it's a 3 year program. The first year was such a waste of time, I did absolutely nothing, wasted money. I took only 2 nursing classes each quarter. Epidemiology and ethics the first quarter. Part two of ethics and biostats the second quarter, and pathophysiology and introduction to research the third quarter. Pathophys was the only important class I took that year. Research was the worst.

Since UCLA is a research school, you take classes like research and nutrition. You write papers that make no sense, and the grade you receive is even more confusing. Professors don't tell you why they grade the way they do, they expect you to go along with it. What's more frustrating is the program directors don't tell you important details. When you go into your second year of the program, you start the most important aspect of nursing school, skills lab and working in a clinical setting.

For the first quarter of second year, you take fundamentals of nursing part A, physical health assessment, nutrition and growth/development, and pathophys part B. For my fundamentals class I had a professor who literally just talked about her own life. For the most part, she never ever finished her powerpoint lectures. We had assigned med cards, which were all pass/fail but she would never tell us what she expected on them. Quizzes were even more confusing because we never knew what we were tested on.

For your first clinical you are literally just tossed into a hospital, and left on your own, with only ONE preceptor to guide you. You don't know what the policies are, you've had no real orientation, and you are left to find out things on your own.

What I dislike most about this program is it seems like they don't even care for their BS students. Orientation dates are always emailed a couple of weeks before, and over my supposed-to-be resting winter break, I got like tons of emails from my professors saying I have a test the first week of my next quarter, or that I have appointments with someone for a FIT test, and etc.

UCLA has changed their undergraduate program a lot, because their graduates have not been doing well on the NCLEX. I think it was in 2013 or 2014, but the pass rate for the NCLEX was around 60%.

I would not recommend coming here. CSUF, CSULB, or UCI are all better choices.

[LonghornChic, BSN]

Sorry you had to go through that! I understand the feeling to a certain point. I' m a second semester junior in the UT Austin BSN program. My first semester as a junior was CRAZY. I felt completely lost, not knowing what I was studying for or what I needed to do in clinicals. While the first couple of weeks drove me mad, I'm kind of glad I had to go through that because I came through that mess without completely falling apart. It sort of reminded me of the weeder classes that I had to take in my freshman and sophomore years. Hang in there! I hope things get better for you!

[BD-RN, BSN, RN]

Most BSN require a research course, and my ABSN program required nutrition as a prerequisite. Epidemiology was not required for me, but I can see how it would be useful in some cases. I'm sorry you didn't have a great clinical experience, but your first years was certainly not wasted. Every school has specific prerequisites. I applied to at least 5 ABSN programs; each had probably one extra class I need to take to fit their requirements.