Excelsior MSN, Capstone-ing!

dialysisnurseLC · Sep 1, 2015

Congratulations!! May i ask what made you want to go into informatics nursing? If there is another post stating why u chose this route please direct me there. Please tell us about ur experience capstone-ing as well í ½í¸€í ½í±

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Sep 1, 2015

A year late, but I am finally in the Informatics capstone. I will complete the MSN in December. Hooray!

Congratulations! I know that completing this degree had been fraught with a major setback until recently. I'm pleased you'll be able to finally earn it.

Editorial Team / Moderator · Sep 2, 2015

Congratulations!! May i ask what made you want to go into informatics nursing? If there is another post stating why u chose this route please direct me there. Please tell us about ur experience capstone-ing as well

I don't know that I will actually ever transition into an Informatics role, but I have been a computer geek most of my life, and Informatics seems like a good marriage of nursing + technology + information + innovation. I was new to the Army when I started this MSN and I wanted to use my available tuition assistance dollars, and I have. :) I think I only paid for the last couple of courses (maybe three) out of pocket.

The capstone seems fairly labor-intensive, but straightforward - students find a mentor/preceptor (MSN-prepared at a minimum with at least a year in the specialty) and choose a project. Over the course of 15 weeks we work on the project and keep a project journal, and there are several deliverables such as a paper, a PowerPoint, a video presentation, and of course the weekly forum posts.

vokaybo · Jan 5, 2016

Pixie,

Did you finish? I am in 521 and 551 right now. I have 680 in the summer and then the capstone in the Fall. I am really having a nervous fit about these courses. Are they fairly straightforward? Leary about two classes at the same time.

Editorial Team / Moderator · Jan 5, 2016

Pixie,
Did you finish? I am in 521 and 551 right now. I have 680 in the summer and then the capstone in the Fall. I am really having a nervous fit about these courses. Are they fairly straightforward? Leary about two classes at the same time.

I did finish. :) I did 531 and 541 together, everything else in the Informatics track was separate. I did 680 while deployed, so it was definitely doable. And I actually liked the capstone experience! I think the key to capstone (beyond finding a preceptor, and the school helped with this when I struck out) is finding a project that is able to be implemented within the project period (Weeks 3 through 13-ish).