Excelsior RN to BSN Frustration

[Jo Dirt]

I have all prerequisites for the BSN program out of the way and have five courses to finish for the BSN through Excelsior.

I got the ADN through Excelsior with nothing but the free study guides from Excelsior. It was cut and dry, mostly grunt work (this condition means this disease, etc) but the BSN assignments seem less objective and more subjective.

I've been working on the first study guide for community health nursing and it's getting on my nerves. Maybe I'm just tired, I don't know, but I'm not grasping it like I did with the nursing concepts exams.

I would like to know if there are any other RNs going through Excelsior's BSN program and if you know of any good study guides from outside sources or if you know of a better way to study? I bought one study guide from a publishing company when I was working on A&P and chucked it because it had so much junk in it that wasn't even relevant to the subject.

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

I'm right there with ya. I've actually finished all of the exams with the exception of Research in Nursing, but I've still got the Health Assessment, Teaching Across Cultures, Expository Writing, Professional Socialization and Baccalaureate Capstone classes left to take.

My strategy for Community Health was to buy the main recommended text (from an online discount textbook site) and just go through the chapters that seemed to be emphasized in the study guide. Genius, I know. :) (Sorry that I don't have any pearls of wisdom there.)

You're right that it is a bit of a guessing game as to the content. It's even trickier not to have the online practice tests available for the BSN exams. One thing I can suggest is to assess your own strengths and weaknesses and budget your time accordingly. As a NICU nurse, I felt I could wing it through much of the maternal/child content, but I spent more time on anything having to do with nursing care of the elderly, for example.

Did you hear about the upcoming changes to the exams? I remember reading that the title (and I guess the content) of Community Health Nursing was going to change some time in the next few months. I assume that you know what you're doing there though.

Good luck to you. There are a few of us on here trudging through the program, so hopefully we can help each other to stick it out.

[coolvibesRN]

I was enrolled in the RN-BSN program, but just dropped out of it and started one with texas tech which takes only 2 semesters. I only took 1 test for the whole yr, guess thats why i dropped. Not into the self paced thing anymore. Just want to get it over.