Fall 2014 lonestar north harris nursing students

samsam92 · May 1, 2014

not even 2 weeks till orientation! this much closer to starting school:)

nataliea15 · May 8, 2014

Hi Guys! Congratulations to all of you who have gotten your letters! NH is an awesome campus. I just finished my 2nd semester of the nursing program there. :woot: I lived on these boards before getting into the program, excited, nervous and trying to get any little piece of info possible.

So, here's some info LOL. One of my classmates told you a couple of pages back about how hard it is. Very true. It is nothing like what you are used to. I used to kind of think..it might be hard for others, but I am an A/B student...I can handle it. Whew...all that they say about nursing school is true. But, it is also very rewarding and you will meet many nice people many of whom you will become friends with.

You will get most of the info that you need at the orientation and definitely go to Camp Wanna Win in August.

I can't really tell you too much about your schedule because we were told that you guys were going to be learning most of your lab skills in nursing I & II so that you will be able to do more at clinicals. (ours are spread out over 4 semesters). For us we had our labs front-loaded for the first 3 weeks. After that, lecture is Mo & Tue 8:00 (or 8:30 it can vary)until 10:50. Whatever the schedule, you will have 5-6 hours of lecture a week. Clinicals are Wednesday or Thursday from 7-5. Most instructors want you to be there from 6:00 until 4:00 so that you can hear the nurses give report at 7:00. Tests are every other Friday at 08:30. You will have something like 6 lecture exams over the semester and 1 final at the end worth 20% of your grade. For Clinical you will have homework every week. A little thing called a care plan which you will learn all about.

Each semester you are paying for 9 credit hours. (lecture=4 credit hours, Clinincal = 3 credit hours, lab should be 1 credit hour (but not sure because of it being different for you guys). It worked out to about 700/800 dollars per semester. They will give you a list of the books that you need at orientation. For this program, you will buy all of your books (for the 2 years) up front. It is a lot but if you are a savvy shopper you can buy used or ebooks. I paid about $800.00 give or take (all hard copies;no ebooks), some ppl paid more, some ppl paid less. Again,that will be for both years though.You will also buy a lab kit. (ours was about 90.00 but you guys are supposed to have more lab skills so it might cost more,).

You will wear your scrubs at lab (most days) and always for clinical. Teal bottoms, white top, white tennis shoes. Lab jacket is optional. You can always just wear a white long sleeve underneath.

You will take the week long summer course for which you will need to buy one of the books. That class was about 90 dollars. (whatever 1 credit hour is). You will also need a stethoscope. I bought mine for about $50.00 and it has worked fine. You (wear regular street clothes for that class (unless they changed that). Last summer, they had 3 different sessions for that class. It was Mo-Fr, something like 8-5. In this class you learn how to take vitals and other basic skills.

For this program, you have to manage your time wisely. I will give you a big tip. Study a little every day. As you are going through lecture/reading, the concepts that you find harder, study those a little every day. I would always say..let me do X, Y, Z first and I will study tomorrow. Don't do that. No matter what you have going on or have to do, fit in study time. Even if all you manage is 30 minutes, it's better than nothing. Also, record lectures, that way you can listen while driving, doing dishes etc. Try to never fall behind.

For those of you who have children, spend time with them this summer and relax. Many of us have children and it is not easy, but we all somehow managed. De-clutter your house/kids rooms now. Buy cubbies to put their clothes in for the week. (Big help. You can buy them at Walmart for under 10.00 bucks. There is a slot for each day of the week). Make meals and lunches ahead. (Freeze sandwiches for the week on a Sunday, etc).

Well, hope that info helps. Let me know if you have any more questions and I will try to answer. :yes:

goofygoober · May 8, 2014

Ohmygosh. I love you for all this information right now lOl Thank you so much!!! You answered so many questions that have been lingering around in my head since the acceptance letter!

samsam92 · May 9, 2014

That was a huge help! Is the program very picky about what brand scrubs we get?

nataliea15 · May 9, 2014

No, not picky. Just make sure that they are the right colors. Really for those you can go as cheap or as expensive as you want. The shoes have to be all white. Mine have faint gray emblems on them but nothing too obvious. (It's hard finding shoes that are all white). You will have to buy a lone star college ADN patch. Those are to be sewn on the left sleeve. They are available at any campus book store and cost 2-3 dollars. :)

Amberly27 · May 9, 2014

Do they let you start if you are in the process of a Declaratory order?

nataliea15 · May 9, 2014

Do they let you start if you are in the process of a Declaratory order?

That I don't know.

nataliea15 · May 9, 2014

Do they let you start if you are in the process of a Declaratory order?

I was just reading a couple of pages back and see that you sent off a DO not too long ago. The BON is fairly quick getting back to you. Hopefully you will hear something soon. At the orientation, you should be able to pick which summer session you want to do. Last year, I picked the last one (in end July/ August). Hopefully you should hear something way before then.

BTW, I don't know if it has been mentioned, you don't register yourself for the regular (fall) semester. There is a lady who does that. She will send out an email with clinical sites. You will choose your top 3. After that, she enrolls you in your courses. There are about 9/10 ppl in each clinical group. We too are waiting on our email with our clinical choices. Not sure when we will get that. Nursing III doesn't have their lecture together with the whole entire class. I am not sure how all that works. Curious to see what our schedule will be like as I have little idea and was way to wrapped up in the semester to find out.

Amberly27 · May 9, 2014

Thank you for your help!

samsam92 · May 9, 2014

okay thanks for all the help:)

leahgirl100 · May 9, 2014

Wow you are our hero for this info!! LOL, we have all been just dying from anticipation!! I have a couple of questions... First, you said that there will be tests every other Friday. Will those be online or on campus? Secondly, did I understand correctly that after the first three weeks you didn't have lab anymore? Thanks again for helping and CONGRATS on completing your first year! :)

nataliea15 · May 10, 2014

Thank you.:) We were sooo ready for summer. On the other hand, I almost don't know what to do with myself. Nursing school becomes your life, I am in shock and still processing that I have no homework, deadlines, etc. very weird.

For lecture, the test are every other Friday and they are on campus. This means you have lecture on Mon & Tue week one, same thing the following week and that Friday you have a test over those 4 lectures.

Now, for the Lab, again, that might be different for you guys. But for us in I & II, they front-loaded labs for 3 weeks. At the end of each week, we had a timed, online exam that we took at home. This meant for that class, the whole semester we had lab exams week 1, 2, 3, then no more exams. However, some weeks throughout the semester (after lecture) you might be scheduled for a lab. Typically anywhere between 1.5 - 3 hours. Depending on what group you are in, it could be Mo/Tue right after class, or you might have an hour, hour and a half to kill before you have to go to lab. I am really curious how this will be for you guys since you will be learning more skills than we did.

I am not sure if this was mentioned anywhere on this forum about the math. You will have 1 math exam that you have to pass with a 90 or better. This takes place in the first month to six weeks or so. They give you some math practice sheets. There is tutoring available and you get 3 chances to take it. It freaked me out when I heard this and came as a shock. :dummy: However, they prepare you well, it is not that hard and as far as I know everyone passed. So this means, you might have your first lecture test one Friday then the following week the math exam. It is like that in every semester and of course that math progresses from easy to harder. After the Math exam, you can expect to see 1-3 math questions on a lecture exam. It will be consistent with the math that you had to learn for that semester. For instance, in nursing II, it was mainly drip factors and IV flow rates.

There is a lot of info, and everyone is dazed and shy in the beginning, but...you will soon find your feet and have plenty of ppl to help pull you through. Just write everything down. There are some awesome instructors and they all work together to help you every step of the way. All the instructors take turns giving lectures. So, in lecture there are 2 or more present.

As the one of my fellow students said...it was a rough semester. Just glad to help. I know the more I know what to expect the less anxious I feel. It's funny too, while your waiting to get in, you live on this forum. When school starts, you will forget all about this forum. LOL. I know I haven't been on in soo long.