First Day of Nursing School

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I wanted to start this thread again. I've seen so many posts about first days and have lived vicariously through those posts. Now, with that first day steadily approaching, I'd like to start my own thread. I start school on the 21st of August, and I thought that I'd go ahead and start a thread so that it will be good and ready for that first day post. As of now, I have pretty much everything done except I have to have my second PPD read on Monday. I welcome comments from everyone. After all, we are all in this together!

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What is your schedule like? I start August 19th, but this is what my schedule is like:

Monday - Lecture from 1-3, Clinical from 4-7

Tuesday - Math for Nurses from 1-3

Wednesday - Lecture from 1-3

Thursday - Skills lab from 1-3, Clinical from 4-7

Clinicals don't start until a few weeks in, but I don't know exactly when. I assume your program starts later since the classes are probably longer, assuming you finish in early to mid-December like we do."

It varies week to week. I will have most, but not all, Mondays off. For the first few weeks there is lecture every Tues, Wed, and Thurs mornings for 3 or 4 hours and labs each of those afternoons with testing on Fridays (both written tests and assessment/skills testing in the lab). Once clinicals start different groups (there are 4 clinical groups) have different schedules based on which days/times they have clinicals. We also have a lot of online work to complete.

We do finish in early december (12/9, unless we fail the HESI, and then retakes are on 12/11). Does your school operate on a quarter or semester system? A lot of time schools that have semester systems start earlier.

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I'm so jealous of all of you who know about your schedules! Just got a call today and they rejected my finger prints and now I have to get them redone :( Aah and I thought I was almost done with everything...

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I have my orientation on 8/15 and begin classes the week of 8/26. I have purchased basically everything, and the books were gifted to me by a student who no longer needs them (thank goodness they didn't change the books). I too had to get a two-step PPD. I guess the need for so many shots depends on the hospitals that offer the clinicals.

I have so many mixed feelings, my program is evening/weekend; two evenings a week and every other weekend.

Congratulations to all those who were accepted and waiting to start this Fall, and here's to the Class of 2015! :snurse::nurse::yes:

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Specializes in Hospice.

My PPD was rejected today for being too far apart. The tests are supposed to be one to three weeks and I had just had one done in May for employment, so I just did another one in July and uploaded them to Certified. REJECTED. :banghead: Ugh. So getting another one tomorrow and when that is read on Friday that only gives certified profile like, five days to read it and approve it. The stress is beginning already and I haven't even started! For any of you procrastinating on your background checks, , vaccination records, and anything else your school requires to be uploaded to certified profile or certified background (it's the same company), I would say get on it, don't procrastinate.

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My PPD was rejected today for being too far apart. The tests are supposed to be one to three weeks and I had just had one done in May for employment, so I just did another one in July and uploaded them to Certified. REJECTED. :banghead: Ugh. So getting another one tomorrow and when that is read on Friday that only gives certified profile like, five days to read it and approve it. The stress is beginning already and I haven't even started! For any of you procrastinating on your background checks, liability insurance, vaccination records, and anything else your school requires to be uploaded to certified profile or certified background (it's the same company), I would say get on it, don't procrastinate.

Thats awful :[ Get my skin test read on Wednesday, so thats one thing off my list, I have never had to deal with them before. I was surprised to learn that you cannot be vaccinated until 30 days after the PPD test, good thing flu season doesnt start until late August or I would have been done for!

My fingerprints got rejected because they had trouble capturing them on the little machine. The guy who did my fingers said that some peoples fingers just dont want to capture, especially if you have dry hands...so Im going to be oiling my left hand up until I can redo them :( Just sucks because the deadline is so close and they just let me know now! Frustrating...

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Specializes in CVICU.

We do finish in early december (12/9, unless we fail the HESI, and then retakes are on 12/11). Does your school operate on a quarter or semester system? A lot of time schools that have semester systems start earlier.

We operate on a semester system, but 12/9 is about when we finish too. We do get like a 5 week break for Christmas break though, and end in early May. I don't think we do the HESI exam. I've never heard students talking about it, and the first time I heard about it was reading this forum. We have finals of course, and exams all the time, but I dunno if we do HESI/ATI.

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Specializes in Hospice.
Thats awful :[ Get my skin test read on Wednesday, so thats one thing off my list, I have never had to deal with them before. I was surprised to learn that you cannot be vaccinated until 30 days after the PPD test, good thing flu season doesnt start until late August or I would have been done for!

My fingerprints got rejected because they had trouble capturing them on the little machine. The guy who did my fingers said that some peoples fingers just dont want to capture, especially if you have dry hands...so Im going to be oiling my left hand up until I can redo them :( Just sucks because the deadline is so close and they just let me know now! Frustrating...

That's another thing on our Certified background list! We have to get flu shots by August 2 and they aren't even available until Aug first. I am hoping for a little flexibility on these due dates on Certified. Maybe if they had let us know earlier in the summer what all we needed, but we just found out like the first of July and people are hustling!

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Specializes in CVICU.

I find it interesting how requirements for nursing school change from school to school. We don't have to get flu shots, either. o.O And if we do, it wasn't listed in our nursing letter.

Our acceptance letter told us to get started on the requirements ASAP, because CPR classes are only given on certain dates, and it can be time consuming to get shot records together and in order. I'm glad I took their advice.

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Specializes in Hospice.
I find it interesting how requirements for nursing school change from school to school. We don't have to get flu shots, either. o.O And if we do, it wasn't listed in our nursing letter.

Our acceptance letter told us to get started on the requirements ASAP, because CPR classes are only given on certain dates, and it can be time consuming to get shot records together and in order. I'm glad I took their advice.

My program, up until I think just this year, did everything the old fashioned way before. You get your records, you turn them in. Much simpler because if something was off, you email your adviser, get it straight. Now you have to go through an online source who has millions of these profiles and may not even see what you upload for a couple days. Add to that the fact that we were two weeks later than we were supposed to be in getting our packet (via email/blackboard). So we just had no idea what we needed. Then it's a mad rush to get it all done. The drug test has to be done an hour away, the scrubs shop is an hour away, if you had any dental things to be done to pass the dental exam you better get started on that in January! It's crazy.

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Specializes in CVICU.
My program, up until I think just this year, did everything the old fashioned way before. You get your records, you turn them in. Much simpler because if something was off, you email your adviser, get it straight. Now you have to go through an online source who has millions of these profiles and may not even see what you upload for a couple days. Add to that the fact that we were two weeks later than we were supposed to be in getting our packet (via email/blackboard). So we just had no idea what we needed. Then it's a mad rush to get it all done. The drug test has to be done an hour away, the scrubs shop is an hour away, if you had any dental things to be done to pass the dental exam you better get started on that in January! It's crazy.

Wow, that is unfortunate that y'all got the packet late. Ours came with our acceptance letters. All we had to do with Certified Profile was pay for the background test + drug test. They automatically send our background test results to the school, and they give us a form to turn into the school to get our drug test. The drug test site was like 5 minutes from the school, and there is a local scrub shop that offers 15% off to nursing students. But, I go to a small agricultural college in Oklahoma, and they haven't even introduced online enrollment yet.

And dental exam? What do your teeth have to do with nursing/clinicals? Sounds a bit excessive of your school to require such things.

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I was lucky enough to get a small outbreak from the varicella vaccine last month. I got my second shot today and I'm already itching in a few spots :(

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I find it interesting how requirements for nursing school change from school to school. We don't have to get flu shots, either. o.O And if we do, it wasn't listed in our nursing letter.

You might have to get it later on, before you start clinicals, or when flu season really kicks up. The rule is in place because the two major hospitals here require that if you do not have a flu shot because you have opted out of it then you must wear a face mask at all times inside the hospital. Even if they didnt require it I would get it anyway, I would rather not be sick with the flu and have to miss class, than to get a vaccine, I'm not going to play with my grade that way.

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