Galen College Tampa Class 2016

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Hello all!

I wanted to see if anyone is planning on starting at Galen College of Nursing in Tampa this coming January 2016? I have searched and searched and I have not seen any recent postings. I just wanted to inform you guys on what I know since there is little to no information unfortunately.

I am a patient care technican(cna) and I have been working at a Baycare Hospital for the last three years. In these past three years I have noticed my manager hiring new nurses left and right, some from HCC(of course) but also from Galen! She told me that all they look at is your nursing license. Everytime I see one of my fellow coworkers go from ciel scrubs to bright royal blue scrubs(rn color) I was getting more and more anxious. Some with whom I started working here as techs have become nurses already and i just felt like i was running out of time, they went to galen as well and i have another friend here that graduates in december of this year. So, this past July I went with my sister to an open house Galen was having(this is not the first time ive gone, smh) and I finally decided to go ahead and do it, I signed up to tak the Rn Pax exam.

They suggested the book to study, and i studied, but let me tell you nothing that was in that book is on the test, at all. It is all basic knowledge. there were 60 questions in each section. I did well on math and reading/verbal but i completely bombed the science part, fortunately I still passed with a 105! You need to get 100 or better to apply for the RN 2yr program and only a 96 for the lpn. I signed up right away and am going to be attending in January of 2016. I took a lot of classes at hcc so Im going to be transferring them all in except Math because i took it over 5 years ago and that is there cut off for that subject.

With that being said, I am going to be paying my first two quarters with Tuition Assistance from the hospital, Baycare pays $4500 a year for Galen or any nursing school that is accredited, I also got approved with full Pell Grant of $5500, then the rest will be added to loans. I did the estimations and 4500*2yrs=$9000(baycare) + 5500*2yrs=$11000(pell grants) will equal $20,000 which will pretty much pay off my school! So excited and blessed!

Since Galen is now accredited USF will accept your license as long as you also come in with an associates degree and I am graduating with that this december. but i was researching and University of Arlington Texas will also accept you for much cheaper $8995 but its completely online. One of the nurses from here took her galen degree to Grand Canyon University and says she is paying a lot more than that. Anyways, this is all I can think of right now.

Any suggestions? how are the teachers? what do i need to know? how are the clinicals?

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Specializes in Mother Baby, Labor and Delivery.
Hello all!

I wanted to see if anyone is planning on starting at Galen College of Nursing in Tampa this coming January 2016? I have searched and searched and I have not seen any recent postings. I just wanted to inform you guys on what I know since there is little to no information unfortunately.

I am a patient care technican(cna) and I have been working at a Baycare Hospital for the last three years. In these past three years I have noticed my manager hiring new nurses left and right, some from HCC(of course) but also from Galen! She told me that all they look at is your nursing license. Everytime I see one of my fellow coworkers go from ciel scrubs to bright royal blue scrubs(rn color) I was getting more and more anxious. Some with whom I started working here as techs have become nurses already and i just felt like i was running out of time, they went to galen as well and i have another friend here that graduates in december of this year. So, this past July I went with my sister to an open house Galen was having(this is not the first time ive gone, smh) and I finally decided to go ahead and do it, I signed up to tak the Rn Pax exam.

They suggested the book to study, and i studied, but let me tell you nothing that was in that book is on the test, at all. It is all basic knowledge. there were 60 questions in each section. I did well on math and reading/verbal but i completely bombed the science part, fortunately I still passed with a 105! You need to get 100 or better to apply for the RN 2yr program and only a 96 for the lpn. I signed up right away and am going to be attending in January of 2016. I took a lot of classes at hcc so Im going to be transferring them all in except Math because i took it over 5 years ago and that is there cut off for that subject.

With that being said, I am going to be paying my first two quarters with Tuition Assistance from the hospital, Baycare pays $4500 a year for Galen or any nursing school that is accredited, I also got approved with full Pell Grant of $5500, then the rest will be added to loans. I did the estimations and 4500*2yrs=$9000(baycare) + 5500*2yrs=$11000(pell grants) will equal $20,000 which will pretty much pay off my school! So excited and blessed!

Since Galen is now accredited USF will accept your license as long as you also come in with an associates degree and I am graduating with that this december. but i was researching and University of Arlington Texas will also accept you for much cheaper $8995 but its completely online. One of the nurses from here took her galen degree to grand canyon university and says she is paying a lot more than that. Anyways, this is all I can think of right now.

Any suggestions? how are the teachers? what do i need to know? how are the clinicals?

Hi Nursehopeful!

My best friend and I just took and passed the PAX RN exam this past week and are both starting the RN program at Galen in January :) I havent seen any other information or postings either about Galen in the past couple years so I am curious how it all works, like what the class schedules are going to be like during the week and such. I too work at a Baycare hospital for 5 years now so I am very excited they added Galen to their tuition reimbursement. I am taking a some pre req's at SPC this semester so I dont have to take all of the through Galen. Anyways, hopefully some other people will comment so we can get some insight :)

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Moved to the Nursing Schools, Colleges, and Programs forum

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hi @xtina0411, I am very happy you have your bestfriend to help you out throughout the journey, hopefully my sister passes the exam her second time around in november so she can start with me as well. Have you recieved any packets or acceptance letter yet? Are you taking out loans to take care of the remainder of the balance?

My coworker that goes there now will graduate in december. She says that since she brought in so many credits she only had to go to campus twice a week for a couple hours the first two quarters and that she took pharmacology in the first quarter as well. I am anxious to start already.

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Specializes in Mother Baby, Labor and Delivery.

Hi! I recieved an acceptance email on monday (10/05). Yes I am taking out loans for the remainder of the balance and probably some extra for living expenses (since I will be dropping down my hours alot at work) I have all the credits done in the first quarter exept that new College Experience one that they just added but they told me that will only be one night a week for one hour..so hopefully I can do one of the classes in the second quarter along with the first. The second quarter seems like alot of work, especially with the math :no: So between my grants, tuition assistance from Baycare and my credits transferring in hopefully the remainder balance wont be that high! I am anxious too, very nervous about work/life/school/kids balance but I know I have to get through it!

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i specifically made an account on this site because when i started at Galen i had a hard time finding information as well!

i graduated a few days ago! if anyone has any questions go ahead and ill answer as best as i can for you guys!

1
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hi saucey, yes i have many questions! do you have an email address?

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you can private message me through here!

or ask on the post here! I have no fear of being blunt if need be on the public post!

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Ok good!

How was your schedule like the first two quarters? Did you have any problems with financial aid? How did you study for the Hesi without getting overwhelmed with everything? What are your study tips? You passed so I'm guessing the classes are doable, how many students dropped?

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Ok good!

How was your schedule like the first two quarters? Did you have any problems with financial aid? How did you study for the Hesi without getting overwhelmed with everything? What are your study tips? You passed so I'm guessing the classes are doable, how many students dropped?

I didn't have to take any of the general Ed classes, so my first quarter was intro to nursing once a week, and an online computer course. The second quarter was pharm and foundations of nursing, I had pharm for 4 hours once a week and foundations lecture 2-3 hours twice a week, lab 4 hours once a week, and. 12 hour clinical. I was able to schedule my pharm on one of my other lecture days so I was only there 3 days a week.

i had no issues with financial aid, but know a few people that have, the lady who takes care of finances is pretty on the ball.

and honestly there was no such thing as studying for hesi without getting overwhelmed. I will say practice questions saved my tail towards the end and on the nclex. I bought the nclex mastery app and it was worth every penny. My best suggestion is study in pieces, I had a whole page of just lab values I memorized early on which set me up nicely. My study group also reserved rooms in the library and would make notes and charts comparing disease process on the marker board, such as the difference between diabetes type 1 and 2, and listed what it is, symptoms, treatments, and diet considerations. Diets will come back to haunt you about halfway through and are BIG on the last two hesi exams so i would suggest taking special note of those.

my biggest study tips are don't study much the day of, do a general like math and lab value review and leave it at that. You have to try to relax as much as possible. When it comes to the classes the hesi and the CPEs are the butt kicker, so when your in labs take as much practice time as they let you have!

we started with about 80-90 ADN people and ended up with about 40. So half. I would say we only lost about 10-20 from class failures, and the majority of those were people who were not studying and were going out and partying. The rest either took a quarter or two off for work/ life reasons or needed the general Ed classes and decided to do a quarter of just those so they wouldn't get overwhelmed.

We we had the most fails in advanced med surg which is the second to last class, as far as I know we had no fails out of the last quarter, which was pretty damn hard too

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Hi i too am starting at galen in jan 2016 curious do you know anyone who is working at another state? specifically california i jus hope that galens

education requirements meet other state requirements to practice. I am however attending the san antonio tx campus. Thank u

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Specializes in Mother Baby, Labor and Delivery.

Anyone at the orientation today in Tampa campus?

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