Gloucester County College Students Sound Off!

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Hi folks!

I'm about to enter Nursing 1 at GCC and I thought this would be a pretty opportunity to set up a place to vent and get advise. I'm both excited and nervous about this fall. Maybe it's because every chance the faculty speaks to us, they make it seem we should consider forgetting everything in our lives and just prepare for the most difficult task ever undertaken by man. Not that I think it's not going to be difficult, but common! Anybody else have any thoughts?

Ohh.. and bye the way, Congrats on getting in and God help us!

Welcome, Ry&avsmom & Rn2berlin. I live in the Swedesboro area. We're neighbors!:cheers: I was in your shoes last fall and I know exactly what you're going through. After I got accepted, I quit my 50 hr/wk job and took a part time job at Underwood. Working at a hospital while in school is a great benefit. They are completly supportive of your education and help out with scheduling around school. If you have any clerical experience, you should consider applying for a unit clerk position. You have to know medical terminology, though. The college offers med term as a 1 credit online course. I took it and found it very easy.

Thank you SO much for the warm welcome Crimsonking ! Great to be your neighbor !! I just took your advice and registered for the online Basic Medical Terminology course ! I appreciate the advice !!!!! I will DO whatever it takes to get into this program and become a nurse. I am ready for the challenge ! At 37 I can honestly say, this is exactly what I want to do !

NOW, any advice for the HESI ?? I take that on Oct. 20th and have already started studying but don't know what to expect !

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Thank you SO much for the warm welcome Crimsonking ! Great to be your neighbor !! I just took your advice and registered for the online Basic Medical Terminology course ! I appreciate the advice !!!!! I will DO whatever it takes to get into this program and become a nurse. I am ready for the challenge ! At 37 I can honestly say, this is exactly what I want to do !

NOW, any advice for the HESI ?? I take that on Oct. 20th and have already started studying but don't know what to expect !

We didn't have to take the HESI last year, unfortunatly. We took the NET. I wouldn't know how the HESI correlates with the NET. I believe the HESI includes some basic biology and chemistry questions, but I'm not sure. I purchased a prep NET book from Barnes & Noble. It was great. It included a CD with practice tests on it. I was pretty well prepared when I took the NET. I scored in the 99 percentile thanks to that book. I was sweating bullets before hand, because I was out of school for over 10 years. I'm sure they have the same kind of study guides for the HESI. Remember, if you score well on the HESI and have an average science score, you will prob get in. The best thing about GCC is that there are no waiting lists. Every year take the best 100 or so. Good luck!

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registered for the online Basic Medical Terminology course

So did I:lol2:

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Hello all,

I graduated GCC in May 2006 and had the priviledge of mentoring several students who graduated in May 2007. You are definitely in a very intense program and will probably feel overwhelmed very quickly. It would be very beneficial to you to find someone who has graduated the program, meet with them with your giant stack of papers, and go through everything with them. Organization is the key...Understanding what it is that the instructors are looking for from you is very helpful...Knowing HOW to study is so important due to the massive amount of information you will be reading.

I began working in Intensive Care right out of GCC. I feel I was very well prepared on an academic and professional level. I lacked in clinical skills, but that is to be expected as a new RN.

If there are any specific questions I can answer let me know!

Good Luck!

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I started this semester Calisand,

I'd definitely be interested in your input for test-taking strategies. What worked best for you? What did you prefer to use for a study aid. Thanks in advance...

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I used Saunders NCLEX study guide available through Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. The first four or five chapters are all about study skills. The rest of the chapters are on the material you will need to know for tests and for the NCLEX, and those chapters have a very nice outline in the beginning of each chapter and questions at the end of each chapter.

The first four or five chapters are very helpful, and most people tend to skip over them and go right to the questions.

Basically:

1. A's, B's, and C's: Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. If the question asks you what you would do first, choose the answer pertaining to airway, then breathing, then circulation.

2. Maslow's hierarchy. Know the hierarchy and go with the answer that pertains to the lowest section of the pyramid. For example, when the question asks you which you would do first, always go with safety as a priority.

3. Know ADPIE...Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation... If the question tells you the vital signs (assessment), and asks you what to do next, the answer will have something to do with Diagnosis. If the questions tells you the vital signs and the diagnosis, the answer will have to do with planning the patient's care.

Get the book...it's really good for test taking strategies.

Hope this helps.

Feel free to bounce any other questions off me. Will help whenever I can.

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Calisand,

I am learning how to answer the quiz questions slowly but gradually. My first test is not until the second week of October but I am reviewing the NCLEX book as often as possible. Thanks alot for your advice, I appreciate it....

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Make sure that you do all of the practice quizzes at the end of the chapters in your books (Medsurg, psych, maternal child health) or whatever book you are using at the time. You will see alot of these questions repeated on the quizzes and the exams. They will also use some of the ones from the sauders book, so do them as well. My advice for the exams is to read over everything that you have already been assigned (chapters, study guides, powerpoints). The way I studied was by doing this, particularly the chapters, because they will pull out things from the book that we might never think of. I never had any problems with taking their tests, so maybe this will help you also.

;)

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I never had any problems with taking their tests, so maybe this will help you also.;)

Thank you very much for the advice

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Hello all,

I began working in Intensive Care right out of GCC. I feel I was very well prepared on an academic and professional level. I lacked in clinical skills, but that is to be expected as a new RN.

If there are any specific questions I can answer let me know!

Good Luck!

Hi Calisand,

Did you have to take any special courses in order to get that ICU job, right out of college? I really am interested in working either ICU or Truama. I'm not really interested in working Med/Surg. Any advice?

Thank you!

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

Good Luck GCC students. Study hard and dedicate yourself, it will be worth it in the end. Being organized and finding a system that works for you is the best advice I could offer for getting started.

--A very proud '06 GCC grad.

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thank you so much for all the info you posted, I am applying in feb for the sep 2008 class and I am so scared, It is nice to the a person that made it and graduated. overall are you happy you attended this school. what can I expect?. when I went for the open house the staff was so willing to help and answer any questions which gave me a sense of confidence and for a change some one cared, is that the case? it seems all the other schools I looked into really don't care about anyone and never even return any calls! thank you again

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