I want to complete the RN to BSN program in 1 term

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · May 6, 2016

I will be starting the program soon. I wonder if I could request a certain type of student mentor after I get accepted? Like tell the enrollment counselor that I want to finish in one term and want a mentor who will guide me through that. Any advice I would appreciate! Thank you.

The enrollment counselors do not assign mentors or have any control over who you'll receive. You'll never have any contact with the enrollment counselor again once you've been enrolled.

Generally, it is a horrible move to openly state your intentions to finish in one term because they'll do everything possible to slow your progress the hell down. Just finish the first 12 credits ASAP. Once you earn those 12 credits within a couple of months, your mentor will be forced to add more courses to your first (and only) term.

featherzRN, MSN · May 6, 2016

I agree .. I told my mentor that I was hoping to do it in a year and ended up doing it in three months.. do your first 12 as soon as you can then see what happens. :)

nightflower · May 7, 2016

Just finish the first 12 credits ASAP...your mentor will be forced to add more courses to your first (and only) term.

Okay, thank you!

nightflower · May 7, 2016

I agree .. I told my mentor that I was hoping to do it in a year and ended up doing it in three months.. do your first 12 as soon as you can then see what happens. :)

Great, thank you!

nightflower · May 7, 2016

Ladies, if you don't mind answering some questions for me based on your experiences?

1. What order of classes do you think is best to finish quickly? I've seen it's smart to take Statistics and Community Health first. Do you agree? Is it good to take the harder, more work-required courses first?

2. What do I do if I get a mentor who only allows one course to be open at a time? Do either of you have a good mentor to suggest? I could PM you for their name.

3. featherzRN: About how many hours per day should I expect to put in to finish in one term?

4. I read someone's mentor refused to open a test even though the person passed the pre-assessment. What's the solution to that?

5. TheCommuter: You've said you didn't watch any videos or look at course of study. You just read the directions from Taskstream? You must have known a lot of the material already then, huh?

Thanks you guys :yeah:

ParvulusPuella · May 7, 2016

I'm going to jump in with my experience:

I finished the RN-BSN program with 34 credits in 9 months. After completing my first 4 courses in a little over a month, which included health assessment, biochem, care of the older adult, and nutrition, my mentor opened the remaining courses one at a time. Her reasoning was that I would want to have them completed by the end of term, and it would look better to have a not pass in only one class instead of multiple, in the off chance I wasn't able to finish in time. At first I wanted the option to work on more than one at a time, but found it easier to focus on one course at a time, bang it out, and move on. Some of the courses, such as nutrition and information management, took me only a week- I did the PA, reviewed my weak areas, and did the OA. I never had any problems with my mentor not opening an OA when I requested it, after passing the PA. Also, my mentor seemed to have my degree plan laid out in a specific way, and I didn't mind the order she had them in. Looking back, I would have probably wanted to take the community classes earlier, to get them done and out of the way. It wasn't that they are hard, just very time intensive- I accidentally got enrolled in both community classes at the same time, but finished both in a little over a month. I took the longest with statistics, because I am very bad with math and math concepts and got very nervous about the OA. I probably could have finished in one term, but after the first few classes I just got tired and lazy.

I also didn't do much in the course of study; the task stream instructions are pretty clear and my mentor was great about answering any questions I had and clarifying any instructions that I just didn't understand. I'd give you her name but she is no longer mentoring in the RN-BSN program.

nightflower · May 7, 2016

ParvulusPuella, thank you for your response! Based on yours and others' experiences, it seems Stats and the Community courses are best to take at the beginning and get them passed and over with. I will try to do this. Hopefully I get a mentor who allows it. It's nice that you say you think you probably could have finished in one term had you not been lazy. I can't afford to be lazy so I'm glad you think it's doable.

JustMeRN · May 7, 2016

Ladies, if you don't mind answering some questions for me based on your experiences?
1. What order of classes do you think is best to finish quickly? I've seen it's smart to take Statistics and Community Health first. Do you agree? Is it good to take the harder, more work-required courses first?
2. What do I do if I get a mentor who only allows one course to be open at a time? Do either of you have a good mentor to suggest? I could PM you for their name.
3. featherzRN: About how many hours per day should I expect to put in to finish in one term?
4. I read someone's mentor refused to open a test even though the person passed the pre-assessment. What's the solution to that?
5. TheCommuter: You've said you didn't watch any videos or look at course of study. You just read the directions from Taskstream? You must have known a lot of the material already then, huh?
Thanks you guys

Firstly, don't decide your mentor is your enemy, or that your are going to have to fight. You need a relationship with your mentor, and starting out assuming you won't be working for the same thing is not a good way to go.

many classes have changed in the last year, so the experience of anyone graduating before then will not be the same as yours. If you can not complete in one term can you do a second? If the answer is no I would seriously reconsider your plan.

1. You will not likely have much control over the order of your courses initially. Once you complete your pre req classes and prove yourself your mentor is likely to give you more leeway. But don't expect to drive the bus right from day one. Which very few exceptions your mentor will require you to complete all pre req classes first. You will not be allowed to pull up things like community health before completing them. That said, community health takes time. Once you have successfully completed several courses is when it's time to discuss a one term finish with your mentor. Try to remember it's not because they are trying to block you. Their job depends on students being successful. Mentors with a high fail rate or high did not finish rate are considered poor job performers.

2. You will most likely only be allowed to pull up once class at a time no matter what mentor you have. Just go with it it's not worth your time or effort to fight it. It's easy to focus and bang out one class at a time. The only exception, again, is when you get to community health. You can accumulate the practicum hours when working on another paper / class. As far as asking for new mentors, unless you have a personality conflict don't bother. They are all being held more to the rules these days, switching because you want the rules bent isn't likely to get you very far. They also work in groups with one supervisor, so you would move within the same team supervised by the same manager who expects the same standards.

3. I know this was to someone else. But for me I put in 10-20 hours a week, and just finished my 40 credits in 11 months. This depends a lot on your experience and knowledge base (hence the competency based model).

4. The only time I ever heard this happen was when someone was trying to test on a course not in term when they hadn't completed courses within the term. Or, when someone couldn't pass the pre test (which IMO is reasonable). If you pass a pretest and the course is in your term you can actually ask the course mentor to open it if your student mentor won't or isn't around. And in this case you have a discussion with your mentor and tell them they are not helping you complete your goals and ask them why. Again, they are there to help you, don't assume it will be a fight.

5. I disagree strongly with this tactic. Unless you know the material don't skip the course of study. They are well laid out, easy to follow, and contain everything you need to successfully complete the courses in one place. I relied heavily on the course of study, I skimmed or read all assigned material. I joined cohorts whenever they were available. And I still completed 40 credits in 11 months (easily), I never failed a test (pre test or final) I didn't have a single revision on a task. Because the information is there. I have been part of the Facebook group and I can tell you that the people who follow this thinking struggle to figure out how to write papers (if you don't know the material the directions don't make sense), have frequent paper revisions and repeat testing. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule. If the class is a repeat or you have a lot of experience a class will be easier. Do it right the first time and avoid the struggle. With grading queues in the 800-900 range these days you are going to end up waiting an extra week every time you need a revision. If you can't pull up another class until one passes you are wasting time.

Its a really great program. It has seen a lot of class changes in the year that I have been there. Come join us in the Facebook group (if you haven't already) there are a handful of one term finishers. Most who did so unintentionally, and a handful who are attempting a one term finish. There are lots of turtles plugging along a a much slower place, and lots of us in between the two. Good luck!

nightflower · May 7, 2016

AtHomeNurse, thank you so much for your thorough post! I feel like I need to re-read it a few times to absorb it all. I appreciate the length and the advice you gave.

featherzRN, MSN · May 7, 2016

Ok, so as earlier stated I did 50CU in three months while working full time. I pretty much studied every waking moment that I was not at work - that included weekends and holidays. Got up at 2:30AM to do papers.. studied at lunch.. So it was a LOT of work. I did pick and choose as far as the COS went - for papers I rarely did anything with the COS readings, but I generally did read the books for the tests. I never failed an OA (test) in either of my WGU degrees, but I did have a few revisions on papers (no biggie)..

I do agree to not PLAN to do it in six months - sometimes life happens. I am lucky I could neglect everything except school and work for those three months but not everyone can do that. When I did my three month WGU MBA I went part time - I was NOT doing that again!! :) :)

benegesserit · May 10, 2016

I agree with what others have said: consider hard whether this is really a good idea if you have hard limits that prevent you from going beyond 6 months. Because way more people start off intending that than actually succeed, and you may end up with a lot of wasted money and effort if you can't go beyond 6 months. Expect to take 2-3 semesters. Even at 3 semesters, it is still relatively fast and inexpensive for a BSN program.

Ladies, if you don't mind answering some questions for me based on your experiences?
1. What order of classes do you think is best to finish quickly? I've seen it's smart to take Statistics and Community Health first. Do you agree? Is it good to take the harder, more work-required courses first?
2. What do I do if I get a mentor who only allows one course to be open at a time?

1. As others have said, they won't give you a whole lot of flexibility on the order these days. In reality, there are really only two classes where this truly matters - the community health classes. The second matters because you're largely reliant on other people's schedules in order to get hours, so you want to have it open as soon as possible and plan to work on other classes simultaneously. The first one matters because you can't start the second one until you finish it.

However, they simply won't give you the first Community Health class right off the bat. Finish some other stuff quickly and they might be more willing.

But, other than those classes, the order really shouldn't matter. The classes will take the same amount of time regardless of the order of completion, so just do them and don't let it psych you out. And, for the most part, I feel that the order they chose makes sense. A lot of classes build on previous classes. Doing it in the suggested order will make it easier.

2. You have near-total access to every class in your degree plan from the first day. You can do all the required work for most classes except for actually taking the test or submitting the tasks without being officially enrolled in the class - and if you go to your mentor and say you're ready to submit immediately, they'll probably open the class for you. Or if they won't, you'll be prepared to submit immediately when they do open the class. So, if you're the type who likes to work on more than one class at a time and your mentor won't facilitate that, you can just do it that way.

many classes have changed in the last year, so the experience of anyone graduating before then will not be the same as yours. If you can not complete in one term can you do a second? If the answer is no I would seriously reconsider your plan.

Agreed. It used to be fairly common to finish within 6 months. Now it seems to be pretty rare.

This includes featherzRN - she graduated a few years ago. Take her with a grain of salt :)

5. I disagree strongly with this tactic. Unless you know the material don't skip the course of study. They are well laid out, easy to follow, and contain everything you need to successfully complete the courses in one place. I relied heavily on the course of study, I skimmed or read all assigned material. I joined cohorts whenever they were available. And I still completed 40 credits in 11 months (easily), I never failed a test (pre test or final) I didn't have a single revision on a task. Because the information is there. I have been part of the Facebook group and I can tell you that the people who follow this thinking struggle to figure out how to write papers (if you don't know the material the directions don't make sense), have frequent paper revisions and repeat testing. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule. If the class is a repeat or you have a lot of experience a class will be easier. Do it right the first time and avoid the struggle. With grading queues in the 800-900 range these days you are going to end up waiting an extra week every time you need a revision. If you can't pull up another class until one passes you are wasting time.

I think there's a happy medium. I found that following the course of study was not particularly efficient, but that referring to the course of study and other class resources was very helpful for gaining clarity when I was stuck.

Personally, I found that the course mentor videos were often the clearest explanation of what was actually needed, and well-worth the time to watch. And I say that as someone who absolutely hates watching videos.

TheCommuter finished fairly quickly without any apparent struggles. I didn't finish quickly, but that was me being a perfectionistic anxiety-ridden procrastinator with four kids (one born during the program), 3 jobs, and a health scare, not the fact that I didn't follow the course of study to a T. I passed at well above the minimum on everything, and never had any retests or revisions.