I WOULD NOT recommend Brookdale

Nursing Students School Programs

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Just a head's up to prospective students. For years I coldn't wait to start the BCC program. Now I am not even finished with my nursing course and have had it out with my instructor/dept head and I am already looking into possibly transferring to Ocean County College. On top of th workload we have already, they expect us to test on math conversions, vitals, and med administration. Which is all fine and good but THEY DO NOT COUNT for any credit but we must still pass them or fail. We also had to do a one page paper wth citations which counted for zerfo credit. It only takes away from our study time. The math test, we get three attempts and MUST PASS WITH A 90 OR BETTER or we get kicked out. I failed my second attempt today with an 80. Years of hard work, time, sacrifice, frustration, all nighters, etc....to possibly have it allwhiped out by not getting a 90 or better on a test in which we don't even get any credit for. Are you serious? My email to my instructor today was not pretty and this week should a flirtatious dance with expulsion for calling out the college on their practice and politics. So in case anyone wanted any first hand feedback on BCC, there you have it.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

* prepares popcorn and settles in....

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Specializes in Critical Care, Capacity/Bed Management.
Just a head's up to prospective students. For years I coldn't wait to start the BCC program. Now I am not even finished with my nursing course and have had it out with my instructor/dept head and I am already looking into possibly transferring to Ocean County College. On top of th workload we have already, they expect us to test on math conversions, vitals, and med administration. Which is all fine and good but THEY DO NOT COUNT for any credit but we must still pass them or fail. We also had to do a one page paper wth citations which counted for zerfo credit. It only takes away from our study time. The math test, we get three attempts and MUST PASS WITH A 90 OR BETTER or we get kicked out. I failed my second attempt today with an 80. Years of hard work, time, sacrifice, frustration, all nighters, etc....to possibly have it allwhiped out by not getting a 90 or better on a test in which we don't even get any credit for. Are you serious? My email to my instructor today was not pretty and this week should a flirtatious dance with expulsion for calling out the college on their practice and politics. So in case anyone wanted any first hand feedback on BCC, there you have it.

Hello there, disgruntled student nurse. I like you, attended and graduated from a New Jersey ADN/ASN program. If you think the the grass is greener in another institution of nursing education, you are mistaken.

When I attended nursing school, we were required to pass a medication exam every semester and you had two attempts. If you failed both you failed the program, no ifs ands or buts. We also have to do a case presentation every semester along with a paper. Nursing IV we were required to do all this, plus conduct a study as a class and present before the faculty the day after our final. (None of these counted for our overall grade, they were considered clinical passes/fails)

Nursing school is hard no matter what school you attend, if you failed; which it seems that you did based on your initial post then you have to accept things for what they are and not blame the school, but rather what YOU could have done differently.

I wish you well in your future endeavors, also just one last piece of advice; it would be in your best interest to not burn any bridges, nursing is a small world and you would be surprised how quickly word spreads.

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I have not failed this course. Not yet anyway. But being I can't put time into studying for the credit portion right now, who knows if I will since I have three tests ahead of me to study for that don't count for credit. I could care less about telling my instructor the truth of the situation. They need to hear it. At the end of the day, these non credit bs tests benefit them and the college in some way shape or form at the expense of the performance of the students.

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Why do you need credit for doing math conversions, vitals and med administration? all nurses need to be competent in these areas so that they can provide safe patient care. You are viewing the program as separate components instead of synthesizing the information as a whole.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

Are you really complaining because your nursing program is preparing you for the real world? Trust me, in the real world, you will do hundreds of services/treatments/care measures for which you will never receive "credit." Everything that is required of you in nursing school is vital to your education, whether or not it has a credit attached to it.

If I were you, I would back off and stop making enemies. Nursing school is hard enough without burning bridges by trashing your instructors and administration. Don't count on being able to transfer, either. Nursing schools want to graduate students whose education has primarily been obtained at their institution so that they are sure of the quality of that education. They're funny that way.

Since you have been prepping for nursing school "for years," I am a little surprised at your naïveté regarding its all-encompassing nature.

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The math test, we get three attempts and MUST PASS WITH A 90 OR BETTER or we get kicked out. I failed my second attempt today with an 80. Years of hard work, time, sacrifice, frustration, all nighters, etc....to possibly have it allwhiped out by not getting a 90 or better on a test in which we don't even get any credit for. Are you serious?

You should be able to pass the math test with 100% accuracy, not 80.

Food for thought: What percentage of the time do you believe it would acceptable to miscalculate a dose of a medication you are injecting into the body of a vulnerable human being?

In my school, you passed with 100% after 3 attempts or you fail out because that is the accuracy you should be attaining IN REAL LIFE. And you are complaining about a 90% requirement.

You are going to have the same problem at any nursing school if the best you can do on an exam testing pretty basic math skills is 80%.

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The math test, we get three attempts and MUST PASS WITH A 90 OR BETTER or we get kicked out. I failed my second attempt today with an 80. Years of hard work, time, sacrifice, frustration, all nighters, etc....to possibly have it allwhiped out by not getting a 90 or better on a test in which we don't even get any credit for. Are you serious?

Is "math" test medication dosage calculations? If it is I agree completely with Horseshoe. Letting students pass with merely 90% is the same as saying that it's acceptable to potentially kill every tenth patient. The only acceptable passing score is in my opinion 100%. I'm realize that's not what you wanted to hear, but med errors are serious business so calculating dosages, administration rates, concentrations/dilutions etc. is something we all need to be proficient in.

Instead of sending what I assume was an angry/upset email to your instructor I think that it would be more beneficial for you to ask for help in figuring out where you go wrong. All the tests require is basic algebra and knowledge of the various units used in medication dosages. I've seen several times in the student assitance forum that students often overcomplicate the questions. They are often just trying to force all the numbers from the problem into formulas and obsess about which "super advanced nursing math formula" should be used, instad of just looking calmly at the problem and figuring out what it's asking for. There's almost always extraneous information provided. 99% of the time you don't make use of every number they provide in the problem, some are just there to make sure that the student can figure out exactly what it is they're asking that you calculate.

In my school, you passed with 100% after 3 attempts or you fail out because that is the accuracy you should be attaining IN REAL LIFE.

Horseshoe, it was the same in my school. One test every year and a couple of class mates actually failed the last exam the final year (BSN) and didn't graduate. Harsh? Yes, but not wrong in my opinion.

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Do not let all your 'years of hard work, time, sacrifice, frustration and all nighters' end in expulsion, send another email to your instructor apologizing for the email you sent earlier today.

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The math test, we get three attempts and MUST PASS WITH A 90 OR BETTER or we get kicked out. I failed my second attempt today with an 80. Years of hard work, time, sacrifice, frustration, all nighters, etc....to possibly have it allwhiped out by not getting a 90 or better on a test in which we don't even get any credit for. Are you serious?

That actually sounds pretty normal, except like some others have stated, the passing percentage is often required to be higher. We got our first drug calculation test on the very first day of the nursing program ...within the first twenty minutes of the program starting.

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Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.

This is going to sound terrible, but...

Welcome to college millennial. It's called hard work, college is not easy, especially nursing, suck it up, this is the norm!

Annie

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Are you really complaining because your nursing program is preparing you for the real world? Trust me, in the real world, you will do hundreds of services/treatments/care measures for which you will never receive "credit." Everything that is required of you in nursing school is vital to your education, whether or not it has a credit attached to it.

If I were you, I would back off and stop making enemies. Nursing school is hard enough without burning bridges by trashing your instructors and administration. Don't count on being able to transfer, either. Nursing schools want to graduate students whose education has primarily been obtained at their institution so that they are sure of the quality of that education. They're funny that way.

Since you have been prepping for nursing school "for years," I am a little surprised at your naïveté regarding its all-encompassing nature.

A peer made herself quite a few enemies when she backed out of the program. It was not just your everyday notice that she was quitting, she started sending diatribes to instructors and engaging in other behavior that eventually caused her to be banned from the physical campus. Do you think any of the rest of us were surprised to find out that she subsequently was blacklisted when she applied to enter other renowned programs in the area? Of course not. Who wants someone around with that kind of reputation? Nursing schools are engaged in producing professionals, not professional complainers. You are burning bridges with your behavior. Stop and reconsider what you are accomplishing with this.

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