is an internship a must?

Unfortunately, hiring in hospitals is a numbers game. They are just interested in bodies. I wouldn't worry.

I have commitments this summer and would prefer to concentrate on nclex questions to gain more expertize answering them. I have decided not to do an internship. How much weight do hospitals put into them when hiring new grads

My experience and that of my friends who graduated from traditional and nontraditional programs is, if you haven't had an internship, someone who has will be hired ahead of you.

An internship is OJT for a new nurse. What you learned in school will become second nature to you. You may not believe it but as a new nurse, you (we) still have a lot to learn, a lot of "habit" to develop, if that makes sense.

And there may be a scarcity of nurses, but I haven't seen it. Plenty of foreign trained nurses here happy to work for less than us--and they have experience.

Do the internship. You can prep for the NCLEX on your off hours. I recommend Mosby's CAT (you can google for it, or find the URL in another of my posts on the subject). It's cheap, it's great, and there's nothing to throw away or recycle when you are done.

But yes, absolutely, do the internship. Let it be you who has that extra credential and gets the plum job!

I don't know what state you are in. But in Kentucky the board has changed the guidelines. Beginning Jan 01, 2006, the graduates will be issued a provisional license. Then they must complete 120 hours of "internship" before they can take the nclex. The internship and the nclex must be completed within 6 months of graduation.

thanks for your reply, I am in NYC. I graduate in Dec this year, so the internship I am talking about is this summer, before starting the advanced medsurg clinical. How much can you really learn?? My friends who are rns and nps say they are a waste and you really do not begin to learn until you are being precepted? what are your thoughts??