Is it like this at every school or is it just mine?

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Mar 24, 2011

We had a roadmap with very few choices. The core classes were all laid out and the times were only 1 time available. The instructors decided our lab groups thus what time we had to be there. Was amazing not having to deal with it.

CrazierThanYou · Mar 24, 2011

Oh, if we're talking about scheduling, at my school, the class is offered one time and that's it. If it doesn't work for you, too bad. That's just the way it is.

microtutor · Mar 24, 2011

I checked the schedule for the current semester, and asked around. The only choice of classroom time is do you want to have lecture on a M and T, or a T and W. All the clinicals are RF nights, and there's only an hour difference between the times - its either 2pm-8:30pm or 3pm-9:30pm.

Hope that helps!

prime11214 · Mar 24, 2011

I checked the schedule for the current semester, and asked around. The only choice of classroom time is do you want to have lecture on a M and T, or a T and W. All the clinicals are RF nights, and there's only an hour difference between the times - its either 2pm-8:30pm or 3pm-9:30pm.
Hope that helps!

That's the thing! We can't pick because there's only ONE. I think I'm confusing everyone. I'm not really sure what a clinical is now

CuriousMe · Mar 24, 2011

That's the thing! We can't pick because there's only ONE. I think I'm confusing everyone. I'm not really sure what a clinical is now

We didn't have a choice either....it's pretty common in nursing school.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Mar 24, 2011

That's the thing! We can't pick because there's only ONE.

Yes, it's common. As someone said previously, it's due to the lack of nursing faculty in a nursing school.

Look at it this way: At a large university, gen ed courses may be offered for 15 or more different time slots, but when you start taking courses specific to your major (junior and senior), you might have only one slot for a particular course because they also have limited faculty who have the expertise to teach those courses. Nursing school is no different.

I went to a university with 10,000 students. English 101 had probably 50 sections available because every English department faculty member could teach it. However, when I took my English major courses at the junior or senior level, I might have had only one time slot for a highly specific course--a Shakespearean Tragedies course, for example. Not everyone on staff was a Shakespeare expert, so only the Shakespeare expert taught the course. You wouldn't want it any other way, right?

soushee · Mar 28, 2011

In my program there is only one theory section, and we all attend at the same time. For clinical we are broken down into groups and different rotations, either morning or evening shifts (which they allow people to choose which shift they want, kind of sort of). We had two clinical seminars which everyone attended at the same time, then we all went our different directions for clinicals in groups of 6.

shortnorthstudent · Mar 28, 2011

My MedSurg I course starting this week has:

Monday 3 hour lecture - the entire 80ish of us are in this specific room at this time. There is no choice given. This is the theory portion of the course.

Tuesday 2 hour seminar - there are 8 different sections. You could choose 8-10, 10-2 or 4-6. After you chose your time during registration, they broke you into specific classrooms. You did not get to choose your seminar instructor or classmates for seminar These sections do little projects, some skill practices (although some terms have a separate skills course) and general discussion

Wednesday 7-5 or Thursday 7-5 Clinical - you had the ability to request either Wednesday or Thursday and they did their best to accomodate. We are broken down into 12 different clinical sections over the 2 days at 4 different hospitals. You don't choose your hospital, your floor or your clinical instructor.

Each term is is basically the same. Some terms have longer clinicals, some have more lecture, etc. For non-clinical nursing courses like Pharm, lecture is the same - the entire cohort is in the same large auditorium at the time chosen by the college/department.

Anyone still taking co-reqs has more flexibility - different sessions/times/days of the week for things like Patho and statistics

Southern Magnolia · Mar 28, 2011

Also it depends on how many are in a cohort. The program I've applied for only admits 20 people per term. You move through your core nursing courses as a cohort for the most part. So it wouldn't make much sense to offer two or three sections for each class when there are only 20 people taking that class at a time. There is one section offered for each lecture with 20 students in that one section and two sections (10 students each) for lab/ clinical. This isn't a whole lot different than upper level course schedules in other disciplines. My 1st degree was from LSU and most of my junior and senior level courses only had one section offered.

Emilynn09 · Mar 28, 2011

There is only ONE lecture for almost every clinical. So basically you can't pick and choose your times because there is only ONE:eek:. As for the labs, there are several. My question is...... Why is there only one lecture per clinical and is it like this at every school? Also.. It is very competitive to get into the BSN program. Now I know what they mean by not having enough open seats for everyone.

It's like that at my school as well. One lecture time for med/surg. But our class size is small so it doesn't even make sense for the school to make several lecture times. We have different clinical days and times, but we don't get to pick. We are placed in a clinical group and that is there. There is no changing unless we find another student who will want to switch places with us.

pitaya · Mar 28, 2011

I'm confused about what a theory class is. At my school we call it lecture. It's once a week and I think it's about 3 hours long... What I meant was, there is only one class discussion for the clinical and we don't have an option of picking because there's only one. And yes I'm in a BSN program.

Yup, same here, and I'm in a BSN program!

kenpochic · Mar 28, 2011

yes my school is like that