Is 2 yrs really accelerated?

leenak · Feb 15, 2012

One 'accelerated' program I looked at was 26 months. Not sure how that is accelerated :)

Drexel seems to have the shortest with 11 months, there are some 13/14 month programs out there and I'm applying to a 17 month program.

I looked at Lewis University and it appears their program is 5 semesters long and the first semester seems especially light on units. Most of the programs I've seen are either 3 or 4 semesters, squeezing out summer and reducing timeframe for the breaks.

Karolyte · May 2, 2012

I'm graduating from Lewis accelerated program in August. So far non of the semesters seemed to be light. It was pretty mcuh very intense. Some of our cohort quit because of the stress and intensity. Some went to traditional cohort so that they can go at the slower pace. However, I still recommend taking accelerated courses. You get 8 weeks of classes and clinicals combined instead of traditional 16 and you do not have things like breaks other than 2 week X-mas break. This also means that you have to read 650 pages in one week to prepare fot the exam :) You will be drained but it is worth the effort. Just the note: Lewis university accelerated program has 100% NCLEX passing rate, this means that you are pretty well prepared.

melc0305 · May 8, 2012

Karolyte thank you for your input. I just attended the information session at Lewis and I must say it was intimidating! Lots of information and I felt they were honest about the time and studying commitment the accelerated program requires. After a few hours of freaking out, I still decided to pursue the program.

One thing I'm not looking forward to is all the weekend requirements. Can you tell me if your clinicals usually take up both Sat and Sun? Or does it just depend on the rotation? At the info session, they just said it could be both or either/or...weren't really definitive. Thanks!

Karolyte · May 9, 2012

I think you've made great decision. Let me be honest. You will hate nursing school and then you will love it :) As it comes to clinicals, most of my clinicals were on Saturdays only, from 6:30am till about 3-4pm. One clinical rotation I had Saturdays and Sundays but then we had another weekend off, this really depends on your clinical instructor. For psych we had out clinicals on Fridays from 2pm till 9pm. Right now I'm on my last semester and I do not have any weekend clinicals. Right now I have clinicals Tuesday mornings 6am-4pm. Once this block is done in 8 weeks I will have my role transition and this will be Monday and Tuesday 6am-4pm.

They did not lie when they said that you will be busy, but it is possible to do. We have three students who worked part time and only one student who managed to work full time during this program and I'm pretty amazed by her :)

Let me know if you have any questions.

P.S. Another great thing Lewis started is mentorship program. I'm a mentor and I can just wish that I would of had the opportunity to have a mentor. Once you get to Lewis go to the mentorship meeting you will be matched with another student from the higher cohort and you will be buddies :) That means that you will get awesome hints of how to study for the certain class. He/she will tell you about how one or the other professor is. You will know if you need to read a book or not to bother It is also nice to have someone to talk to knowing that they also went through this.