Lone Star College 2020 LVN to RN transition

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Since 2019 transition passed, I wanted to start one for next period. I am taking Pharmacology at NH for Thurs from 11am-2pm. Anyone in the past transition program and want to share some information, please do! Anyone applying for next summer, Hello!! ?

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11 hours ago, Jazzmynn Scarbrough said:

So how soon do you think we will hear back from them

Typical turnaround is 3 weeks after application closes. That's what it's been in the past, consistently. Granted, this isn't a typical situation, but that's what it's been to give you an idea. I have a feeling they are going to have to turn it around quicker though to have enough time to prep yall for June start.

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13 hours ago, Jazzmynn Scarbrough said:

So how soon do you think we will hear back from them

I was informed by a co-worker of mine - who also applied - that they plan to send out notification letters starting April 22nd. She stated that this was told to her by the North Harris Advisor, Juanita Garcia. I also emailed Ms. Juanita to inquire about the start date of the program and she stated that it is still to start in June as planned; that was on April 6th that I emailed her.

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On 4/18/2020 at 10:58 AM, nursejo87 said:

I was informed by a co-worker of mine - who also applied - that they plan to send out notification letters starting April 22nd. She stated that this was told to her by the North Harris Advisor, Juanita Garcia. I also emailed Ms. Juanita to inquire about the start date of the program and she stated that it is still to start in June as planned; that was on April 6th that I emailed her.

So, I have to retract the first statement I made. Apparently I misunderstood what my co-worker said. She said that she was speaking in reference to the application period closing, not when they were sending out notification letters.

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20 minutes ago, nursejo87 said:

So, I have to retract the first statement I made. Apparently I misunderstood what my co-worker said. She said that she was speaking in reference to the application period closing, not when they were sending out notification letters.

I would just advise everyone who has applied to take the process seriously. As I mentioned before, the turnaround time has been 3 weeks from the day the application period closes. That's pretty much across the years and campuses- 3 weeks. I expect because of this covid nonsense that it will be less than that, so have everything in order as far as your shots and your time off requests. It's going to move fast.

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Now if the timeline is not pushed back in regards to when the program starts and it takes them three weeks to send out acceptance letters, how are we to prepare for the program? That would leave us little to no room for preparation.

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Well we can’t submit our days off from work for the Summer if we don’t know what days we will be attending school. So hopefully they tell us soon.

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36 minutes ago, HowdyHowdy said:

I would just advise everyone who has applied to take the process seriously. As I mentioned before, the turnaround time has been 3 weeks from the day the application period closes. That's pretty much across the years and campuses- 3 weeks. I expect because of this covid nonsense that it will be less than that, so have everything in order as far as your shots and your time off requests. It's going to move fast.

This is going to be an extremely expedient process in regard to the timeline. I have everything done for the most part in terms of vaccinations/titers, but the amount of time to have everything else paid for/purchased is very tight. I’m just praying they make some modifications to ease us through the beginning.

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26 minutes ago, nursejo87 said:

This is going to be an extremely expedient process in regard to the timeline. I have everything done for the most part in terms of vaccinations/titers, but the amount of time to have everything else paid for/purchased is very tight. I’m just praying they make some modifications to ease us through the beginning.

To be completely honest, considering my experience in the program thus far, do not count on that happening. They are pretty ruthless, for lack of a better term. Once the instructors say or do something, that's it. The law has been laid. For us that are currently in the program now that are dealing with it during the shutdown, they have handled it very, very poorly. Both SanJac and Lee College were taking steps to transition to online the first Monday back from Spring Break and are both graduating on time. We were out for 4-5 weeks and have had our graduation date pushed back two weeks and our last month crammed down out throats. I do not expect them to handle the necessary changes to the incoming class any better than they have handled ours.

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That’s horrible! I had Heard really good reviews for lonestar!! Hope everything works out good for your class. I hope Everything goes back to normal so we can have face to face lectures and not online. Online nursing school doesn’t even sound right.

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Specializes in ER.
15 minutes ago, janemal said:

That’s horrible! I had Heard really good reviews for lonestar!! Hope everything works out good for your class. I hope Everything goes back to normal so we can have face to face lectures and not online. Online nursing school doesn’t even sound right.

Don't get me wrong, overall I have enjoyed my experience at Lone Star. I have friends and co-workers who have gone through both Lee and San Jac transition programs and I would choose Lone Star over them both, by a lot. But that is not to say that LSC is not without it's shortcomings. They definitely have room for improvement and that really shone through with the COVID hiccups.

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On 4/22/2020 at 4:27 PM, HowdyHowdy said:

To be completely honest, considering my experience in the program thus far, do not count on that happening. They are pretty ruthless, for lack of a better term. Once the instructors say or do something, that's it. The law has been laid. For us that are currently in the program now that are dealing with it during the shutdown, they have handled it very, very poorly. Both SanJac and Lee College were taking steps to transition to online the first Monday back from Spring Break and are both graduating on time. We were out for 4-5 weeks and have had our graduation date pushed back two weeks and our last month crammed down out throats. I do not expect them to handle the necessary changes to the incoming class any better than they have handled ours.

WOW! I can’t really say I’m surprised, but I guess that’s the price we all must pay. And I agree with you about going to any other program. I have close friends that completed the Transition program - they graduated in the 2019 cohort - with NH and they raved about it. I completed my VN with the Kingwood campus and it prepared me far more than some of my associates were, that attended other programs outside of Lone Star. It was a rigorous program, but I would not have traded it for any other at all.

I do have another question for you, if you don’t mind. If you have a moment, would you mind sending the required book list they gave y’all for the program and what color uniform are required for clinical? I don't expect us to be in a clinical setting during the first semester, but just in case we do I just wanted to try and prepare myself for it. I know I may be jumping the gun on this being that they haven’t even sent out notification letters, but if I do get in I would just like to be prepared for some of it.

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1 hour ago, nursejo87 said:

WOW!! I can’t really say I’m surprised, but I guess that’s the price we all must pay. And I agree with you about going to any other program. I have close friends that completed the Transition program - they graduated in the 2019 cohort - with NH and they raved about it. I completed my VN with the Kingwood campus and it prepared me far more than some of my associates were, that attended other programs outside of Lone Star. It was a rigorous program, but I would not have traded it for any other at all.

I do have another question for you, if you don’t mind. If you have a moment, would you mind sending the required book list they gave y’all for the program and what color uniform are required for clinical? I don't expect us to be in a clinical setting during the first semester, but just in case we do I just wanted to try and prepare myself for it. I know I may be jumping the gun on this being that they haven’t even sent out notification letters, but if I do get in I would just like to be prepared for some of it.

So to give you an example by what I mean, I'm not dogging on them. Overall it's been solid. But there have been problems. The professors act like they care for feedback and want to hear from us, but anything a student mentions something contradictory, they are basically told in nicer words "this is the way it is." Examples - during lecture, one of the professors who has no business lecturing - she basically walks around the room hollering phrases from the book and PP and stumbling through the longer words that are harder to pronounce - she says something out of her own powerpoint. A student raises their hand and offers a contradictory piece of information, directly out of the book. They have always told us to go by the powerpoint. The powerpoint in this case was wrong and her only response was "well go by what's in the book." When the student asked her, OK, what will we be tested on, the professor answered "it comes from the book." The student rebutted with "OK, so if we are being tested on the information in the book, why are we studying wrong information in the powerpoint?" The professor literally, I'm not joking here said "Go by what's in the book!" and continued on with her hoopin and hollarin "lecture." That was it.

Another small example - we have been told, as I mentioned before, to go by the powerpoint. In addition to that we are given a sheet of "Topics and Objectives" that all year they have swore that to be our bible. "If its not on the topics and objectives, you aren't responsible for it." They have said this LITERALLY 1000 times. So for our most recent test we get the powerpoints and notice there is an additional 60 slides of information that covers content NOT on the Topics and Objectives sheet. When questioned, their response was "you need to be familiar with it." So we asked, is it going to be tested on, because it's not on the Topics and Objectives. We were again told, "You are responsible for what's on the T&O sheet." So we asked again...why the extra slides, are we being tested on it? Their answer..."you need to be familiar with it." Was that information on the test... you bet your *** it was.

Little things like this seem trivial...but it happens A LOT! Enough to really discourage you. Just do your best to get YOURSELF through the program and stay out of the politics. They have very clearly adopted the culture that there is ZERO flexibility in the way things are, despite their constant claims to the contrary.

-off the soapbox-

To answer your question, yes I can dig up my book list. But I can tell you right now, you won't need hardly any of it. I will post it and try to give better info on what to get, especially being transition students. You may only need 3 books. Don't waste your 1500 bucks on buying all that crap. And yes. It's crap.

Also, you will need grey scrubs. And yes, you will be in them first semester and will be in clinical first semester. For sure. As I mentioned before, the first week or two are kinda hectic, but they jump right into lecture and your in clinicals by week 4.

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