Marymount or Bon Secours Nursing

[healthxo33, BSN, RN]

Hey everyone! I wanted to ask if anyone has been accepted to Marymount University's accelerated nursing program or Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing's traditional program for second degree students. They both seem like great programs, but I would love to hear your opinions or thoughts on each school. I know Marymount's is a shorter program of 4 semesters and Bon Secours is a 2.5 year program.

I am interested in knowing about the class scheduling/flexibility/clinical times.

[herwitsend]

Hey! I am happy to answer your questions about BSMCON. I am a current student there.

[healthxo33, BSN, RN]

Hello! I am interested in knowing what the course load and clinicals are like. Also would you recommend any places in terms of apartment hunting?

[herwitsend]

It is a 5 semester program. Course load is fairly heavy, but I think it is going to be that way with nursing school wherever you go. You start off with only one clinical, a lab/ hospital skills course so you spend half of the class days in the skills lab and half in the hospital. Second semester and thereafter you have 2 class days and 2 clinical days each week. There are 4 Bon Secours hospitals in the area so we have really great clinical sites and I have had fantastic experiences with all of the nurses and staff.

The college is really small, therefore you don't really have any ability to make your own schedule. You are assigned courses, times and days without being able to give any input. I think if you really had a scheduling issue they would try to work with you, but you really get close to your clinical cohort (you do clinical with the same group of 8 all the way through) and we just work our lives around our class schedule (and not the other way around).

The college does a really good job of caring for students and I am constantly impressed by their mission and how they act it out.

If I were moving to the area for school, I would look in the Near West End, Lakeside, or Mechanicsville. All of those areas are decent places to live and are close to the school. The school also has a way for students to connect for roommate situations.