Need online graduate courses- any suggestions?

[Jonesli]

I am waiting to hear if I have been accepted to a Nurse Anesthesia MSN program (I interviewed yesterday). While at the interview, I spoke with several current students and they STRONGLY recommended that I take the three courses that are required co-requisites before I begin the program to lighten my load a little. My problem is that the university near me does not offer these classes to anything other than their own accepted graduate students. So, I either have to drive an hour and a half each way (weekly) to the university I will be attending next year (despite working FT ICU and having a 1 1/2 year old) for these courses or find someplace that offers them online (preferably not University of Phoenix). The courses are: NUR 610 - Theoretical Foundations of Advanced Nursing Practice, NUR 602 - Research Methods in Nursing, and NUR 620 - Law, Policy and Economics of Healthcare. Anyone know of schools offering these as graduate level courses online? Thanks in advance!

[Moogie]

There are schools that would admit you as an undeclared student so you could take your theory, health care policy, and research from them and transfer to the school you're considering.

I hear what you're saying about the commute, your full-time job, and your family responsibilities. You could apply to other graduate schools as an undeclared student with the intention of transferring courses to the school you're considering. Do make sure that you can transfer in the courses before you do this, though. Some programs are very particular about what they'll transfer in and what they won't accept for transfer.

The only other concern I would have is that in many programs, you lay the foundation for your master's thesis or project in your research class. That could be a huge disadvantage to you if you took research at one school and completed your degree elsewhere. Health care policy is another course that can be tricky. I wanted to transfer the health care policy and finance course I had taken elsewhere but was given a huge hassle by the director of one school who said that her class was health care policy, finance, and ethics. She turned it down before even looking at my syllabus. I ended up going elsewhere and not even bothering to try to transfer the course because of the earlier hassle I had. (Though I have been fortunate and my current grad program has allowed me to transfer in several credits as electives. Yay!)

There are many brick-and-mortar universities that offer online classes so you should not have too much trouble finding a program at which you could take these courses---as long as they will transfer to the school at which you're doing the nurse anesthesia program.