Ok Class of 2017, Where are you??

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Hello my fellow nursing students. I will be starting my nursing classes on July 6. That's only 12 days from now! :nailbiting: I'm both excited and nervous. We had our first orientation yesterday, well it was more like a meet and greet. I have been on YouTube all day looking at videos on nursing school supplies. So I will be starting my school shopping this week. When did you get your school supply list? I was hoping to get mine at orientation, but nope no list! I hope that we can keep each other encouraged through the process. Congratulations to everyone who got accepted into the program.

I start in September! Seems like such an odd month to start.

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I start in September! Seems like such an odd month to start.

Well purple you ARE an oddball so it makes sense tee hee

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Well purple you ARE an oddball so it makes sense tee hee

:sniff:

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Specializes in CCU, CVICU, CVRU, Cardiac Cath Lab, RRT.

I start an ADN program on August 17th, 2015. We had orientation last week. I would like to just share my experiences so far as I know how hard it can be when you are waiting and want to know what it could be like.

There were several early deadlines after my acceptance into the program in February. I had to complete all of the medical stuff and paperwork by April and order my scrubs by July. We have a white lab jacket, white tops and navy pants for our uniforms. I am very pleased with everything except the jacket, which has enormous sleeves. I already had white shoes from my CNA training and a BP cuff. In addition to the scrubs, I bought a Littmann Lightweight (Has not arrived yet, hope I will not regret going lightweight!), a pen light, bandage scissors, a clipboard that has storage inside (from Walmart), school supplies, etc.

I have most of my textbooks. So far, I have spent about $300. Here they are: Ogden and Fluharty Calculation of Drug Dosages (9nth Ed.), Taylor, Lillis and Lynn Fundamentals of Nursing (8nth Ed.) and Davis's Drug Guide For Nurses (14nth Ed.). I still have yet to purchase a bundle at the bookstore with contains all of the online materials as well as an e-text version of the main book. In addition to the required books, I purchased the following based on my personal inclinations: Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (22nd Ed.), RNotes (4th Ed.) and Lab Notes (2nd Ed.). Most of my materials are new. The drug guide and dictionary came with free online materials for a year, so I opted for new as opposed to used. I am so glad that I got the dictionary and pocket guides because they have a lot of good reference materials. It gets crazy when you have 20 tabs open in your internet browser, so a book can be nice. We are going to be using Kaplan throughout the program, so I assume that I will have to pay for that too.

As far as orientation goes, it went well. We meet our faculty, learned about the expectations for our program, received the nursing student handbook, filled out paperwork, had a drug screen and background check, registered for class and lab and discussed the possible clinical rotations and schedules. The most beneficial part of orientation for me was hearing our first semester professor talk about our fundamentals of nursing class, lab and clinical. We do have reading assignments prior to the first week of class (about 4 chapters from the main text and 8 chapters from the drug dosage book). There is also online orientation for the two main healthcare providers who will be hosting our clinicals. 3 upper classmen came and shared their experiences in the program so far and some advice. I wish they had shared more and that there had been more of them. It was such a brief time that no one got warmed up enough to ask them any questions. There is a mentoring program that the upper classmen are having for the lower classmen, so I am looking forward to participating in that. We received our clinical schedules 5 days after orientation. We don't have clinicals until the 3rd week of the semester. From there on out, we meet once a week for clinical. I will be at the local hospital which is only 15 minutes away. I already work as a CNA in the long term care facility there; so it should be a somewhat familiar environment.

Excited to be part of the class of 2017. Best wishes to everyone! You all will do great!

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3 upper classmen came and shared their experiences in the program so far and some advice. I wish they had shared more and that there had been more of them. It was such a brief time that no one got warmed up enough to ask them any questions. There is a mentoring program that the upper classmen are having for the lower classmen, so I am looking forward to participating in that. We received our clinical schedules 5 days after orientation. We don't have clinicals until the 3rd week of the semester. From there on out, we meet once a week for clinical. I will be at the local hospital which is only 15 minutes away. I already work as a CNA in the long term care facility there; so it should be a somewhat familiar environment.

Excited to be part of the class of 2017. Best wishes to everyone! You all will do great!

We had 2nd semester students at our orientation too. I, however, was unafraid and bombarded them with questions, lol. Thankfully, they left that part for last, so it didn't seem hurried at all.

The first 2/3 weeks are called frontloading at our school, they teach and assess all basic skills. Clinicals for us this semester are 2 days, 6 hours each day. 3rd week one day of clinicals we have orientation at our site and the other day we have our first rotation!

The first 6 weeks are at an LTC location and the other 6 weeks are at Med Surge. Thankfully this semester both locations are less than 15 minutes from me.

I WAS super excited to start. Now that I have 34 days left, the fear is creeping in. I'm watching videos of skills and assessments and all I think is "how in the world am I supposed to remember ALL of that plus what I know will be crammed into lecture!". Simultaneously excited and terrified now. I have been watching ALOT of YouTube videos which includes *extra* supplies people have like :mini notebooks to jot things down in clinicals, wet naps, I'm getting a foldable clipboard I saw on Amazon that fits into scrubs when folded, etc.

I think I'm going to just give up my "image" and get a rolling backpack for lectures, lol. Our parking lot is a good 2 blocks from school and I'm not trying to kill my back.

I'm really excited that they made us take an intro to nursing class over the summer that covered legal aspects, history, and theories, so it seems to me that we will be jumping right in when we do start.

I'm jumping out of my skin with excitement, and yet trying to remember to enjoy these last 5 weeks of freedom.

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I will be c/o December '17! If I get accepted...the deadline is in three days but we won't find out til mid September. I've applied to UTHSCSA in San Antonio Tx.

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I start in late August! Did anyone buy any books to help with test taking skills? Also what schools supplies do you think I am missing? so far i have binders, pens, paper, highlighters, flash cards, notebooks and a planner?

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I start in late August! Did anyone buy any books to help with test taking skills? Also what schools supplies do you think I am missing? so far i have binders, pens, paper, highlighters, flash cards, notebooks and a planner?

Tabs for our endless textbooks? White out, stapler, 3 hole-hole puncher for print outs, folders

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Specializes in OMFS, Dentistry.

About to start year two of a three year part time program. Enjoy!! Wishing you all the best!

Any of the success books will help. They are great supplements to your textbooks. Those and review books by Mary Ann Hogan. I found her books to be amazing as well.

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Specializes in CCU, CVICU, CVRU, Cardiac Cath Lab, RRT.
We had 2nd semester students at our orientation too. I, however, was unafraid and bombarded them with questions, lol. Thankfully, they left that part for last, so it didn't seem hurried at all.

Good for you! It makes much more sense to have them come at the end. At our orientation, the upperclassmen came towards to middle before we had heard anything about our schedule, fundamentals class, upcoming semester etc. There probably would have been more questions and less rush at the end. That being said, when next year's orientation rolls around, I think I will volunteer to be one of the upperclassmen who talks to the incomers.

Enjoy your clinical rotations! It is nice that you get to go to two places. I am supposed to have one day at another, bigger facility in the OR, which should be interesting.

Also, make the most of your 5 weeks, I only have 2.5 weeks left and one of those will be spent at the beach. I have so much to do! Best wishes to you.

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I start in late August! Did anyone buy any books to help with test taking skills? Also what schools supplies do you think I am missing? so far i have binders, pens, paper, highlighters, flash cards, notebooks and a planner?

Do you have a laptop and printer?

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Tabs for our endless textbooks? White out, stapler, 3 hole-hole puncher for print outs, folders

Yep, all of the above!

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