Pasadena City College

Nurses General Nursing

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Hello, I was just accepted into the nursing program at pasadena city college. I was wondering if anyone here went to that college and had any advice for the coming semesters there? If anyone here could give me any advice I would greatly appreciate it.

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I went to Pasadena City College back in 1978. I was too stupid to stay in school though, so it would be almost 15 years before I went back to school.:banghead:

My best friend from hs graduated from there and now many years later is a nurse practitioner.

Sorry not what you asked but I got excited! I have only heard good things about the nursing program.

Best of luck,

Callisue

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Hey there ! I went to PCC for my gen eds, but didn't get accepted into their program. Got accepted to State instead. My friend is doing her nursing at PCC and has shared to me that her instructors are unfair, and that the program is tough. Sorry I don't want to scare you, but that's what I heard. Hopefully they've hired some new teachers by now. This was 2 years ago. So...beware I guess. Hope it works out.

If i had a decent GPA and a choice I would do the State program.

Let me know what you think.

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There's not a whole lot you can do to prepare for nursing school, I think. Many of the things that will take up all of your time aren't things you can get done ahead ahead of time (eg writing patient care plans, writing up a case study). I'm not sure if studying ahead (nursing texts, pharmacology) would be helpful or not. It couldn't hurt to flip through such books (libraries may have nursing texts) just to get a feel for it.

I personally could've used more hands on experience with patients and exposure to the clinical environment so volunteering on a hospital unit, taking a CNA course, and/or getting a job in a clinical environment at a hospital would've been useful for me. I think having more of that kind of experience might've allowed me to get more out of the first clinical rotations. I worked as a aide starting the summer after my first year and then part-time through the next school year. It was a great experience for me.

I would just say to not expect the school to tell you exactly what to expect or what is expected of you every step of the way. From my experience, and it looks like many other people's experience, many programs throw tons of material at you, ask you to turn in assignments without clear guidelines of expectations, and leave it up to even the newest of students to make the most of their clinical experiences. I personally had expected more structure and guidance at least for the first two terms. I'd like to think that if my expectations for the program had matched the reality more, that I would've been better able to take advantage of being a student - cuz it goes by fast!

And I didn't realize how unique nursing test questions would be and probably could've used a NCLEX review book just to familiarize myself with these types of questions, instead of it taking 2-3 tests with lower scores to figure out that nursing tests were different than anything I'd seen before.

Otherwise, use your time before school starts to enjoy yourself, spend time with friends/family, and take care of business, cuz nursing school gets busy fast!

Good luck on your new adventure!!

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Specializes in Operating Room, Med-Surg, Home Care.

Congratulations!

I graduated from PCC RN program 15 years ago and feel I got a good foundation for my nursing practice.

We were sucessful in the program by taping the lectures, transcribing them, and using review books, I think one of them was Lippencott, for example "the patient with a hip fracture" was one of the chapters. This gave you many questions to answer, along with rationales, which made the tests easy to take.

Good luck on your clinicals, and always be proud of the PCC program. Take care- Suzanne:nurse:

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