palmelau

Hi, I am also currently a junior nursing student at OHSU. To build upon the last response, you start out in the program with a lot of class time, but as the program progresses, you spend more and more time in clinical. There are about eight hours of in-class lecturing for the winter and spring terms of the junior year compared to about 16 hours when you start in summer term. The workload for the summer is a lot of fun, but it will keep you busy. As mentioned, there is an Assessment class w/lab, pharmacology, plus these two health promotions classes. The classes mainly consist of lecturing (professor talking, you writing). Grades are mostly based on exams and projects/papers. There are also usually projects for clinical as well. Clinicals are very hands-on by the time you are in winter/spring term. For the first year, all of the clinicals are in the Portland area. For immersion in the senior year, there is a chance for placement in a Salem hospital (it may change year to year, though), but you would still need to travel to the Portland campus for lecture classes, etc. As far as for the commute, it is almost necessary to take Trimet (the public transportation). It costs about $10 a day to park up at OHSU (or about $1 an hour) and the parking patrole is intense (I should know, I have been issued a $40 ticket). Trimet is very good, though, and there are park and rides all over the area. OHSU offers students/employees discounted year-round Trimet passes. The price changes every year, but for this year the cost was abou $200 (compared to about $600-$700 without the discount). There are also numerous different bus lines that run up to OHSU. I should mention that there is a woman in our class that also commutes from Salem and she hasn't complained much. It must not be too bad. I hope this helps and good luck on getting into the program! It is a lot of fun and A LOT of work, but it is worth it because you will probably learn more in this program than you will in your whole life!!!