nanagose

Hi everyone, I am an RN just hired for my first camp nursing job this summer (8 week camp). My contract states that I will be paid in a lump sum upon completion of the camp. I've never had a job that paid this way before, and I was just wondering if anyone can give some insight. Is this normal in the camp nursing world? Thanks in advance!

To get the cards, fill in the online form here: http://www.state.nj.us/lps/ca/nursing/inforequest.htm They will send them to you via mail. Take them to your local police station and have them fingerprint you (at my station, it had to be done with real ink rather than electronically - make sure they don't do them electronically for you unless you've made sure that they will print out on the cards correctly!) I returned the cards in a big envelope with the rest of my application. Good luck, this process took a long time for me and was a big headache! The phone menus they have are awful and you might have to go through many menus to find what you want. If you keep getting answering machines, you can try doing what I did - go into menus that don't apply to you, hang up every time you hit an answering machine, and then call again and try a different menu. Eventually, you will get a real person that can transfer you to (or better yet, give you the direct number for) the person handling your file. The woman who does the endorsements is very nice but getting to her is tricky! I hope this helped :)

Whether it's during school or after, that preparation you are talking about has to take place in a hospital, at the bedside. The hospitals that are fighting back about having to provide additional preparation to graduate nurses might want to take a hard look at how they treat the nursing *students* that come to their hospitals for clinical rotations. It's hard to get the needed amount of experience when hospitals are antsy about allowing nursing students to do real nursing work. At one hospital, we weren't even allowed to chart. What are the nursing schools supposed to do to provide all of this additional, comprehensive training if there's no place to do it? Why should a hospital pay to train a new grad that they might not reap the benefits of? Because they're reaping the benefits of some other hospital's new grad when they hire any experienced nurse! There are so many posts on this board where people say, "This is an awful work environment, but I need to stay to get that year or two of experience." If hospitals want to retain their new graduates, they should either have them sign a contract (as some do) or provide a healthy and supportive work environment.

Chiming in to say that I also got into nursing school with an F on my transcript, in organic chemistry. The school didn't say anything about it and neither did I. An F never looks good, but having on in your very first semester of school right before a transfer isn't too bad. Lots of people have a rocky transition into college. I'd second Meredith in saying that you should take another math class at your new school and make *sure* you do well. That leaves plenty of room for admissions to assume that you had a bad first semester and bounced back once you transferred to a better fit.

I'm having a little bit of the same problem since a lot of online job applications require you to type all that information in the little boxes. Once you put down *some* information for an employer, it wants everything! One application wouldn't let me move forward to the next part until I put a US state and phone number for a job I had in Athens, Greece!! If I don't have a phone number or boss's name, I just write down the department I worked for in that box and put a nonsense phone number. There's usually some kind of box where you can write a little note that says, "This company no longer exists," or whatever you need to. Like the sparrow said, what can you do? You can't change the past, and I think it's definitely possible to sell a non-nursing employment history, customer service jobs especially. Many jobs have skill sets that are applicable to nursing.

Some complaints that people have about Drexel are that the administration can be uncooperative and the program is very intense. I had a positive experience like some others here, and I thought that most of the whining was a little silly. I had a rough go with the administration when I was applying, but it was mostly smooth sailing from then on. I thought the professors were good and fair. I thought the workload was doable. For the OP, I can't imagine much of a difference between the two programs in how intense they are since a year is short for a nursing program - some people have problems with it and some people don't. Mostly it's a matter of educating yourself about whatever program you choose and for Pete's sake, **read** the student handbook!! Because none of us have done both programs, it's hard to help you with fit. Beyond what everyone has said about early assurance programs, are there other points of comparison you are looking at?

This thread is now huge! But I don't think anyone has answered you yet. In my first degree, I tested out of "English 101" and ended up taking a couple of upper level English classes... "Historical Fiction," stuff like that. Not sure exactly which they picked to use as my prereq, but it went through just fine. I think they accepted a performance class for my communication course. Especially with the non-science stuff, I don't think they are too picky. My first school was on the quarter system, and I was convinced that Drexel would try and fight me on the quarter->semester conversions, but they didn't.

I probably spent about $1200 for the whole year. You don't need all the books that they "require," and lots of the textbooks are on reserve at the library. Use your judgment and be careful about buying all the books on the syllabus until you can tell what you'll really need. Christina

My school has emphasized clinical hours and skills, but it just depends on where you end up. Some hospitals are better than others in terms of "letting" students do things. I've worked with some nurses who didn't want a student to touch their patient with a ten foot pole - one CNA didn't want students bathing her patients! Come on! I did my first blood sugar reading this semester, and I'm graduating in two weeks. Most hospitals I did clinicals at either had policies that didn't allow students to do them, or the machines required a passcode. I love doing skills and was eager to get new ones under my belt - but when it takes me three times as long as a seasoned nurse to put in a Foley for the first time, who is going to stand there and supervise me? My instructor has 5 or 6 other students. The nurses are way overworked as it is. Luckily this semester I was at an institution with a heavy focus on nursing education, and the nurses took the time to step aside so that I could do skills even though they could do them twice as fast. But that's a lot to ask. Skills are important (never emptying a foley bag, bzuh???), but so are other things. You can teach someone how to do a blood glucose check in two minutes. Dealing with wide gaps in nursing knowledge or poor critical thinking skills is a lot stickier. If she actually *has* observed skills many times before, she should be ready to do them herself without much teaching.

It's frustrating. I did my anatomy and physiology separately, but in the end the anatomy class wasn't counted as having enough of a lab. I couldn't find a school that offered just plain anatomy with a real lab, so I ended up going to my local community college and retaking the classes as A&P I and A&P II with lab. An annoying waste of time and money, but what can you do? I know that most schools won't count an online class as having a lab, although I considered Rochester's accelerated program and remember that they DID accept some online classes as prereqs (can't remember exactly which though since I ultimately did not apply). The good thing is that most schools don't expect you to have ALL the prereqs done when you apply. It seems like you have most of them done, so that should count in your favor. Keep us posted!

This is key!!! An 87% on a HESI is not the same as an 87% on a regular test. You can get several questions wrong (out of 55) and still walk away with a 99% on the HESI subject tests. So appearances can be very misleading when it comes to HESI scores. The exit HESI requirement is a thorny issue for some, but I like it. I've heard of scenarios where nursing students at other schools get their BSN and then cannot pass NCLEX, rendering their degree pretty much useless. The exit HESI reassures me that Drexel won't "let me go" until they know I'll be a competent grad nurse able to pass boards. I know a fair amount of people that have dropped or will pick up with the next cohort - some from failing classes, others because they couldn't deal with the demands of the program (ie, they HAD to work and most people could never do both), but a lot of it is about being honest with yourself about your study habits/time management skills and being willing to buckle down when you get here. Overall, I'd second AugustRain - my experience has been generally positive.

All of the classes award letter grades. Clinical courses have more credit hours attached to them and carry more weight in the cumulative GPA than, say, an ethics or informatics class. However, there are assignments within each course that are P/NP. You must pass these to pass the class, and what is considered "pass" will vary (most of the time it's a 76, but we've had to pass assignments with 85s before). Those tend to be assignments that your clinical or lab instructor grades - the rationale is that each instructor will be a bit different with grading and it wouldn't be fair to a student that had a more harsh instructor. Clinical is also P/NP. The upside of this is that some instructors really ARE more harsh. Also, it enables you to bang out silly little assignments with less effort so that you can concentrate on more important things. The downside is that there isn't anything padding your grade - if you don't do well on your exams and quizzes, there's usually nothing else to save you. You may spend a lot of time preparing for a pass/fail practical exam and it never gets factored into your grade. Lots of people here don't like that.

My first degree was in psych. Halfway through my program, I realized I wanted to go to nursing school, but my university didn't offer a nursing major. I figured transferring would add on another year to my education anyway and I was having a great experience at the college I was at, so I decided to do a one-year accelerated BSN program. I love my psych degree! I had never really intended on "using" it, because I was been pre-med before I made the switch to pre-nursing. But I got a pretty sweet temporary job out of my psych degree, and all of my friends from the department are doing interesting things now as well. I can't see myself going into anything psych-related in the long-term (maybe a psych floor for a liiiittle while, to try it!), but the skills and knowledge I got from that degree have been useful in clinicals so far.

What kind of information are you looking for? I'm at Drexel's 11 month program, and I like it. Many people don't. It's intense and challenging - a LOT of information to cram into 11 months. My first degree was demanding and on the quarter system as well, and this isn't any worse than that was. I actually like the fast pace - keeps me on my toes!! It's hard to do in 11 months, but it is saving me time and money which is why I chose it. You can't work at the same time and it helps if you don't have many commitments (although there are people getting through the program with spouses, kids, mortgages, etc). It all depends on what you're used to and what you can set aside in order to do the program. What schools are you considering?

I wouldn't say there was inflation or deflation with grades. The means on tests hover around a B, so I'd consider that an average grade. There is no curve, but the professors will throw out questions if certain ones don't test well (meaning, the few people that got it right aren't the people with the highest grades). You have to get a 76 in each class to "pass" it so it's impossible for grades to go too low!! (I'm assuming you've also heard about the weed-out rate?) I have lots of friends with nearly straight A's - it's not impossible. I've known people that have bombed exams and failed out of the program entirely, and people that have gotten 100's. There are some very high GPAs here. Most people in the program are interested in getting more advanced degrees down the line. Your chances of doing well increases if you are realistic about what you're getting yourself into, have fewer commitments than other people, and are used to a certain level of academic rigor. You need good study skills and the ability to adjust your style of thinking to "nursing-type" questions to get through the program with a good GPA.