rjsalimi

Welcome to Texas. I moved to Houston from SD in 1981. FYI- I don't miss the snow at all!:)

Rachel, Congrats and get ready for the ride of your life. I'm just finishing the second semester of an ADN program. The biggest and most important thing you can do NOW is start to get your home life organized. Do a major house cleaning and get rid of the clutter. Plan meals ahead and let the family know how important this is to you. ORGANIZE,ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats to all that were accepted into Kingwood. It's a great program. You'll attend the spring semester and have the summer off and start up again in the fall. Also, somebody asked about drug screens at Kingwood. At kingwood, they did the screening during one of our lectures early on. Some company was there when we arrived for class.

Pharm is not a prereq. We had a handful of people take it the first semester while taking nursing classes. I took mine the semester before I was accepted into the program. Did you send your transcripts to Lone star for evaluation from HCC? This is very important! LOnestar goes strictly by points as far as who's accepted. About half of my classes were taken many years ago out of state. Unless they've changed something in the past year, all that is requiered at Lonestar is the Hesi (math & reading only). Hope this helps

2 evenings and one all day clinical. I'm not sure that's considered full time. It's 3 different classes. Lecture (2nights), Lab(1 night after the lecture), Clinical (1 day for 10 hours). I work full-time also so if I'm not at work or in class, than I'm studying. They own us for the whole 4 semesters that's for sure but they told us that from the get go. They weren't kidding, it's true.

Lecture is on Tuesday (5pm-7:00pm) and on Wednesday (5pm-8:00pm) We have one lab a week. Some have lab on Tues (7-9pm) and others had it on Wed (8-10pm). We chose which day we wanted our clinical. The choices were M/Th/FR/or Sat. Good luck and feel free to ask me any questions.

If I remember correctly, they opened up the application period July 15 and it lasted 2 months. We recieved acceptance letters in mid-November. It seemed like an eternity. As far as a study guide for the reading, when I took my Hesi , there was a another lady there who had scored low on a previous attempt so had purchased a study guide for the reading section. After the Hesi that day, she was really bumbed because she had scored even lower this time around. This is my take on the reading portion of the hesi and why it does trip people up. Maybe this will help you interpret the passage differently. I think when you read the passages you want to understand exactly what it is saying or asking because as nurses, when we're taking a history on the patient, we taking down exactly what their telling us and not making assumptions based on what we think the patient probably meant. Does that make sense. So in the reading section, I think their looking to make sure that you are able to do just that. Record the facts and only the facts so to speak.

Correction - the nursing central program is what cost $150.....not the ipaq.

I have an IPAQ pda with a nursing bundle program that was recommended by other nursing students. I bought it on nursingcentral.com. It cost about 150 when I bought it in January. It's great. I don't have to drag my books to clinical with me.

I believe the point cutoff was 11.4 for the Spring 2009. From what I hear, it was a little lower the year before so it's getting a bit more competative each year. My group did our clinicals for the first semester at Health South Rehab. The hospitals that we may be doing the next clinicals at are Kingwood, Herman , LBJ, and a couple others. We won't know till later in the summer. There are 60 slots available. 30 on days and 30 on evenings. Most of the night students are parents of kids ranging in age of 1-23. Some have 3, 4, 5, or even 6 kids. So it can be done. Speaking for myself, I wish I would have done this when my kids were little. It probably would have made a huge difference financially in the end. YOu'd have to make sacrifices but it'd be for the better in a very short time. That's my opinion.

Yes, they had calculators there. Do what I did in regards to practicing the math and you'll be fine. The reading is what trips people up. I know your probably thinking, I know how to read and whats the big deal. I don't know that you can really study for the reading.......just remember, don't over analyze! I'm in the evening program and saturday clinicals. During orientation they told us to have our lives in order and be ready to hit the floor running. They weren't kidding. Every 2 weeks we had a test from our lecture class. It usually covered anywhere from 8-17 chapters each time. We had lab tests weekly. We had weekly care plans in clinical also. If you work and/or have a family, there is time for nothing but studying. I had no idea it would be this difficult but am keeping my eye on the ball. The teachers are fantastic and there is so much available resources to study from wether on line or in the library and here actually that there is no way you can fail unless you really don't study. We did our clinicals in a rehab center this first semester so we had alot of older folks with hip fractures and the what not. We did what the nurse assistants did and worked our way up to what the RN's did including giving meds, bandage changes, etc. No injections or pain meds though. Next semester we will be in the hospitals starting with peds, L&D, med/surg. We're very excited about it! I hear its alot harder next semester as we were just learning the foundation of nursing this semester. Tonight is the last of our finals and I'm looking forward to watching the rockets game after that and just chilling out for a couple days, cleaning the house, getting caught up on stuff and than break out the books. We've already saw the syllabus for next semester and its more of the same. Hope this helps, good luck!

Kyla, I am just finishing my first semester in the ADN program at Kingwood. I was worried about the HESI also due to the fact I'd been out of school for 25+ years. What I did was copy the Hesi. The math and reading. There are several math problems in it. I just did the problems over and over until I kept getting the right. I did this one evening or two. Than the morning of the HESI I kept doing them again also. It was pretty basic. Don't take the reading section for granted though. DO NOT read too much into the passages that they give. Do not assume anything. Good luck.

Pink, I understood that our lab quiz is on line - module 1 (I haven't been able to acces it yet, it's locked or somethin)and our next lecture test is the week of 2/8 and it'll be over assessment and pschyosocial or whatever is indicated on the calender, I don't have it in front of me right now. I could be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time

Hi Pink, OMG, I can't believe all the homework. I have my first clinical on Saturday at Health South. I'm a little nervous though but I'm sure that's normal. And your right, we're all busy but need to drop a line in here every once in awhile.

Everything I own is second hand except for the recliner that our kids and myself bought my husband for X-mas. With that said, I'd buy a new sofa (replacing the futon) and a matching love seat. Also would by a bedroom set to replace the set we picked up at a hotel sale. Maybe even a computor chair to replace the one that my 2 sons pieced together from 2 chairs they found in a dumpster after hurrican Ike. That's about it for now.