B2728

another poster already commented that a shortage won't necessarily translate into higher wages or better working conditions - and this is absolutely dead on correct! think about it this way: if the powers that be can convince the american public that there is a nursing shortage crisis - the public will be more likely to back the government up and allow them to open the border to more foreign nurses, or create short, cheap educational programs that generated low skilled nurse "extenders" to take on a lot of the responsibilities. also, so long as there is a shortage, you won't be able to provide the best care possible to your patients. baby boomers will be the most influential voting block for the next 3+ decades. if they are unhappy with their care, if nurses are perceived (correctly or incorrectly) as mean, nasty, and incompetent - patients will happily vote for candidates who will hire more "grateful" foreign born nurses. it isn't human nature to stop and say, "maybe my nurse treats me badly because she's under stress and maybe i should go vote to make her working conditions better." people don't empathize when they get bad service from someone - they blame them. if patients aren't getting satisfactory care - and you're the face of that care - you're going to take the blame.

MollyDee, Curious - what was your first degree in? Did you have all the pre-requisites from your first degree or did you have to take some before applying? If so, where did you take them? Thanks!! Brandy

For the tissues, I created notecards that had one organ listed on the front. On the back - the name of the major tissue type that makes it up. I found that by just memorizing each tissue with one organ that i was somewhat familiar with - I could infer what purpose that tissue served. It made it easier to just pull it all together, and it was less overwhelming. It's kind of like a top down approach instead of the typical bottom up learning style. I then found it easier to remember the other attributes of each tissue type because I could think about what purpose it served in it's "sample organ".

Did anyone on here apply to the Duquesne 2nd degree program this year? Or is anyone currently going through the program? If yes to either - how was the application process? How difficult was it to get accepted? If you're currently in it - how is the program? Do you think you're being prepared well? Is it worth the cost? Thanks! B

so far i've had labs in physics, chem, bio, and a&p i. i can safely say i'm not a fan of the labs. the lab stuff isn't difficult, it is just immensely frustrating. maybe i'm missing the point, but i just don't seem to get much out of them - especially considering the amount of time and effort you spend. most of the time, i feel like there are too many people in lab trying to share equipment - or the equipment doesn't work correctly, or the experiment doesn't work correctly and after four hours all we get is the instructor explaining to us how it "would have looked" if everything had worked. the instructors are usually spread too thin, and we try to cram in too many things at once so you just fly through everything to get done on time. in the end it just feels like you're going through the motions. we're just repeating experiments that have already been done a million times over - we never do anything exciting. if i have to dissect one more formaldehyde pickled fetal pig, rat, or frog... this is probably a major factor for why i've never remotely considered getting a phd or doing scientific research. i really feel like they're killing student's interest in science the way they teach sometimes. i don't think i'm the first to propose this, but i really do think we need to take a look at these ancient teaching methods and see if we can't improve upon them now. why can't students devise their own experiments once in a while? or maybe this does happen elsewhere and the schools that i've attended are just behind the curve?

i had my first a&p i exam on monday. i never studied for something so thoroughly in my entire life! i thought i was going to fail, there was just too much information. then i was surprised at how easy the test actually was. i was memorizing the molecular formulas for carbs, lipids, proteins, acids and bases... but the questions about them on the actual exam were more generalized. granted, having memorized the molecular structures gave me a better overall understanding and helped me memorize other characteristics more easily, but the actual exam did not test us to this level of scrutinization. our exam consisted of approx 30 multiple choice, which basically tested us on definitions of terms. then a few short answer, which was more terminology. then about 15 short answer/essay. these were the most difficult - we had to take concepts like tonicity and homeostatis and apply them to real world scenarios. we also had to explain cell division in detail (which i studied the least because i thought it was so biology 101 that there was no way they'd put it on the exam and make us regurgitate it again!). is this pretty much everyone else's experience?

My sentiments exactly! I just started taking the pre-reqs in the hopes to gain acceptance to an accelerated 2nd degree program. For one, it seems like beyond A&P and Microbiology, every school has a different list of pre-reqs! So trying to cast a wide net is quite difficult. But putting all of your eggs in one basket is very risky. So my plan is to gather the pre-reqs for my first choice over the next year and then apply, and if I don't get in - keep taking the other pre-reqs going down the list for my second and third choices. Hopefully someday I will get in! Then it's another year of full time study (and more student loan debt). I just wish I would have started down this path in the first place! I'm so excited to move on to nursing - and I love everything I'm learning in my pre-req courses - but it just seems so far away sometimes - especially when I'm sitting in my cube just trying to make it through another day at the office. :icon_roll

I'm in my late 20s, making the career change from IT.

Nevermind, Thanks!

I currently work as a computer programmer analyst. It's stressfull, demanding, and thankless - and that's the plus side. My next job will not be "outsourceable".

...deleted

Hello, I graduated from University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Information Science in 2003. My overall GPA was 3.2. I did terrible my freshman year - but almost straight A's Soph, Junior, Sr years. Unfortunately my core science GPA is not very good. I started out pre-med and just didn't apply myself freshman year - when i took most of my classes. These were my grades (from 1999, 2000): Gen Chem I (4cr) C Gen Chem II (4cr) C O Chem (3cr) C- Physics I (3cr) B- Physic II (3cr) B Biology II (3cr) B Biology Lab (1cr) F Psychology (3cr) A- Statistics (4cr) A+ Calculus (4cr) B- Nueroscience (3cr) B- Yeah I know, an F in bio lab. That can't be good. Thankfull it was only one credit? She failed me based on my lack of attendance, but an F is an F. And Nueroscience, what the hell was I thinking? Honestly though, pretty much everything else on my transcript for the rest of my academic career is an A/B+. The C's (and F!) are freshman year. I also worked the entire time I was in school (not sure if that counts for anything). I have roughly four years of experience as a software developer (also not sure if that counts for anything). I am currently taking some of the pre-requisite courses that I don't already have (Anat&Phys, Nutrition, Pharma) at CCAC. When I've completed my pre-requisites - I'd like to apply to a second degree program (Pitt/Duquesne/?). I'm worried though, as I've read on the message boards admissions has become very competitive. From anyone who is also applying to or has applied to 2nd degree progs in Pittsburgh, how bad is my science GPA going to hurt me? Would you recommend re-taking some of the core science courses in addition to the other pre-reqs. I don't know how many courses I can really afford (time wise and financially). I continue to work full time while I'm taking classes at CCAC. And then there is the question of apples to oranges - will the admissions council say, "oh yeah you went and took Ochem at CCAC and got a B+, but we don't think that's as difficult as the course at Pitt and you got a C- there." Thanks B

hello all, when i initially went to college i started out pre-med. my freshman year of college i loaded up on science classes - did alright (b's and c's, physics, bio, chem, ochem). my priorities at the time were more about exploring my new found freedom as a young adult than studying hard. a decision i've regretted deeply since! i met with an academic advisor at the end of my freshman year who told me that b's and c's had pretty much destroyed any chance i had at going to medical school. computer science was booming - so like a lot of people i went into the profession thinking that i had limited myself to it and it was my only chance to still make a decent living (or a business major, which was even less appealing to me). i considered nursing, i had a roommate who was in the same boat i was who even tried to talk me into it - but i didn't listen to her. i let members of my family who worked in healthcare admin talk me out of it and into computer science/math. the remainder of the time in college i did well, so my gpa is 3.4, but my core science gpa is hovering around 2.8. of course, by the time i finished my bs degree in 2003, the job market for computer professionals had dropped off considerably, and even now outsourcing and hb-1 work visas continue to keep salaries stagnant. i currently work for a fortune 500 company making 60k a year, which is decent, but the work is not fulfilling and i live in constant fear of being laid off when they find a way to replace me with even cheaper foreign labor. not to mention, it seems to suffer from a lot of the same perils as nursing. we're treated like donkeys. we are salaried employees so we get no overtime pay. we supposedly have a standard 40 hour work week, but frequently get called on holidays, weekends, and evenings to fix broken systems. we also get minimal or no training, and the stuff they teach in a typical cs course in college doesn't even come close to giving you the tools you need to be a successful developer or it professional in the real world. you are just thrown into it and expected to immediately start producing if you can even find an entry level position at all. not to mention, we run with skeleton crews, have no time to be proactive or write quality software - we are lucky to meet our ridiculous deadlines with anything that even comes close to an acceptable piece of software. when you're told to write an application, given vague (or flat out wrong!) requirements about what it is even that the application is supposed to actually do, and then told to do it in two weeks when to do it well would take at least ten, of course you have no choice but to cut corners just to get it done. this leads to putting bad software out into production environments, which then in turn just leads to you getting called at 3 am by a condescending/abusive user who doesn't understand why the software sucks so bad and blames you. not to mention the loss of pride in your work from being forced to produce junk so some business manager can list it as an achievement on his annual review. they're not the ones who have to deal with the fall out - the it people are. i could go on, but this isn't allcomputerprofessionals.com, so i'll save it for that bb. lately i have been entertaining the idea of going back to school to get a second degree bsn. i was thinking i'd probably need to retake some core science courses to show that i can do well in them, and a few prerequisites that i don't currently have. i believe that i would be much happier as a nurse. i've always been drawn to the healthcare occupations and i'm convinced that the work would feel significantly more meaningful than what i am doing now. i understand that the working conditions themselves may not be an improvement over it, but all things being equal at least i'd feel like i was doing something i believed in. my fear is that the supposed "nurse shortage" is a myth, an illusion, created by someone with an agenda, just like the great "it professional shortage" was. it will take me at least two years to get the prerequisites completed, and then to (assuming i get accepted) complete an accelerated 2nd degree program. after reading this forum, it seems to me that a lot of people have had the same idea i have - to enter nursing as a second career. i don't buy into the propaganda that opportunities will be limitless and plentiful with so many people seemingly rushing into the profession all at once. it just seems all to reminiscent of what was going on in it back in the late 90's. not to mention, i already hear the whispers of opening up the border to bring in cheap, foreign born/educated nurses. for those of you entering the profession as a new graduate, and also those who are experienced and who have been through the cyclical nature of nursing, how much longer do you think the hiring boom will last? once it comes to an end, do you expect your existing salaries and jobs to be cut, or will they sustain through the dry spells, with just new hiring being cut back? i really don't want to work very hard to make the change only to find that i am in the same position (or worse, considering more student loan debt) than i am now. advise please!