HelloRose

After a phone interview, the hospital is flying me crosscountry so I can have an in person meeting with the manager and do some job shadowing with the nurses on the unit. I have no illusions that this is a sure thing, but the recruiter suggested that I take one of the days while I'm there to look into housing. Is it inappropriate of me to ask if relocation assistance (I'd definitely need it if they do offer me a job...) is available for new grads since I don't have a job offer? This is all very new to me, it'd be my first real job. Thank you. :)

For the residencies, the application is just the one online, right? Am I correct in that there's no way to attach a cover letter? It seems like an awfully light application... How can I make this personal?

I don't know if you'll ever check this again but if you do, could you empty out your Pm box? I'd love to chat with you more about working at the hospital!!

Can you really only apply for one of the internship/residency positions? I'm interested in both OR and ICU but don't want to get myself on the naughty list for applying to both. Also the online application is very spartan. I can't even attach a cover letter.:uhoh21:

I'm so upset. Summer III was the reason that I pushed myself since I started NS -- when I learned about it, I thought to myself "This is what I want to do!" I had a solid application and excellent GPA, and thought that I'd add diversity to the program. I know that it, and the other 3 programs that I've applied to (and been rejected from) are ultra, ultra competitive but I'm heartbroken because I'm looking at a summer unemployed (the hospitals around here won't even hire NS to be care techs), trapped at a broken home, and likely unhirable after graduation. I have two more extern applications out but at this point, I'm giving up hope. Between this and having my car fail on me yesterday has brought me to my low point. Congrats to those who got in, I wish I knew your secrets.

Hello everybody, I'm a BSN student graduating in May of 2012 and am seriously looking at the USAF as my future. Problem is, nobody in my family has a history of any kind of military service so I have no clue about military life, let alone nursing in the military. Would any of you be willing to answer some questions I have? I have the number for the health professions recruiter for my region, but honestly, I'd like to get a more personal opinion of life in the AF before I start working on a package. You can email me at [email protected] or send me a message here. It would really mean so much to me.

My mom works tele and I had some classmates on that unit last semester so I have some insight. Its a very interesting place and you will learn a lot about all the rhythms -- my classmates know much more about cardiac than I, who worked on a surgical-oncology unit. Lots of AFib, AFlutter, heart block, MI and depending on how the facility chooses to do things, you may see a lot of cardiac cath patients. The tele unit also recieved CABG pt down from CCU, so my classmates even got to see lots of chest tubes. Figure that any pt with a condition that is related to the heart you could see. Review your cardiac drugs, especially the antidysrhythmics, nitro, and anticoagulants. In our state (and probably most others) students can't admin. IV push medications, and lots of cardiac drugs are IV push, so a common comment from my classmates was that they didn't have pts with PO meds that they could pass. I'm done with med-surg and am moving on to maternal/infant and peds... Kind of terrifying because I'm not a kid person at all.

I overnighted my application to them yesterday. My school fails at getting official transcripts out (submitted request on December 6 and I'm still waiting) so I sent it with an older transcript and my unofficial to show the grades from my last semester. I'm from California and I've been building my involvement specifically for this, so I think that my application is quite strong. Right now I'm just hoping and praying. That said, I'm distracting myself by filling out applications for two other externships and a scholarship, so that'll help keep keep my mind off of it. Good luck to us all!:heartbeat

Our school requires we pay for our ATI modules and tests each semester. It's worked out to being over $110 each semester so far, and I'm just finishing semester 2 of 6. It's a steep price to pay, especially since the only reason they added the program is because NCLEX passing rates dropped to below 70% a few years ago. Yup, the director of the school had to answer some uncomfortable questions from the BRN. That said, I really do like the modules, and last fall's NCLEX pass rate was 93%. So the the changes to the curriculum must have helped somehow, though the expense is a very pretty penny to pass onto students. EDIT: Our total ATI fees (exams and modules) will end up around $500, so the number your school has quoted you seems to be accurate.

Evergreen Valley College is also lottery. A friend of mine from SJSU was rejected at SJSU so she applied at EVC and got in on her first try. Then again some people wait at EVC for a few years, so your experience may vary. SJSU has no waitlist or lottery per se, but it is all merit based so provided your prereqs are done with a high enough GPA you're in. ~60 are accepted every fall and spring semesters. Another option for you would get your LVN from any vocational school then do an LVN to RN bridge program. HTH and good luck :)

Thank you everybody for your expertise! I think I'm going to go for it -- if the book does happen to be missing some pages, I'll just ask my friends if I could borrow their books for an hour or so. I also sent the seller an email asking about the pictures but my mind has been mostly been made up by now. :) Haha, awesome! When I was doing the math last night, I determined that I'd be able to get all of the required books (I'm choosing to NOT get any of the recommended books) online through ebay or half or Amazon for LESS than what my school is charging for a bundle of TWO new books! Do you think using older editions of books would be okay? One class has two books that are new editions (came out last summer) that I will be purchasing, but if I could get away with using an older edition that'd be awesome. :)

Hello! I have the opportunity to purchase my MedSurg book for 1/3 of what my school is offering the bundle for, but the catch is that it's the international edition. That means it's softcover and can't be resold in the US (I think). My medsurg book is one of my nursing books that I don't plan on reselling, so it seems like a win/win for me. Would you do it? This book is used for two semesters so I'm willing to forgo the online access code (not one for ebooks anyway) and I'm trying to keep costs down since my parents are buying books. :) Plus I write everywhere in my books so I'd feel less guilty about highlighting and underlining. Here's the link to the book if anybody is interested... http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Medical-Surgical-Nursing-by-Linda-Bucher-Linda_W0QQitemZ250488811207QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Nonfiction_Book?hash=item3a524beec7 ISBN# 0323036902 (7th edition)

I'm not sure about SFSU, but SJSU is a "5 year" program. That's means it's minimum 2 years prereqs, 3 years nursing classes. The nursing semesters are typically less than 14 units each, so it's not a terrible class load. They dropped their accelerated program a few years ago because funding ran out. Currently, the SoN offers a BSN, RN to BSN bridge program (2 semesters I think), and MSN. :)

I was pretty much a straight A- student with a few A here and there. Since sjsu is impacted, they take three factors into account. 1) GPA of the 5? Prereqs (anatomy, physio, chem, english, and micro). 2) gpa of last 30 units 3) teas score. That way if you goof up in one area (a c in a prereq, for example) the other areas can make it up. My teas score was something like 84, but my gpa helped make me competative. Sjsu school of nursing has a rolling admission schedule, so every fall and spring a new class is admitted. I'm not sure what admission to the university is like anymore since the university keeps placing new restrictions all the time, but if possible I would check the sjsu nursing website (http://www.sjsu.edu/nursing) and check out the group advising dates. The undergrad coordinator will present all about admission requirements for the school and the university and it was pretty helpful for me. I'd say that more than half of my class of 70 were transfer students so they are very used to answering questions about transfers.

I'm a new admit to the SJSU nursing program, and the undergrad coordinator told us at advising (when many of us were just starting our prereqs) that "You need a lot of A's, and very few B's." You need a minimum GPA of 3.0 to even submit your application, but I imagine that you're probably looking for a GPA of 3.3+ to be competitive. The school is heavily impacted so they make you jump through all sorts of hoops, but it's possible, I promise! They let me in, didn't they? The junior colleges in the area (as you found out ) are heavily slammed, so I second what mfrancisco said. Go to multiple schools if possible, and try to snag online classes for some of the GE requirements. For the sciences classes that are full, try crashing them for the first few weeks! There are always at least a few people that drop and if you're persistent and keep showing up, there's a good chance that that spot could be yours. That's how I ended up being the only freshman added to physiology, haha. Don't be afraid of it taking a while to get all the prereqs done -- it's better to take a few at a time and get good grades in those, then take all your sciences at once and do badly. I know it's kind of a scary situation for you right now, but hang in there and remember that it's one step at a time. You can do it!