GoldenBear2

Got a call this morning that I got the job! Woohoo! Anyway, just wondering if there are others out there who got calls... would love to exchange contact info or possibly meet up before we start in a month! Yay!

lunaflaura, I can speak from my experience at San Mateo campus that you will have to drive. A lot of clinical rotations were 3-11p (you probably wont get night shift unless it's for your preceptorship). You may be able to set up a carpool with classmates, but having a car will be less stress for you in the end. I am not sure what clinical sites the SF campus currently uses, but they have used Marin General, Kaiser Santa Clara, Lucille Packard, Mills-Peninsula, and Children's Oakland in the past.

Rachel, it's been four months and no one has answered your original question! I just finished the ABSN on the peninsula, and I did hold a job for the whole year. I wouldn't recommend working to everyone; I think it really depends on the person and the kind of job it is and how much you make doing it. For me, school is pretty easy (I'm not trying to be a snob, just want to be truthful so that you can make the right decision for yourself!), so I did not spend a ton of time reading and studying. Others in my class read and studied all of the time; you probably have a decent idea of how much you study and should weigh that into your decision. Also, what kind of job are you planning to hold? I kept a per diem position at a hospital I had worked at for three years, so my manager knew me well and had a good idea of exactly how available I would be throughout the year. Some months I didn't work at all, other months I worked a lot. I had a lot of flexibility with scheduling work; it really only averaged out to three days each month (which almost covered my rent, so it was worth it!). I think flexibility with your schedule is the biggest issue, since your schedule will change every five weeks or so. All days of the week are fair game in nursing school, so think about how it will affect your job if your clinicals are F/S/Su evenings (yes, it's a possibility!). If your job ever becomes a priority over nursing school, you need to quit! If you are working because you need the money, I would just get the loan. Keep a job b/c you enjoy it or want the work experience, not because you need to eat or pay rent... it will stress you out too much! Hope that helps! And, to casey11... hopefully the job market turns around before your class graduates. Only a few people from our class have jobs, and only a few more than that have even interviewed. A lot of us are looking into moving out-of-state!

Ditto on what NewestRN said... I called nurse recruitment yesterday and they said that we have to wait three weeks! So I guess that means we'll hear by 6/26 or so.

I'm glad you asked! You need to be prepared to travel to clinicals, and you also have to be prepared to "not get what you want" all the time. That means that a clinical site might be 5 miles from you, but they would rather have two people travel 30 miles each than have one travel 5 and the other travel 60. Each campus decides clinical assignments differently, though; I was at the Peninsula campus, and, except for our first couple assignments, the faculty left it up to our class to determine a decision making process and make assignments. I did clinicals at Mills-Peninsula, El Camino, Kaiser Santa Clara, Kaiser Redwood City, and San Francisco General. Other sites included: San Mateo Medical Center, Kaiser San Jose, and Kaiser Hayward, plus we were offered rotations at Children's Hospital Oakland, Kaiser SF, and Marin General, but those were all either cancelled or not enough students had interest. I believe the more recent classes have rotations at Valley Med and Good Samaritan as well. If you are thinking about the Peninsula campus, then do be prepared to be in the south bay a lot! For senior preceptorship, you do get to request your unit and hospital... I would say that at least half of us got nearly exactly what we asked for.

If that is the case, definitely show admissions how your degree/job/past experiences have uniquely prepared you to be a nurse. Relate your current job to nursing. I would also say that there is a difference in the learning curve for students who have exposure to the hospital/healthcare and those who do not before beginning the program. Everyone ends up at the same place after the first clinical class, but do be prepared to work harder during that first clinical because you will be working in an unfamiliar environment and learning a whole new "language". If you've never worked in a hospital, think about getting a medical terminology book or taking a class.

Just to clarify... they don't really formally "review" pharm and patho, but there is ample time to solidify your knowledge as the program goes on. One of the instructors used to give a pharm quiz on the first day of the program and stopped because the results were too depressing. As for jobs, you pretty much need your license before being hired right now. Probably 5/45 of my class are starting a job this summer; the rest of us are still looking!

One of the HR reps did say that she will open all official transcripts and will verify GPAs... not sure if that clarifies any of the GPA confusion, but it does seem as if they check. Whether they care if it's a 3.2 or 3.5, I'm not sure! As for waiting two weeks for a letter, my interviewer specifically told me to call if I don't hear within a week; I am planning to call Friday (I interviewed 6/4) if they don't contact me first, and I'll let y'all know what they say (if I am able to talk to anyone at all!).

I just finished the ABSN. To those of you worried about your patho & pharm knowledge (or lack there of!)... you do not need to feel comfortable with this material to do well in the ABSN at SMU. You will learn it as you go. The instructors do not expect you to know everything (at least the instructors I had). What did help, or at least I felt it did, was really having a solid A&P foundation... I took both of those classes the year before starting, so it was all still fresh in my mind. If for some reason you do really want to take pharm again, I have heard good things about the on-campus Foothill-DeAnza pharmacology class. And, since someone will ask: Undergrad GPA 2.7, Science GPA 3.3, NET 94, TONS of undergrad leadership, and 2 years non-nursing acute care experience. If I have one suggestion, that would be to get healthcare experience, whether it be work, internships, volunteering, etc. Barely anyone in my class was without it!

Hey! I started a new thread for people who interviewed at Cedars to continue the conversation... "Cedars-Sinai New Grad Summer 09".

Hey everyone! Just thought we could start a thread for those of us who interviewed for Cedars-Sinai's new grad program this past week.

I felt really comfortable. I had two managers interview me at the same time, so it felt more like a conversation than a Q & A. I felt a bit though like I didn't have enough time to answer the questions; if I paused at all, they would kind of just cut me off and ask the next question. I did see the first page of the score sheet of the person ahead of me (I'm not a snoop, but it was just laying there on the table in front of me), and she got mostly 5's. So, either she was amazing, or they weren't that harsh with the scoring.

I am finishing up school this month, but back when I was starting to look at nursing school options, Napa Valley College and Solano College (both community colleges) both admitted from a waiting list. I don't know if they have changed their policies in the last year or two, but the waitlists were both approaching 3-4 years when I was looking. Just a little plug for SMU... I know the tuition is A LOT and having that much debt is scary, but if you can get in there two or so years before you would get in off a wait list somewhere else, you'll not only finish earlier, but probably pay off most of your debt by the time you would have graduated from the other school. Anyway, some other advice: do look into schools long before you plan to apply, do well in your prerequisites the FIRST time you take them (some schools penalize applicants for retaking classes), research prereq's and take the one's that count for as many schools as possible (ie: don't take the 4 unit physio class only to find out that the school of your dreams only accepts a 5 unit course...), and get ORGANIZED! You'd think the community college system would have figured out a centralized application process for all this nonsense by now, but alas, they all have different rules, so pay attention. Oh, and good luck! Getting into a school is the hardest part!

I went to Cedars for the open house last week. They told me that they would hire 100 people, but they have been hosting open houses all year, so I suspect that some of those spots may already be taken. The managers I interviewed with said that they will get back to us in a week, and if you don't hear anything, you should call HR to ask. Hope that helps! 1700, really! Not surprised at all, but geez! When I signed in at the open house, it didn't look like they were interviewing more than 20 people each half hour, so that 1700 was probably cut down to about 500-600. The odds there sound a lot better :)

Yep, it's Friday... sorry! It's been a long week :)