guiltysins

I'd say do the internship, it'll look great on a resume when you're competing with all the new grads and you maybe even get offered a job for after you graduate. I think it's better just for getting a job after graduation. Med-surg isn't even easy to come by anymore.

It's becoming more and more of a reality. They prefer BSN or BSN enrolled nurses and usually the ones getting jobs now with associate degrees are ones with contacts in the hospitals or experience. Hospitals starting salary range from $65,000-$75,000 but finding a job here right now is very difficult. Good luck.

You would need to call the nursing dept but usually they have tests 3-4 times a month on Friday's and Saturday's. You have to register in person for the exam along with a $30 money order/check. You can only take it twice and only once in a semester. So for example, if you were taking it in May to start in the summer semester or something and failed, you'd have to wait until about August to re-take it and start in the fall semester.

I recently left LIU's nursing program along with a few others. I was leaving nursing all together so it wasn't the school but I think I along with a few other people would have chosen other schools over LIU. For one LIU's tuition has gotten very pricey and I for one don't think the school is worth the amount of tuition they charge. Second the program itself isn't bad, it's very rigorous, like you want a nursing program to be but there is a lot of issues with the way the program is managed. Seems a bit disorganized as far as hospital placements and some students have had problems with a few professors. For all the schools that you listed, the only one I wouldn't take over LIU is Pace because I heard more awful things about their program than LIU. If you only get accepted into LIU then don't panic, take a deep breath and just be ready to tackle things head-on. Like I said it's not the program itself its just the people that are in charge of it can give a headache and unnecessary run around for information. There's defintely no hand holding, in fact sometimes it felt like you were left out to drown but a lot of people have passed the program and graduated even with the drama and it maintains the highest NCLEX passrate for any BSN program in the state. They accept a good number of students (around 150 a semester). The nursing labs don't have the most up-to-date equipment either which is something that disappointed me. I've heard great things about NYU (a few people who did pre-reqs at LIU chose to transfer there) and if you can afford it then I say go for it. Only downside I've heard of is the large nursing lectures but if that's your thing then it's a plus.

Wow LOL I don't think many people noticed this post was started over 6 years ago!

Nursing is still a good degree to get but I think everyone puts down the other very crucial health professions that usually don't get as much coverage like nursing such as Speech-Language Pathology, Respiratory Therapist and Occupational Therapy. These jobs aren't going anywhere either and in fact there seem to be more of these jobs out there at the moment than nursing (at least in my area) and Respiratory Therapy only requires an associate's degree and that is the preferred method. The other health professions of course require master's degrees and there seems to be more job openings for people with master's but I think all health profession degrees are still a good investment.

It depends on how much work you got done with your GED. For me it wasn't a difference at all but that is because I had three years of english, three years of math, two years of science and history from HS. I pretty much had most of my classes for my HS diploma. I also took the SAT so I had no problem getting accepted. For the schools in my area only accepted GED applicants that got over a 3100 which is considered to be like getting a 85 in high school.

I don't think it matters, as long as you have experience within one of those sections I think you will be fine. Try and see if you can eventually get a chance to float to the nurser every now and then.

I don't think anyone looks foward to wiping butts lol. I just wanted to say that it also depends on the area of nursing you do. If you're in a place like L&D, Psych, Peds you might see less bed baths taking place but regardless you'll have to do it as a nursing student.

It depends on your future plans. If you do the ADN would you be willing to go back to school for your RN-BSN whether it be online or at a traditional classroom? Who are the hospitals hiring in your area? ADN grads or BSN grads.

There are a lot of different areas of nursing, unlike EMT. You can work in an area where you are least likely to encounter those kinds of things like Psych, Mother/Baby ect. You can also work in an outpatient setting like in a clinic, public health or home health with relatively healthy patients. You could go on to get your MSN and become a nurse practitioner. Of course to do all of this you need to survive nursing school. There are a lot of things I know I don't want to work in after school, but I know I have to just suck it up and get through it while I'm in school, and I'm prepared to do that, but there's a lot of avenue's for nursing, you just have to find something that you like about nursing and focus on it, then find a position where you can do that. You could also consider other health programs with similar pre-reqs like ultrasound tech, radilogy tech, physical therapy, speech pathology.

Congrats, can I ask what kind of unit you got hired into? Med-surg?

I'm not an L&D nurse but when my sister had her baby, the L&D nurse was actually the one that trimmed her because honestly, expecting someone to be able to do it themselves is just stupid in my opinion. Sure someone could do it for her but not everyone is down for doing that. As far as smelling bad, I think it would depend on the circumstances. If you're coming in for a pre-scheduled C-section or induction I think washing should be something you would do but again it's dependent on a person's culture. I know that L&D is usually very busy but is a quick bed bath really a big deal, or not even a bath but just a quick wipe down there.

I think she was referring to the OP who stated her ADN program only had a GERIATRIC, not generic specialty.

I'm only finished wth my first week and I'm not saying that it's easy but I mean I'm not in a fetal position crying my eyes out. With the exception of fundamentals, all of my other nursing courses are once a week, so I feel that gives me optimal time to read. Sometimes the way a nursing program is structured is how people deal with it. Not to say a program is easier or harder, but even the things people have mentioned like giving out a book list and syllabus before class can make a big difference. We all have the same syllabus regardless of professor. So why their teaching styles might vary, they're teaching the exact same material, all students are responsible for the same amount of work, we have the same amount of homework assignments. Our exams aren't packed in together, they are all departmental so unless you're the course coordinator, the professors don't even get to see the exam. We get an exam blueprint the week before the exam to know what areas we need to have covered. My fundamentals professor told us today he thought that the first semester was actually most difficult because you don't know how to take critical thinking exams with application questions. All of our tests are set up this way from the very beginning. Yes the content does get more difficult as you go on in your semesters but you've got the foundation of thinking critically. In first semester, you do not have that, you're so use to knowledge questions that you don't even know how to answer an application question (quoted from my pharm professor). The clinical skills may not be difficult but that's only for one class, we're still responsible for the other three classes. These are the most elaborate syllabi I've ever seen to be honest lol and can honestly say it's the first time I actually paid attention to all the content on one. None of them are under 10 pages and they explain what we were suppose to read, what we will do in class, readings for next class and then there's a section of questions we should be able to answer by the time we're done reading. If we can't, then we need to reread. We're not required to lug our big giant books around because we're expected to have be responsible for the work at home so there's no need to look at a textbook in class. Oh and also remember that not everyone is taking the same courses in their first semester. Some people only have classes that last for a certain amount of weeks (not even talking aout accelerated programs), people are using different textbooks ect, so many factors. I believe someone posted their first exam is like 15 chapters, the most chapters on any of my exams are about 6 or 7. Just remember, your experience, isn't the only experience. I've also made personal changes to help me keep better track like typing notes while reading instead of handwriting them.