guiltysins

Private schools will run you a little more money but there are no waiting lists typically and they will usually also accept lower GPA's. Don't put your faith into the CUNY system for nursing, the competition is ridiculous and not worth the stress.

Once you finish the pre-reqs as long as you have a B- in all of them then yes the HESI is the only thing that determines it. You need a 75 (in every section and overall) to pass. I didn't live on campus but a few of my friends did. You won't be a freshman so the housing should be fine. People hated being in the dorms on the freshman floors but it was fine. Campus is safe and there's plenty of food options around.

KEEP ON TOP OF THEM is my biggest advice. Call every month and make sure they do it. If you got in the first time, you'll get in again (there's really no waiting list for the program). How disorganized were they? Well let's put it this way. I was taking nursing courses yet I wasn't registered in their system as a nursing major, even though I declared my major 3 times. I did a semester of nursing (the actual program, not pre-reqs) at LIU, still have many friends in it and it is a VERY difficult program. Some of my friends are at the school 12 hours a day for classes and studying. I decided nursing wasn't for me personally and took another route. Luckily the admission's process for LIU is very simple. A 3.0 is all you need, with over a B- in all your science and nursing pre-reqs. Get the HESI book your very first semester of nursing school, a lot of people underestimated the intensity of the HESI exit exams at the end of the semester. As far as the HESI ENTRANCE exam, again it's very simple. Nothing nursing or medical based. LIU doesn't look at any of the science portions of the Hesi A2. As far as tuition? This school is going to cost you a lot of money. Average about 15,000-16,000 PER semester for two years, and you're gonna be at about 60-65K for just the last 2 years (this doesn't include the pre-reqs part if you are starting as a freshman). They accept around 120-160 students every semester but class sizes are very small (not lecture halls). Some students also can sign up to do their classes and labs at Kings County Hospital (taught by the same LIU professors). NCLEX wise, last year LIU had the highest pass rate of all the BSN programs in the entire state (I believe it was 95%). If you can survive the program, you will pass the NCLEX. Retention rate is about 50-60% because the program is hard and about 10-30 people drop out every semester because they either realized nursing wasn't for them, couldn't handle the demand or simply didn't make the grades to remain in the program. For those who are overwhelmed you can do part-time, however you have a year to switch to full-time or you will have to do the entire program part-time. If anyone needs anymore info let me know.

I think that you may have a chance of getting an ER job just because of the EMS experience which will set you apart from the new grads without that kind of experience.

Me personally I don't see how a male school nurse would be any different from a male doctor or a male nurse in a hospital? If there were issues with comfort all you'd have to do is ask if there were some arrangement where a female staff member could be present. It just seems like such a double standard to me. Same thing with when people see male nurses in L&D yet what walks in the door? A MALE obstetrician, odd world.

I don't have a problem with online programs, I plan on doing my Master's in education through a distance learning program. The thing is that with nursing I find it a little difficult. If it's for nurses who are already RN's then that's not too bad, but is this for beginner nurses who need all the clinicals and stuff. Because just like with some of the Master degree programs, people found difficulty setting up their own supervised clinicals.

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 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.

Well I don't think Medgar Evers needs an agreement with a CUNY Associate degree program because they have their own 2 year associate degree program. It might be one of those things where the program is usually designed for people that did THEIR associate degree program and they're just really suckish about handling transfer students. I went to their website and the BS program website doesn't even work which is pretty unprofessional if you ask me. I do find it weird about the CUNY credits because unless you took some OUT OF THIS WORLD kind of classes, I don't see why they wouldn't transfer some basic courses inbetween CUNY institutions.

It's going to depend on your area. Where I live a BSN is becoming preferred but if you can get a job with your associate's I wouldn't worry about it. Unless you plan on going into psych nursing or maybe public health I don't think your bachelor's in psych will get much notice.

Well I can only tell you about Hunter. First their GPA is about 3.5 and higher for a cut off. Secondly you can't transfer directly into their nursing program, you have to be a student in their school for at least a semester before you can apply to the nursing program which I believe only accepts people once a year in the fall. It's very competitive, they only take about 80 students total, when hey may have 500-600 pre-nursing students.

I'm a little of the opposite, I'm a good test taker but I'm absolutely paranoid about failing clinicals, which I know most students probably feel. Just hang in there and try to find a method that works for you, and not just the method everyone else is using.

I'm shy as well and today was my first day of class. We were in skills lab and we were using the pulse oximeter on one another and I'm fine with talking to people I don't know but when I professor was watching I just froze up, stumbled on words, ect. It's something you just have to overcome, it's a little intimidating to have someone watch you. The skills we are performing are already freaking me out. I'm in that "OMG I don't wanna kill someone" mentality right now because I'm so nervous but I know I can get through this.