sbcher09

IT does work! I took the test on 3/4 and received results this AM and I passed :) CA BRN doesn't do "quick results" so I had to wait in agony over the weekend. I did the "trick" the same day and couldn't pay for the test, did it again on sat and got the same popup. So it does work...every student in my class that passed it did the trick, got the popup and passed. Good luck to anyone taking the test- my BIGGEST advice: USE the Kaplan's strategies book, that book is a lifesaver and will give you tools to conquer the NCLEX. Without the book and its strategies I would have definitely failed. I felt like using Saunders Q and A was going to prepare me for the test, but I felt like the NCLEX is more similar to Kaplan's Qbank questions- super off the wall and more about how you read the question than the content. Lots of "select all that apply" questions for me, nearly 12 and I only had 75 questions. You will never ever take a test as hard as the NCLEX but the more you prepare with practice questions and reading the rationale, the more prepared you will be. Good luck!

My professor who also teachs at the SD campus said that they have to find a new building because they jacked up the rent astronomically on the school and they can't afford it (or something). so they will be moving to a different site.

first semester done and I can't tell you how nice a 4 day xmas vacation sounds....at least our winter session is just one class for the 4 weeks between semesters! Finals were brutal but we all got through it! To answer some previous questions, for Glendale I applied with two classes that were in progress (I just had to have my final grades turned in before the first day of class) and I had a 2.3GPA. like someone said maybe they were more lenient because we were the first cohort to go through, I don't know if it is the same for the rest of the cohorts. They keep warning us that the first semester is the easiest and that subsequent semester will become harder. The first semester was hardest because we had so many hiccups (our site wasn't finished, our instructor sucked, our schedule changed so much, they added an extra day of class). Seriously, it was tough because I do work as an EMT 2-3 night shifts a week (for my own sanity and to escape from studying) and there is so much to read, but the best advice I got from my fellow nursing friends is that you really how to glean the material and figure out what is the most important part is. For me, I am more comfortable with hands on skill learning than I am as a book learning. But what I did that really helped was focusing on the objectives of each module, listening to the audio lectures and the powerpoints. Everything else (all the readings and assignments) is to help you reinforce the main points. I did that for the final exams and did remarkably better than the previous tests. There is just no way to learn everything! As for those of you who have families and houses to keep clean, the best advice I got from one of our guest instructors was...don't try and keep your house spotless. But if you must, then study hard for 50 minutes at a time, then take a 10-15 min break and go clean something, start a load of laundry, etc. Just break up your study times because trust me your butt will go numb, your legs will cramp and you will stop processing information if you sit too long! I found that that really helped me.....I would study hard for an hour, then get up clean a part of my room, do dishes, take a shower, then go back. Having 3 set nights a week I have to work really helped me manage my time because I knew I had to get stuff done early in the week instead of waiting til the last minute. Yes it does help to have a background in the medical field because you don't need the extra time to learn terminology and because you already have experience communicating with patients. That is probably the scariest thing...going in to the room to talk with some stranger and assess them. But after time you get over it and it starts to feel natural. Enjoy the time you have this winter before school starts, because it is a long dreary semester but worth every damn minute of it!! PS if I recall right, the year's tuition wasn't the full $35000, because a lot of that are fees that apply only to OU students at the main campus (parking, student health, etc). I remember each semester being about $8K...I think

It may differ for schools, like I said our first couple weeks we met from 10-5p on tues and wed, then we added on our pre-clinical and clincal days. At least that's how it was for us in the Glendale program. San Diego may be different because there are more students in their cohorts. Pre-clinical days, we started out going between 4-6pm and getting our patients because usually by that time the ones that were still on the flow board would most likely be there the next day. Once we got our new instructor, we went in at 1pm and stayed as long as we needed to to get our patient's info and such. Initially it did take us about and hr, hr and half because we had to learn the system and figure out where everything was. Once you get the hang of gathering the info and learning what's important and what's not, you can be in and out of there in about 30 mins. Our instructor was there just to supervise and be available for questions, we usually had post-clinical conferences on our clinical day where we talked about what we learned and stuff. I tend to study in the later afternoon hours and into the night because I am a night owl, so it's definitely possible to just study hard for a couple of hours. There is a lot of reading to do and we get multiple modules a week for each class, but if you can learn to be efficient with your time, you don't have to study for hours! Plus our instructors are really good about exam review sheets and stuff that help focus your exam studying on the pertinent info. Anyways, good luck to you all who are waiting, and to those who are accepted and eagerly awaiting the first day of class! It's a blast, it really is and it's definitely a rewarding career!

"volunteering" for community health took us about 36 hrs total, but you have to understand we have a health promotion teaching project where you group up with a couple of your classmates to find a topic to present that is related to health promotion. You get community hours for that, then we had to volunteer 20 hours of our off-campus time to working health fairs, observing at flu clinics, volunteering at blood drives. I think it is more just to get you out into the community setting, at least that is how it was for us. Depending on where you live you may be spending more time away from your family....you do have to calculate in driving time and such. At least at Glendale we were there max 4 days a week, and our exams were bundled in with our skills labs for health assessment and clinical skills so we didn't have to go down an extra day. For instance this coming next week we have an exam, our health teaching project, then the rest of the day is spent practicing our skills, and then next day we have our final exam for clinical skills where we come in for a half hour and get tested, then we go home. seems like a waste, but oh well. Our new facility is kick-ass though, I don't know if you saw it but it definitely feels like a real nursing school now! A lot of my classmates have study groups at the library in Glendale, I just opt to study by myself because I really don't want to be in Glendale more than I have to! Next semester they are telling us that we will be having two clinical days, a preclinical day, and an onsite skills lab day. Sounds like it should be the same amount of on-campus time, but they upped our community health hours so we will have to spend more time off-campus doing volunteer work. Take care...I know the anticipation killed me...but remember why would they make you pay all that money and send you to open house if you weren't accepted? that would be plain dumb! Good luck!

Thanks for the greetings! honestly, I do work part-time nights (even though they told me it was going to be impossible to work and do this program) and find I have enough time for studying if I manage my time correctly. It's really all about managing your time wisely, and using every little bit of time you have to just look something over or read something. You can't change the fact that you have to be on-site for skills labs once or twice a week, and when clinicals start you have to be on site for one and half days. Granted I am single and have no kids, but there are a few parents in the class that are doing great with good grades. A lot of us actually have jobs and are doing this program too. For me personally, having to work two nights a week really keeps me on track. School for me this semester went like this: preclinical on sunday afternoon for an 1hr, then the rest of the night spent doing our care plan for monday, then clinicals on monday at the hospital starting at 0630 (early I know) and get out around 230 or 3, then go home, take a nap, study a little bit/take quizzes for tuesday's skills lab. tuesday all day 9-3, wed half day usually done by 1 or 2, then go home do laundry/normal life stuff. I work thurs and fri nights and our other classes had hw due on fridays so I made sure to get it done before then. Then go to work, and then sat would be my day to spend with friends and do some hw for the next week. It worked out pretty good for me We are full-time students meaning we have 4 classes. Clinicals, health assessment, human experience (fundamentals of nursing), and a paper writing course that consisted of a 3pg paper and discussion boards/drop boxes. nothing too crazy. However, remember it's the first semester. Oh they don't tell you that there is a community health component that requires you to do community health hours (observation/volunteering) outside of the on-site experience. That's what sucks! And I guess the number of hours they require increase each semester. That's the hard part because it takes time to plan for those things and takes time away from family/studying/life. I do have a medical background, having worked as an EMT in the ER for 6 years so a lot of the skills aren't especially new to me and the terminology isn't a foreign language. However, some of my classmates struggled with abbreviations or medical roots (-itis, ectomy, etc) but that kind of stuff hails from our microbio days. As long as you have decent study skills you will do fine. All my nurse friends laughed at me when I first started bc I tried to read EVERYTHING, which I realized is impossible. They just told me to skim the important stuff and focus on what the professor emphasizes in her reviews, powerpoints, audio lectures, etc and I found it really helped me cut down on the extraneous stuff I was filling my brain with. Anyways, gotta go to work again...got called in. Guess I'll have to study later! Feel free to shoot me more questions, I'd love to answer them. PS clinicals start I think the 2nd or 3rd week of school, you just go the day before with your classmates and find a patient on the board, look up their diagnoses, their past/present med hx, medications, labs, etc and then create a plan of care for the next day. basically as you progress in the semester you will do more and more for the patient. we started slow, but we do the assessment, serve them their meals, weigh them, change their sheets, give them meds and just be their personal nurse basically. then we have to go back and fill in the blanks of our care plans. We learn skills in our clinical lab on tuesdays that allow us to do things on patients in the hospital under the care of their primary RN. At first you feel like a pest following the nurse around but as you learn to do more tasks, they like you because they put you to work!

I have been in your shoes...my clinical instructor was an absolute a**hole to me, always picking on me, using my careplan and tearing it to shreds to show the class what I did wrong, always using me as an example and trying to nitpick at me. He just did not like what I had to say, whether it was right or not. I hated him and he made my clinical experience miserable for the 5 weeks we had him. I just knew that I had to beat him at his own game. As long as my care plans were done well, as long as my assessments were done to the best of my knowledge, I figured he could have no ammunition against me. And it worked. Once he learned he couldn't pick on me any more because I did my work and I did it well, he kinda left me alone. Don't give her a reason to pick on you, but be ready if she does and your work will speak for itself. Sounds like you are doing fine with the others, some nursing instructors are just evil in every sense of the word. the saying "nurses eat their young" is unfortunately very true, it's almost as if they are threatened by the upcoming future nurses. It's retarded but it happens. a lot of my nurse friends have told me that they had one of those "evil Nurse Ratchetts" at one point in their school. It just makes you grow thick skin since we will inevitably work with someone like that down the road. What you can do is try to talk to the other instructors and switch into their groups, or talk to your advisor. Just keep your head up and don't allow her to use your own work against you, and she won't if she can't find a reason to pick on you! Good luck!

I'm at the OU nursing program in Glendale, CA 1st semester: CARE PLANS CARE PLANS CARE PLANS...haha handwashing vital signs (BP, pulse, apical pulse, resp rate, temp) ADLs (bedpan, bedbath, showers,etc) nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal suctioning application of oxygen (nasal cannulas, non-rebreather) tube feedings Intradermal/subcutaneous/intramuscular medication injections IV and IV piggyback infusions Isolation precautions Removing foley, obtaining sterile urine specimen Removing sutures and staples Changing dressings Oral meds Setting up sterile fields NG tubes I've gotta say this semester has flown!!

hey all- I'm currently in the first cohort at the Glendale ABSN program and hopefully I can answer some of your questions. Trust me this summer was stressful waiting for that damn acceptance letter...it seemed to take forever and the start day was looming closer. I didn't find out til about 4 weeks before school actually started, maybe it was even closer to the start date, I can't even remember! It was crazy, considering what you had to get done before the start of school. I don't know if it has been mentioned, but once you do get in, I definitely recommend buying a laptop (I got a Dell for about 650 and it's the best purchase I can recommend) and the ebooks. It helps not having to carry the huge amt of books you buy (about 60lbs worth for the first 2 semesters), and allows you to search for any word you type, which is extremely helpful with quizzes and studying. it's too bad you have to buy the hardcover books too, but maybe you can sell them to others. I can't believe we are 3 weeks from the end of the semester. It has gone by way fast, been super stressful at times but all in all I've had a great time. I have great classmates, great faculty now (thank God!) and we are finally smoothing out the bumps. The new facility is amazing and definitely beats having lab at the hospital! Clinicals were rough due to our instructor (who is no longer with us thankfully) initially but we have finally got the instruction we deserve and are doing fine. I think the next cohort will have it better now that all the bumps and hiccups are worked out. All I can say is get used to studying a lot, and don't get complacent with how easy it may seem in the first month or so. The minute you get complacent, they seem to turn up the heat and really kick your butt! For anyone who is concerned about commuting, I commute to Glendale from Ventura, which is about 1.5 with moderate traffic. It sucks that traffic is so unpredictable and LA freeways suck, but I can't imagine a better program that offers online and on-site instruction. It's definitely cutting edge and you'll be a nurse in 14 months if you study hard and stick to it! We were initially told we'd be down at school 2 days a week, but in reality here's the breakdown: 1 hr for preclinal planning (choosing your patient) the day before clinical, then 8 hr clinical day, then one or two days of clinical/health assessment lab. Clinicals are only for 10 weeks of the semester; we just finished last week our last clinical so the next 3 weeks we are in Glendale for about 2 days for exams. Anyways, I'm excited for you all and will be glad to answer any questions you may have. Good luck!

Don't worry, I didn't get my acceptance letter in the mail until about a month before classes started, may have been even less than that. I thought it was insane considering how much stuff we had to get done before we had to start school. The open house was really the deciding point I think, I just kept telling myself why would they bother have me buy books, uniforms, do my immunizations if I wasn't in? In response to the small # of students in the cohort, it was stated in class that it was because Glendale Adventist couldn't handle more because they already have so many students in clinicals from other schools. San Diego has a larger cohort because they have the whole sharp system (something like 5 hospitals) to spread their students out with, whereas we only have 1 hospital. Just know that when you start this program it may seem easy, but once you get used to it, they turn up the dial and make you really question if you can get through the program. I truly believe if it wasn't for my classmates and their support and our cohesiveness, that I would have given up. But it is truly a great opportunity to get through nursing school with a BS in only 14 months, especially when there are waiting lists a mile long all over CA! The ebooks and a laptop were the best purchases made for this program, and a good stethoscope. the ebooks were more expensive but it beats carrying a ton of books with you to skills lab, and you can take them on your laptop wherever, and it gives you more freedom. It's pretty sweet, the ebooks allow you to highlight, search the entire text by just typing in words so you can scan quickly, and it clumps all the highlights together so you can print out the notes. Worthwhile purchase, and you can also sell back your brand new books to others and make some money.