IndyColts

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Maybe give it some time to develop and get a track record before going there.

I recommend you go to an established state university, particularly one affiliated with a teaching hospital. You will get a better education and you will have better opportunities for clinical practice. If I were hiring an MSN and someone from Chamberlain applied, I'd put their application on the bottom of the pile and hope that someone else came along who went to a non-profit university that has a history and name which speaks for itself. Look at all the private for-profits that are popping up with RN to BSN programs. The next thing you know, Kindercare will have such a program.

ITT-Tech in Rancho Cordova is beginning a generic ADN program. The program beings March 2012.

My analysis of the situation begins with the impression that it has become too easy to become a nurse. Nursing programs have lowered their admission and retention standards allowing less-that qualified persons to become nurses. Further, nursing programs have become too dependent on ATI and HESI programs to tutor students along through programs and the NCLEX. This produces more nurses and makes the job market more congested with applicants. Because the profession of nursing is by nature rigourous, demanding, and full of decision-making based on information, less capable persons should not be allowed into nursing programs. If someone insists that her life-long dream has to become a nurse, that alone does not qualify her for the profession. In reality, she needs a lot of brain power. If I were in charge of the whole matter, I would use tests such as the SAT and ACT to winnow out the crowds of persons trying to get into nursing programs. I would require a high level of math accuracy since there is a strong correlation between math skills and thinking skills. I would not admit persons to nursing programs who struggled in the sciences (microbiology, anatomy, and physiology) or persons who could not spontaneously write well. With nursing jobs rare right now, the profession can afford to leave the weak behind and build its ranks with bright, capable, and ready-to-hit-the-floor running nurses.

I recommend you check into the clinical placements for both programs. Your clinical experience in a nursing program is very important and some hospitals/medical centers exclude private, for profit programs from using their settings. The Carrington LVN-RN program in Sacramento, for example, is having a lot of trouble placing their students in clinical settings. My guess is that UNR has an established reputation in the community and has the better clinical opportunities than the Carrington program.

I'm gonna tell you what the real problem here is. Though I don't know the particular colllege in question here, I do know that even the best nursing programs suffer under the endless complaints of students when the nursing program tries to impose proper nursing education standards upon the students. Unfortunately, some schools fall to the pressure and lower their standards to make the complaining students happy. Because the standards are lowered, the preparation of the students is substandard and one of the places this will be revealed is in NCLEX results. What serious nursing students should expect is high standards and a challenging curriculum. If they get that, and it will not be easy, they will both succeed on the NCLEX and in practice as well.

Capella and Walden are for-profit, online programs that do not offer the quality of nursing education that one would receive at a university associated with a medical center. The best advanced degrees in nursing come from programs such as the University of Washington and the University of California in San Francisco. Admission standards and continuance standards are far superior at these schools and they are not driven by the profit motive. If one goes to Walden, Capella, or the University of Phoenix for nursing education, don't expect kudos from nursing educators and practitioners who know and understand what quality nursing education is.

Everyone seems to be looking for easy courses but what the community and profession need are people who are well prepared to take care of them, not people who got through a class because it was easy. Take the easy teachers and learn little; take the hard teachers and learn a lot.

Trust me, the people that go to WCC could never get into Stanford.

Xavier, WCC, and Kaplan will take anyone with a pulse and then they are thrust on poor unsuspecting patients in the community when they do their clinical. A friend of mine is a nurse at The County and she says the nurses don't trust the students when they are there and the instructor is rarely available. Plus, she said the students look like slobs and are unprofessional.

The proprietary programs such as Unitek are primarily interested in the income from students. They admit under-qualified students who cannot get into the competative programs at the Community Colleges and their practice is to do most anything to keep the students so they can continue to get the income (profit). As a result, the curriculum and instruction are watered down to accommodate the poorer students. If students are challenged the way they should be in a nursing program, then those who are poor students or not as intelligent as nursing demands, would be left behind and the college would not get the income. So, in a nutshell, if you want a challenging education, one that has the standards required of nursing, stay away from the for-profit schools. Before accepting a position in the program, you should seriously investigate the clinical situation as many clinical setting are more than reluctant to let the proprietary programs use their sites because most in the nursing field have caught onto the fact that the students from these programs are not very sharp--not well informed, not knowledgeable and probably not who the institution wants to take care of their patients.

I think your friend is correct about the assumption. I know two persons with HIV who are on HIV medications and they have developed, I'll call them lumps on their backs. They are not discolorations--just pronounced skin elevations.

Thanks for posting your resume and all of your excuses for making a C in anatomy. One thing nursing does not need is someone who can produce multiple excuses for their downfallings. Nursing needs mature, smart people who own up to their shortfallings and don't give everyone a ration of excuses.

How do you know your sister never endangered a patient? Are you aware of every activity and every step your sister has taken? Maybe there was a time your sister should have checked a BP but didn't or overlooked an abnormal lab or all sorts of things. That's similar to a mother saying her child would never lie. I hope you're not a nurse with your level of objectivity.