Abby Normal

Yes, in Teas 4 (and perhaps in Teas 5, I don't know) you can freely move back and forth through the whole test, if you like. But that takes time. In fact, if you are panicked, you could use up all your allotted time doing just that. (There is a toolbar with the Time Remaining in each section, so she should always know how long she has.) As a strategy, you should ALWAYS answer EVERY question, even if you're just guessing. (I then wrote the numbers on my scratch paper of the questions I wanted to check if I had time, so I wouldn't forget.) It is often very possible on Teas to eliminate a couple of the answers just by looking at them, so your chances are actually fair right there even if you look at, say, a math question and say --"Whoa, that is going to take a lot of time to calculate. I'll see if I have time to pick up those points at the end, rather than risk not finishing the section." That way, if time runs out, you won't have to go back and frantically try to find the questions you skipped just to guess at them. You will know that everything has some kind of answer. Math was hardest for me, and the time is very short. I have never run out of time on a math test or standardized test, not even close (PSAT, SAT, GRE etc.) but I did my first time on Teas. I understand your wife's anxiety -- I have my fingers crossed for her. My advice? Don't be afraid to guess. And if she wants/needs to take it again, a substantial portion of the questions will reappear. So if she can kinda have the presence of mind to read and remember the license plate of the bus as it is running her over (it's hard, I know), she will be in a MUCH better position to nail that sucker next time! It's good of you to help and support her.

Greygoose: I wouldn't say Flo rocked because of theory: I think she rocked because she used statistics to track outcomes, among other things. That's my opinion. And do we really need a capital T Theory to tell us that when we start, we don't know much, but as we do it we get better? If we do, I seriously despair. (The steps also defy common sense and any dictionary.) That's the problem with every single Theory -- they're major Duhs. Has any person with an IQ high enough not to drown in their saliva really not thought of these things? They do indeed sound like a cartoon. Or a Disney Princess movie song. They sound superficially profound, but the cool kids are snickering. My instructor covered them with a lot of sighing and eye-rolling -- and she's seriously awesome and seriously skilled. It's like a bad actress who wanders around, handing out sheets of ancient, heavily edited reviews "Here's this person's theory of what I do, and here's 7 ways I think critically and Maslov -- Ah! Maslov!" when the only thing that matters t the patient, to the supervisors, the families and the MDs is what happens when we walk into the patient's room that day. The question remains - is THIS what we want to set as the hallmark of our professionalism? Or is it our actual professional knowledge? I wish the original poster well. I don't think any of us are going to jump the fence on this one. But I think the issue of why schools still put so much emphasis on theory is interesting.

I agree with Imthatguy that nursing pushes this stuff in an attempt to make nursing sound more professional. So if you write a dissertation, then a book then make hundreds of thousands of nursing students memorize "5 Ways to Care", then that surgeon will FINALLY take them seriously. It obviously does the reverse. It's like a whiny little person stamping their foot and saying "Take me seriously!". BS. Your knowledge, your experience, your authority, and not walking around with a chip on your shoulder are what make people take you seriously. So building nurses' knowledge and confidence sounds like a good goal to me -- let's do that instead. If you don't know, in your gut, what caring is, no list and no course can teach it. It is the same with so many of these things that nursing theory is so fond of quantifying. And many of the theories are meant to be looked at and abandoned -- so why waste time on flat-earth theories? I am a woman, but this stuff seriously embarrasses me. And I think it is a huge obstacle to men entering nursing. I watch the emt's in the back of the room squirm while this is going on, and I don't know how many of them are going to come back. I think everyone should look into all of their options when considering a career in health care. I think unless you have a cousin or a friend, most people just think Doctor, Nurse ... . There are many people who would not be happy as nurses who would be great dental technicians, or respiratory therapists, or OR techs, or developing medical computer systems, or one of so many other jobs available. From what I understand, for the average practitioner, the differences between PAs and NPs don't matter that much. Neither one is a mistake. Nursing is probably better for me, because I'm more of a talker, but I wish I'd checked out the PA track more at the beginning. It has a lot to offer. I have a large number of nurse, NP and MD relatives, by the way, and they agree. Nursing theory is crap, and you will never, ever use it. I hear it was way worse in the 70s -- they have some funny stories. I have been very vocal -- respectfully and in appropriate channels -- about my feelings on this at my school. Nursing schools have changed over the years. They used to spend a lot of their time learning to cook different diets, write letters, spending hundreds of clinic hours doing nothing but making beds. It is possible that if enough people, particularly men, speak up, that we can get a more modern nursing curriculum in schools.

I think people are talking about 2 different programs/pathways here. Either one is a valid way to get your masters. (incidentally, I think it's worth pointing out that there is a difference in getting a straight msn and a masters that allows you to a specific job, like np, cnm, cns etc. so look into that if you're not familiar with it. Personally, I think if you're going to "do the time" you might as well learn a specific job, even if you're not sure you'll use it.) Anyhow: First pathway is for someone like an English major. They have a BA, decide to be a nurse, and they want to get it all over with in one big, intense, expensive 3-year gulp. They would choose the direct-entry masters programs. The GEPNs, etc. Most want you to take 6 or 8 prerequisites (each school has their own list, and there is little crossover, so check with the schools in your area, or the schools you're interested in to make a plan for attacking the list). The second is that you have the degree in English (or no bachelors at all), but at some point you go and get an associate degree in nursing -- the RN. There are many schools that offer you a "bridge" to the masters -- essentially a slightly shortened version of the coursework that would represent the remaining two years on the bachelors degree. Then you would start the masters. At least that's the way it works in my state. Everyone's situation is different, and nursing program requirements vary enormously. You DEFINITELY need to TALK to the schools you might be interested in. Don't just look at the web site! The information can be wrong! You might think you're not qualified, or they don't have the program you need, but they might just not have updated. Or the opposite. You might enroll and find they stopped the program you wanted. In my case, I looked into a bridge program and learned it would take about the same time to become an NP as to get the bridge. And for me it does not make sense to do both. But always do your own research, talk to people in your intended specialty and do what makes sense for you.

Rainbow: There are a few TA'ships offered in the second year, but it's not like standard graduate programs, where you essentially pay off your tuition by working for the university teaching classes, grading papers and working in a lab. I looked into it -- they pay you something, but it's not a free ride, tuitionwise, unfortunately. Definitely ask about it if they don't bring it up. If you have a strong background in something, mention it. I think they said it was even possible to do it outside the nursing school (if for example you came in with a business degree or were a Classics major, or have strong English skills, you might be of use in one of those areas). As for how the day goes, you are briefed as a whole by the GEPN coordinator on how your first year goes, the dean of students on New Haven, housing parking etc., financial aid, of course, you divide into specialties and get taken through the next two years. You have lunch, you meet some students. There is a lot of time for questions -- so use it! People are having interviews through all this, but most of the interviews are after lunch. It's a box lunch. There's an optional campus tour afterward (or was) but you can leave after your interview if you want, or hang around and talk to the people who would be your classmates for the next 3 years. I think this is an important part of the equation. If you can't see yourself with these people, in this place, you have some more thinking to do ... use your time at all your visits/interviews well. Faculty, financial aid, they're all there. If you're nervous about approaching people, at least get their names so you can contact them. You'll soon learn yale e-mail addresses are easy to figure out. There are tours of the campus all the time, so you don't need to stick around. It won't affect your chances! As for relatives ... Honestly? You are moving around from room to room. There is no lunch for them. A couple of people brought family members, and they sat in the back and they looked uncomfortable. (It wasn't intentional, it just wasn't like college, where everybody comes with mom. Grad school's an older crowd.) There are plenty of places in New Haven they can check out, have lunch, coffee (Atticus Bookshop is great, next to British Art museum) shop for Yale Nursing sweatshirts for you -- because you guys are all going to do great! Good luck to everyone.

Maybe you'll have critical mass now -- in one place or another. You'll certainly have it once interviews are announced. Me? I'm in a 2-year RN program at my local community college -- and I'm happy. After that? I don't know. This is a second career for me, so my whole situation is probably different from most of you. But it is worth mentioning (particularly since I phrased it so badly in my previous post -- sorry) that you can be an awesome NP/CNM/CNS and never go near Yale. Do not bankrupt yourself or break your heart to go there, or despair if you don't get in. It's up to you, not a school, to make you the best nurse you can be. I'm living that. But I am definitely not knocking Yale! I kept learning cool things about the program, more things that made me excited to go there. I found the admissions live chats really helpful -- just ask good questions, not just variations on "Am I going to get in and when will you tell me?" There are, for example, many opportunities for foreign travel. They teach you to to listen to heart and lung sounds by taking you to the Yale School of Music. Good luck everybody.

If you go up to the Region tab, select United States. Then go down to Connecticut, and it's under Connecticut Nursing Programs (or similar phrasing). You can also just go up to the search bar and search for Yale to get all Yale entries.

Are you guys aware of the GEPN 2011 thread on the Postgraduate Nursing Student forum? While I wouldn't count on 12 days, you will at least have real information in 2 weeks or so. They did their best not to have us wait over a weekend last year, did a sudden reversal and notified us by e-mail on a Friday out of the blue when they told us it would be by mail. That was kind. (I got in last year, but ended up not attending.) Assuming they're doing it the same way: If you are offered an interview, it will tell you the date and time, the room and the faculty member right in the e-mail or letter. It then asks you to confirm your interview if you want it (heck yes!). Only a few of the Family NP people had to sweat it out -- assured they had an interview, but unscheduled (there are so many they have to spread them out). You can opt for a phone interview if you have a conflict or live far away. (I do think you should make an effort, if you are seriously considering Yale, to visit the NURSING school at some point before you sigh up for 100k+ in debt and 3 years of your life or more, even if it's not at the interview. It is not on the beautiful gothic main campus. It is in part of an ugly concrete building in the middle of parking lots near the parts of New Haven that are not so nice. Talk to the faculty you will be working with, not just admissions -- there is SO much more to Yale than is on the website!. I'm not trying to dissuade you -- just check it out for yourself and don't picture what you saw on your undergrad college tour.) If you are not offered an interview, from what I understand no single thing gets you accepted or rejected, and each application at this stage is seen by six or seven people. So don't agonize that if you had just scored 20 points higher on the GRE, or gotten that A- in Micro, everything would have been different. Which in its way can be comforting ... And people do reapply and get in. The interviews themselves are seriously nothing to sweat. You know everything you need to know get through it from writing your essay. The rest you can't prepare for -- that's my opinion anyway. There are no standard questions -- I swear. Every interview seemed to be different when we compared notes. I remember these weeks last year, they were so hard, being so uncertain, wondering if I would get in anywhere. Nursing school is so unlike anything else -- I had no idea what my chances were. Then I got the interview, and very quickly I found myself getting in to many highly competitive places and having my choice of schools -- as did many of the other applicants on this thread last year, trying to juggle notification dates and offers. I hope each of you is in that same happy position a couple of months from now. Good luck and try to relax. You've done the hard part.

Are you aware of the Yale GEPN 2011 thread in the Regional Connecticut forum? I wouldn't want you guys to miss each other. You're the only people who understand how this feels right now.

Definitely look at the specific program first. I'm not sure the progression you have laid out is right --- but it might be in your area. The fast track programs are generally for people who already have a college degree in something else -- say English. The accelerated part lets you zip straight through an associates (most often) or a bachelors in nursing without a lot of distribution requirements (no PE!), then leap straight into the masters. For people who get an associate's, they can do a "bridge" to a bachelor's, if they have no undergraduate degree. Then they would pursue, either directly or after an interval of their choosing, a regular master's. (If you already have an undergraduate degree, you should do your research, look into your specialty, and weigh the benefits of your choices, but personally, I think the time is better spent doing an msn rather than a bridge, which takes about the same amount of time and reaps much richer benefits. My opinion.) However, I have never heard of a program that combine's a "bridge" and a master's, which it sounds like you're talking about? Maybe you don't need one or the other? Do what YOU think is right.

I never understand it when people say history is boring. History courses taught badly by bored teachers are boring. Unfortunately, that's too many teachers today. Fortunately, college history classes, and teachers, are usually much better. But history is life. History is people. Someday, everything that is happening to you, everything that is so vital and important and so meaningful, is going to be history. Your life, your clothes, your work, the people you love, the local and world events that jolt us from day to day. Is that boring? I don't think so. I think we're all amazing! And I love looking at photographs of nurses from 100 years ago, 70 years ago, 40 years ago. Look at their faces. Look at their (wool) uniforms. Look at the wards. (Persian carpets! Palm trees!) Look at the OR equipment. Look at where people stand. It's all history. Studying history is having a few pieces of information and trying to make a framework of logic, a situation, a world that makes those pieces of information make sense. That seems useful for a nurse. History is humbling. You think you know everything, or you think you have it bad, you think you're the first person something has happened to --- then you look back over three thousand years and you see you're not so important, and you can't overreact. Humility is valuable for a nurse. Once you get beyond the 1492-oceanblue stuff, in college, studying history becomes taking those pieces of information and constructing an argument, and backing it up. What caused this revolt, or this migration? Were nurses in the 18th century really all drunks or were they just poor women without access to clean drinking water? Nobody really knows, so you have to line up your best information and make your most persuasive argument. Historians study all kinds of things -- nursing, science, weather, animals, clothing, domestic habits -- there are even candy historians! And taking a stand and defending it with facts is something you definitely need as a nurse. Don't just lie down and accept the same old history that you are spoon fed over and over in school. There is so much more than the same 5 wars! You almost always have a chance to write a paper where you can explore an interest you have. There were nurses during the Civil War. And did you know there was a Jamaican woman, Mary Seacole, who was also at the Crimea at the same time as Florence Nightengale, and had a free clinic using herbal remedies to treat soldiers? There's a lot of history in peacetime too. Everyone and everything has history. It's not just for men and guns. I hated history in high school, then ended up majoring in it, and loving it, in college. The facts you learn are really not important. It's the structured way of thinking, reading, viewing the world and arguing that is the true benefit. Cocktail party chat? I can't imagine why anybody would be interested. But I definitely find it made me a more organized thinker. Which is what you go to college for, right? As someone suggested, sometimes reading a historical novel (or even watching a movie) that occurs at the similar time period as the time you are studying in class helps things come alive a little bit more. If you have to take it, you have to take it. I hope it turns out to be a positive experience, no matter what happens.

I think it would be sad not to go to school for so many years and not end up doing what you really what to do -- whatever that ends up being. They are both careers with excellent prospects. Neither one would be a mistake. Your parents obviously see the straightest path to what they want for you -- security and a nice life -- lies in nursing, but I'm sure that if you lay out a viable alternative they wouldn't object. And you will use some of the skills you gained in your present career -- how to meet deadlines, how to work with clients, how to organize a project etc. in your new job. It won't be wasted. Both careers are stressful and demanding though, and they take awhile to get off the ground. So I'd strongly advise that you pester friends, or parents friends, or the university, or whoever you have to, and see if you can shadow a couple of people at their jobs, or at least sit down with them a couple of times to talk to them about all the good and bad things about their work. Get as good an idea as possible of what a few days on the job are really like. For example, I have a friend who has a dpharm who works in a retail pharmacy, which she tells me is pretty much what the degree lets you do (not work in a lab or anything, that would be a PhD in pharmacology). The mandatory shifts are extremely long, and they have a huge number of prescriptions they must fill and they know, by the law of averages, that when you have filled thousands of orders that day, there will be a few errors. You just hope they are not serious. It is very stressful. The "safest" choice of career is the one you are most passionate about and dive into. There are huge opportunities for chemists, in and out of health care. Many people go into it just because their parents think it's the safest, most lucrative career for them to go into! Like that irony? Keep on with your classes, make a point of networking and researching and scouting out organizations and people, on campus, locally and nationally. Sometimes by finding someone who's doing just what you want to do, you can see it's possible. But you should enjoy what you do. That's not too much to ask from your life.

I agree, KKandes, the key is to keep refining it. Don't think "OK, I'll do 3 drafts." Work on it. Think about it. Work on it a little more. Cut it down a little. Work on it a little more. Do a hundred drafts. Show them to nurses and NPs, if you can, at key points. But be prepared that they may offer conflicting advice. I honestly think the process of writing the essay is really, really valuable, and will help when you get your interviews. If you have been living right, studying right, preparing yourself right, doing the essay is going to be much easier, because you will have the right examples at your fingertips. Then your job is just to make every word count. If not, it doesn't mean you won't get in. Yale takes many people straight out of college, it just means you have to use the experience you do have. Just be honest. Even if somebody could tell you what to say (I know that's not what you're asking!) it would not help you in the long run. Part of the admissions challenge is to find people not only capable of doing the conveyor-belt speed graduate work, but finding people who really understand what the job is and really want to be there. The essay seems impossible, but it can be done. Just do not leave it until the last minute! If you're starting now, you're good. Look at it every couple of days for 15-20 minutes. I know it's loathsome. But you will see duplications, mistakes, places you're sick of yourself. I would also line up a spare reference. One of mine had a heart attack! Fortunately, a small one, and was able to do the rec, but I felt horrible asking "OK, I hope you feel better, but like, how soon can you get out of CCU and do my rec?" after that (there was nobody else I could ask). I have heard too many other horror stories. You can always just send in the 3 you intended, or the first 3 that come in when you're ready to send. I think they told us that at least 6 people looked at every application to get through to the interview stage. That means no one person can reject you for a pet peeve, or a philosophy, or for one mistake. So don't fight the essay. Focus on your strengths. You'll do great!

Each state determines how soon you may sit the NCLEX. Some state's programs let you sit it the summer between your first and second years. I believe all state's board's of nursing list a link for the NCLEX pass rates for each school on their web site, but you may need to ask masters programs for this information specifically, since their students are not technically "graduating". More proof of the variation in programs! I would check out the Specialties and Postgraduate forums for more information about masters specialties and populations. And, personally, I would not go for a generic MSN -- I would only go for an NP, CNS, nurse anesthetist, midwife -- something that certified me to do another specific job. And really look into them. There are big pros and cons of every job. All of these are considered Advanced Practice Nurses. I also would relax a little! Prerequisites take a while, use the time to think. Nobody expects you to choose a specialty today and apply tomorrow. It definitely takes awhile to figure out. Volunteering is good for observation, but you don't get to ask a lot of questions, at least I didn't -- nurses don't even have time to pee. Being in school is very good -- everyone is in the same boat and you can trade information. It doesn't mean you have to go to that school for your degree. Your sister should also have a lot of information. Bit by bit it starts to make sense.

It is true, as vccorscc says, that you need to take into account the TRUE length of any program -- including the duration of the prereqs before you can apply, how often they are offered, the sequence in which you must take them etc. Also, adn-bsn bridge programs are sometimes sneaky and list a small number of courses, and people look at them and say "Wow! that's like 1 semester! I can do this and apply to that Level 1 by September!" And that's true. Those are the core courses they make everyone take. What they sometimes gloss over is that they'll probably make you take everything they would make the other students in their regular BSN program take, but you can get out of them if you've already taken them, so they're not technically required. So although you might not have to take all the distribution requirements of a standard degree, like gym and a language and stuff like that, it will definitely take a lot longer than a semester. Still may be your best option, but best to know up front so you can plan your life for the next few years.