j0nathanv

I find it laughable that people consider online schools as a "not up to par" with traditional schools argument. You know because your instructor reading from a powerpoint is such a quality type of education. Prospective employers do not ask where you went to school. They ask you if you have an active unencumbered license. That's all that matters.

Yeah I'm taking critical care and Management over the summer. This is assuming I actually pass Peds. Its not fair to say 50% in summer school fail, more like 50% fail in flexes as well. If you ask around everyone will tell you OB and Peds is the hardest two classes at SAC. I escaped out of OB with a 78. The material isn't hard. Its the amount of reading you have to do. Last flex we had about 20 LVNS in OB, half of which failed and are gonna repeat in the summer, right now the other half that didn't fail OB are failing Peds. I think they pride themselves on making the tests as ambiguous as possible. I kid you not, the OB tests are just stupidly vague and so far the Peds test is cram as many tables you can in your brain over 2 weeks then test on it. Do you know what a 3 year olds psychosocial development is, what toys they should be playing with and what do they look like physically and act like emotionally..oh once you go that down figure out the Respiration, HR and BP of each month until the 1st year then until the 18th year of age. Good luck with that! There is some light at the end of the tunnel... Take **** for OB Clinical's - You dont do Careplans so you get freed up to read and study. Shes super sweet as well and funny. Take *****for Peds - Theres good and bad with her. If you dont complete your careplan she sends you home with a 0. Makes sense, if you dont do your stuff you are held accountable. If you do your stuff then you will have no problems. shes super cool too and funny. Careplans for Peds take about an hour or so. Hope that helps!

To answer the question about day hour, for our class and our class only the decided to do away with the "day" classes per se. Yes you can have clinicals from 6am to 2pm or something of that nature on Monday and Tuesday; however all classes were consolidated into 1 day evening class 4-7 both Wed and Thursday. There were no options for any morning classes if that answers your question directly, again from what I was told it changes based semester to semester. You should be able to log in to aces and register, if not now, then very soon. However I caution you that things change like the wind, so be flexible. I am excited to be starting my 2nd semester and meeting all of you on the 15th on Orientation!

I haven't heard of one Generic student liking the program at all, unless they are graduating or are doing well. Its super hard for them. I have a few friends who did nothing but complain the entire semester, and even had some teachers tell them thats the way it is. For the 1st semester LVN is easier, easier in the fact you should have some experience with drugs, terminology and patho. Its also easier because both of your classes take up the entire 16 week semester, as opposed to the Generics whose classes are condensed into 8 weeks. The key difference is you are already a nurse and have proven to them that you can survive; conversely, to the generics; they weed them out so that only the strong will survive. We have proven ourselves in the hospitals, nursing homes etc, they haven't. While it sucks for them, its the same crap we put up with in our 1st semester of LVN school. What people fail to realize is that its competitive to get in and even more so to graduate on time. People think they can make As in the pre-reqs they will have an easy time in RN school. Nope, good luck keeping a C; most people don't care about GPA once in school and resort to "I just want to pass" So I empathize. Bare in mind; you got chosen over the other 3000 applicants. What are you going to spend your energy on? ******** cause its hard or focusing on the material? Lastly, getting his notes on his 1st and 2nd semester med surge will do you no good. You will cover what they call common and complex in your 1st semester. We dont actually merge with Generics until their Peds and OB rotation, which is a year into it for them. Dont let it get you all wired up. You can do it, trust me. Currently with finals coming up this week I can potentially make the following: Med Surge Clinicals - A Mental Heal Clincals - A Med Surge Class - A Mental Health Class - A Microbiology - B I work full time and take an additional class. I dont think its hard, you just have to put in the time.

I have found the teachers so far to be very helpful. Often times they give you a hint as too what may be on the test, chances are its on the test. Depending on the ebb and flow of the class, they may have you "focus" on a specific disease. What I mean by focus is know the disease process, meds, teaching and any complications that can occur. Med surge is pretty easy if have worked on a Med surge floor, if you went straight from LVN school to a nursing home you will have to put in a lot of time in the book and a lot more time in clinicals. Don't let your clinical instructors know that you don't have any med surge experience, if they find out they are going to ride you to do every IV, Foley and med pass. They will put you on the spot and ask you everything about your patient, what are the meds, what are the early s/s, what are the late s/s, what other complications can you encounter from X disease. I got caught in the receiving end of this blizzard of questions, and yes, I didn't know, but I said I will find out. The next day she asked me and thankfully I did a bit of research. Bear in mind they aren't belittling you, or making you look stupid, they are pushing you, because once you have your RN you are the end all be all and you HAVE to know it. Mental health is a beast all on its own. I personally hate it. I am so not a mental health nurse. Mental health is harder than med surge. Only because its an entirely different world, everything from the drugs, the the blurred s/s of a disease and of course how you communicate to them. Keep in mind everything you ask them either focuses on THEIR feelings or is open ended. Any opinionated questions, or close ended questions are out. Heres the doozy of it all and this applies to both subjects. There are no extra credit, no extra work. You have 3 Med surge tests, which covers about 500 pages of material and 4 mental health tests which cover 400 pages of so, then of course your finals. We had people get 50s on both of their tests and are now struggling to pass. Again the teachers will help you along the way, but in every class there is that one student who says "Your review didn't help me" which of course ruins it for all of us, yes we had that happen and yes the professor was like okies no more reviews. That student is pretty much stranded on their own little island. As for the disorganization, we are still seeing it, however the crux of the disorganization isn't in the class, its in the stupid software called ACES. We had people get dropped from the system, schedules changed and a myriad of other things. Professors couldn't upload their lectures, have consistent access to their email etc. It was terrible, but we did the best we could. Hopefully all those bugs are gone. On a final note, classroom instruction are just read the power-points, while attendance isnt taken (at least for us it wasn't), you still want to be there to listen to the hints and the "focus" items. Hope that helps!

I read this but am headed to work atm. Once I get settled Ill reply to you.

Your semesters will look like this for the next year, while you can potentially double up to graduate a few months early its not recommended.This is shooting from the hip mirroring what I am doing now. Jan - May: Medsurge Complex + clinical and Mental Health + clinical. Please note it is only 10 hours of credits and for financial aid reasons it is NOT considered full time. If you have any remaining pre-reqs I suggest to take them this semester. A lot of students overlook the entry level computer class ITSH 1301. Take it this semester as it isn't to terrible, you can take it online as well. Summer 1 Transitions AND OB or Peds Summer 2 Transitions AND OB or Peds Fall 1 Management class and Critical Care Projected graduation would be mid Dec after finals. When you sign up you can pick which clinical times you want to attend, day or night clinical's. This semester they grouped up all our lectures into one night (4-7 on Wednesday) with exception of 2 hours for mental health on Thursday (11-1). I have no idea what they are going to do for you guys come Jan 18th. Hope that helps. Also go buy and read your books. When I get a chance Ill go scan the syllabus for you so you can start reading.

Congrats on your acceptance! I will see you on orientation day, Ill be on hand to answer any mobility questions you may have during the day, or if you have any now Id be happy to answer them for you.

I work Fri, Sat and Sunday night doing pediatric home health. So there no conflict with my schedule. For others during the day its pretty hectic for them. The workload isnt too terrible yet for the 1Q. So yes you can work a full time job so long as you give yourself some dedicated study time. I dedicate about 20 hours a week into it and holding on to a B. When I talked to them last January they discussed a point system based on your pre-reqs, GPA and the next best guess of end of the world. Basically it was all giberish for THIS fall class. There were people with incomplete Pre-reqs and low GPA al la me, who got in. Personally, Id apply even if you dont have all your pre-reqs if you have a 3+ gpa. Take note though even thought you may have completed your nursing courses they will not send off your ATT until you finish off your basics. Trust me you really dont want to take your pre-reqs during the nursing classes. Its a pain in the butt. Hope that helps!

Oh and one more thing for those that think they dont have the grade. I applied back in January. I had a 3.4 GPA. I was MISSING Chemistry, Growth and Microbiology. I am taking micro right now with my nursing classes. Not fun but you gotta do what you gotta do.

I am currently enrolled for the 2010-2011 LVN Mobility program here at good ole San Antonio College. I know a lot people wonder what SAC is like; so like me they google only to come up with like 3 year old posts, which are irrelevant to the current climate. I figure Id make a new post with new current information and try to answer any questions you guys may have in considering SAC. Heres the run down of my schedule for those that think its too long This is my schedule from Aug - January Mon and Tuesday - Clinical's from 4pm-10pm Wed - Med surge Complex - 4pm - 9pm Thursday - Mental Health - 11pm - 1pm So far both of my lead professors are doctorate level nurses, one is a PA and the other is just a doctorate in critical care nursing. So the myth that they are poorly educated professors is grossly wrong, at least in mobility. They are really nice and helpful, while most of the time our information comes from power-points only about 70% of the testable material is generated from then, the additional 30% is from book reading. I still have no idea why teachers love the small print such as exceptions or in children/elderly type of book related questions. Our class started with 40 but we lost a handful because its too hard or (Insert random excuse here). During the beginning of class there was a lot of negativity about how disorganized it was or how no instruction was given. Let me point the following. On day 1 both instructors said we are no longer LVNs we are RNs Students and need to think like an RN. So they purposely give you care-plans with no directions to see how you do. Most complain, some wander around aimlessly, and others figure it out. Well as an RN you will have LVNS or pts, families ask a billion questions. As a LVN we say "Lemme get the RN". Well guess what we are now that RN, so we are expected to know the answer or pool our resources to figure it out. I digress Its been 2 months since the start of the program. Tests are hard, only about 50% passed our 1st two tests (medsurge and mental health) We have a test every week. You have to study, you have to dedicate time, otherwise you will struggle. The instructors dont make it hard, the material itself is hard. If you have questions please ask Ill do my best to answer them and from time to time Ill post updates for you guys to read.

Figure Id reply to this post as when people google it its the 1st one to pop up. Just gonna copy paste a replay from my friends FB so its formatted strange sorry but you will get the geist From what I heard that Gaylen is disorganized and have ****** clinical sites and you go to OLU for your basics which is no fun. Baptist has the best clinical sites, but costs like 12k and you have to have your pre-reqs 1st. From what I heave heard they are one of the better schools if you can get it. SAC was disorganized for the 1st few weeks only cause they had a huge computer transition and IT was a hot mess. So far 2 months in I have 0 complaints. Its hard, its a lot of work but none of my teachers so far are out to get me or make me fail. Dont even get me started with St Phillips and their probationary RN program with a meager pass rate of 72% For cost breakdown: English 1 and 2 = 600 Growth = 300 ANP 1 and 2 = 800 Chem 1 = 400 Micro = 400 Generall Psyh = 300 Total 3000.00 for Basics 1500 for books - thats pretty much standard Gaylen 25k for everything + basics + 1500 = 27k Baptist 12K + 4500 classes and books 17k SAC = 4k + 4500 classes and books = 8500 Then of course you have to consider pass rates: from 2005-2009 Baptist 83% SAC 88% Gaylen - Too new of a program St Phillips 72% THEN you have to determine which is better in the long run. they dont tell you this BUT while they are accredited your credit hours dont transfer to regular college and they arent accredited thru various nursing organizations. http://www.galened.com/louisville/ab...accreditation/ t's important to be aware that credits from this type of school often are not transferable to other schools (that's because they are accredited by different organizations than those that accredit "regular" colleges and universities). There's even a statement about that in the FAQ section of the Galen website. While many people start nursing school with the idea that they never want to go back to school and will only want to do basic, bedside nursing for the rest of their career, many, many nurses have had the experience of starting out with that thought and then, after a few years of experience, noticing how much wider a range of career possibilities and employment opportunities they would have with a BSN or even graduate education. If you take your original nursing education at a proprietary tech/voc school and want to return to school later on for a higher degree, there is a good chance (and Galen is already warning you about this!) that you would basically have to start "from scratch" because "regular" schools won't transfer in any of your previous credits/courses. Basically the same reason your vocational school LVN A and P didnt xfer to Sac. It met the programs requirements but not national standards.

Hello all. I hope everyone is having a great day/night. I have a question to those of you who have taken their LVN to RN program here in San Antonio. Here is my situation. I have been accepted to SAC and St Phillips. I have also been really thinking about ditching both of them and going for the online route (excelsior). I have heard equally horrible stories from each school, including the CPNE for Excelsior. I have consumed the countless pages on other persons opinion on Excelsiors program. What I am lacking is any type of consistent and current feed back on either San Antonio College or St Phillips College LVN to RN program. If you have attended either one of these programs please answer me these questions: How are the instructors? Is there a lot of inner office politics / power struggles that you had to endure while attending? Do you feel you got a good education? What are the days and times you attended class/Clinicals? On a scale of 1 - 10 how well do you think they prepared you for the NCLEX - RN Thanks a ton for the feedback. I need to make a decision by the 30th of this month!

I am currently on the short list to head out in the next 7-10 days. I am an LVN with 1 year experience in Med Surg and Peds. I went thru Angel Staffing as they seem to be the company thats organizing it here in South Texas. I hope this helps!

I used to work at North Central Baptist Hospital in San Antonio. Our patient census went from a full board of 30 down to 12-15 over the weekend. Beng cancelled and put on call didnt work for me. Additionally, being a Med surge floor we would typicaly run minimal nurses wth each nurse carrying 6 patients with 1 admit.