happydrunkcat

DaveAlphaRN, Congratulations!

Congratulations! The hard work and sacrifices have paid off.

No she is not as far as I know.

I took Sherri Taylor's workshop in Atlanta in December 2009. Passed my CPNE Jan. 11 2010 :) Sherri is an awesome person with great personality, and she is a fantastic teacher! She is the queen of careplans. I was terrible at first, but she broke the whole thing into small logical pieces. She was helping me with careplans the whole month before my CPNE. She always was available via email if I had any questions. As a result, the longest time I spend writing my careplan during the CPNE was 15 minutes. It was my last pt and I really took my time to make sure everything was ok. She has videos on her website that you can subscribe to. In my opinion, worth every penny. I was just playing them over and over when my brain could not study anymore :))

EC does not require filming anymore. At least, it was not required for Teaching class. I think they removed it from Health Assessment class as well (You can always call them and ask). Classes are challenging. BSN program is much harder than ASN (well, it should be, right? ). It took me 4.5 month to finish their ASN program. It will take me 2.5 years to be done with BSN. But I have an excuse - writing is not one of my favorites. It takes a lot for me to write something that worth reading. The good thing is - I have one class left. I'm planning to take Capstone in September (I'm in a process of moving to MN now :)). Good luck to you!

Congratulations! Utica is a very beautiful city. Great CPNE site. Passed there in Jan 2010.

New grad RN starts at about $22/hr. LPN - not sure, I think about $17/hr. There almost no jobs at the hospitals for LPN. Only long-term facilities and rehabs. I know Baptist were hiring a couple of years ago, but, again, not regular bedside nursing. Areas to live.. well, basically, look at the map, cut Jax in 4 pieces with the center in downtown, and make sure not to buy a house in north-west quarter. Not safe. Orange park is good, but Buckman Bridge can be a problem in a rush hour. I've heard that Mandarin has good schools. As fas as commute, basically, major hospitals are in downtown (Baptist, St-Vincents, and Shands), then some just off 95 - Memorial, St-Lukes, and Baptist-South. Two others are close to the beach area - Mayo (just off JTB), and Baptist-Beach. I live between St-Lukes and Memorial hospitals, like the area, close to everything. BTW, next spring - summer I'm planning to sell my house and get out of Jax, back to MN. Cannot wait. So, if you want, you can buy my house, LOL.

Joy, just a little note - you know that you can send your careplans to EC to be checked, they'll do it for free? The information should be in the study guide :)

:yeah:Feels good, right? Congrats!

+1 to Sheri's workshop. I did attend a live workshop, but it was a lot of information to digest :) Her video materials were at the trial stage at the time, some of those videos were typed during the workshop I attended. She gave us a free access and I can say that was a HUGE gift. Sometimes when I was tired of studying I just played the videos over and over while doing some house chores. I had a month to prepare for CPNE. And I passed :) P.S. Her careplans are fantastic!

Moomoo - I just saw your post in another thread. Please, do not sign with College Network! You can cancel the contract within 3 days if you just signed it. You can go directly to Excelsior, you do not need College Network for that. There is no waiting list. You take exams when you are ready. 3 day clinicals - it is not "Clinicals", it is a 3 day test. Go to http://www.excelsior.edu, get the information. Call Excelsior adviser, there are very helpful. Calculate the amount of money that you have to pay EXTRA to College Network for studying materials (which you can buy from e-bay if you do really want them). Please, think before making a decision. Read posts in this thread, at least.

moomoo111 - can you clarify some moments, please? first - " I will reach my goal and both The College Network and Excelsior have gone the extra mile to assist me." + "It's half the wait and money for me and you are allowed to work at your own pace" - doesn't make sense to me. You can work with Excelsior at your own pace, that is true. But in your case you are paying Excelsior AND College Network. I payed around $6000 for my RN trough EC. That included CPNE workshop, airplane tickets and hotels. Are you saying you have to pay HALF of it??? Sorry, do not believe you :) Plus, there is no waiting list at Excelsior. Another thing is - what preceptorship program are you talking about? You can attend a workshop to pass CPNE, there is a tons of information on this site. There is also yahoo group - freehelpexcelsior. Very friendly and very helpful. I wish you good luck with your study, but it seems to me that you do not have enough information about Excelsior program. You can contact them directly, they are very helpful.

Well, it's not too bad. Yes, it will take me 2 years, but I was taking a lot of "time off". I did not have any classes from middle of April till September. I did not combined Writing class with anything else. Now I'm taking Research and again, nothing else. It is possible to combine the classes, I just do not have a lot of ambitions at this point. I did take Assessment and Socialization together, but for me it was a bit of a "too much". I want to have life too, lol.

I am currently enrolled into EC RN-BSN program. I love it :) And the best thing is that they are removing video requirements (starting January 2012). Previously they had two classes that students had to do the video part for - Health Assessment and Teaching. I did my video for Health Assessment class. Was fun and very nerve-wracking at the same time. I'm glad that I won't have to do it again. I enrolled in May of 2010, took Patho, Statistics, Community-focused nursing, and Management as exams, Health-Assessment, Professional Socialization, and English as 15-weeks courses. Right now I'm taking Research class. After that it'll be Teaching (I think I will be able to take 8-week course starting January) and Capstone left. So, hopefully, I'll finish it by next July.. or Christmas You can tell, I'm taking my time now :)

Erika, I haven't finished yet. I'm now in "taking my time" mode :)) I enrolled in May of 2010, now I'm done with Statistics, Patho, Community-focused nursing, Management (I passed exams for those courses), Physical Assessment, Proff. Socialization, and English (for those I took classes). Now I registered for Research class, 15 weeks from Sept. till Dec. 18th; then I'm planning to do Teaching - 8 weeks, Jan.-Feb., and then start my Capstone. So, it'll be a little over 2 years. At least I hope for that, lol :)

Congrats and Good Luck!

sshcnurse - I'd just call EC on Monday morning. They were always very helpful with all the questions I had for them. They might have to look at your transcripts before they can tell anything specific. Good luck! And no, you do not have to have any middle-man like tcn :))

Ok. One more time. In plain English. CN IS NOT A SCHOOL. It does not grant you a degree. It will give you study guides. And you will pay what is it now? $5000? You can collect a pretty good library for this money. Plus, you still have to pay the tuition to a college - a real college - Excelsior or ISU or whichever you want to go. But. Everyone has it's own head and a bank account. So, it is your choice. For CA - it was some problem with EC grads getting licensed in there. You can call EC and ask.

How was the interview? Unfortunately, I do not have any suggestions, since I failed my phone interview :) I got another one in a week and had an offer a day later :) Good luck!

I passed in Utica a little more than a year ago. Loved the place. Everybody were so friendly! The pediatric floor is kind of small, but it was full when I was there, so everybody got kids as patients. I failed my first patient - a small girl, about 16 month old. She hated white uniforms :) Her parents was very friendly and very helpful though. It was completely my fault, I was so ready to get out of the room, away from the crying baby, I weighted her with her diaper on :) My CE was trying to give some hints, she said something like : "Do not put the scales back to the storage room yet", then "Do not go back to the room without me".. And I'm thinking: "Why in the world I would want to go back? I don't" :) Listen to your CE :) Second kid was awesome - 9 year old, with his parents in the room. All very supportive and cooperative. Passed with no problem. It was 6 of us, we all failed one patient on Saturday. And all cases were completely our faults, nobody could say that CEs were unfair. They were great. Very supportive.

Passed in Utica a year ago. Had a wonderful experience! Beautiful city, nice small hospital, great people. Loved it :)

I test out for Management and Community-Focused Nursing. Plus, I had some gen. Eds to do, so I took tests for Statistics and Pathophysiology. Now I'm taking English class. I took Prof. Socialization together with HA. Well, if I had to do it over again, I would definitely take HA separately. There is so much to learn, the book is awesome, and the video assignment.. well, challenging. Was fun, though. I'm not sure what to do with Research. I'd love to save time and money by taking the test, but taking the class sounds so much easier, LOL.

Melody, Congratulations! (Yes, I'm jealous, I have 3 classes left). How did you do the Research? I'm debating if I should take a class or a test? JDavis2009 - Please, stop pushing College Network. They might be helpful getting your ADN (which is still very questionable, imho), but they won't help you with BSN. You will HAVE TO buy the required textbooks in order to pass the classes. All teachers and advisers I had are very helpful. Why pay somebody else on top of that is beyond my understanding.

I have Research, Teaching, and Capstone left. Plus English. I found that they were pretty generous while grading the video. My video had tons of editing. I didn't have a cameramen and had to reposition the camera several times. plus, I had to re-shoot a couple of things just because me or my pt was out of the frame. They did noticed a couple of small things, but I didn't have to re-do the video. Documentation, on the other hand, should follow all the steps and be very detailed. I had to re-do mine, because I decided to save some time and write in a skin and breasts assessments something like "such-and-such are within the normal limits". NOT acceptable. Didn't save any time and lost 7 points. Lesson learned. :)

that's insane! it means that at some point you have 5-6 classes at the same time. how you keep up with this????? i had 2 classes and thought it was bad. i was thinking about dropping ps class several times during those 15 weeks so i can focus on ha. managed to finish both with b's and i'm proud of myself would have an a in both classes if i wouldn't be late several times. loosing points for "late submission" was an ongoing problem for me. was just too much stuff to do. one class at a time and i wouldn't have this problem. you are right about ha - it is a lot to learn. but the requirements are very clear, all assignments had a very structured description. the documentation paper was big, but not difficult at all - they provided us with a very detailed documentation of what they want to see in a paper. and the book is awesome! ps on the other hand omg! i couldn't understand what do they want from me. i couldn't find a mentor. 3 weeks later i called ec ready to drop the class. i should have called 3 weeks earlier. the person on the phone (unfortunately, i do not remember the name) talked to me for about 20-30 minutes. as a result - i kept the class and i found the mentor 2 days later :) the class wasn't bad at all after this point :)