chelsea3213

You're welcome. Good luck to you!

I got all of my pre-reqs when I got my bachelor's degree. My degree is in biology, and I taught high school for a little bit. I was able to go straight into the Brookkhaven program without taking any extra courses. I am almost halfway through the program now. I graduate in May. :-) I think you will be fine with A&P and chem at the same time. I took them both together along with two other courses. It's totally okay. :-)

It has been over five years since I took my pre-reqs, so I can't really remember any tips or tricks. I'm sorry. :-( A&P is fascinating, it's a ton of memorization. For instance you'll have to memorize every muscle and bone, etc. All I can say is try your hardest to get an A. I honestly can't remember my GPA, but my entrance points were 32.4 (I think, my memory is pretty foggy on that one.) I do remember that I had a 94 on the entrance exam. :-)

Don't worry about a B or two. The bulk of the entrance points come from your HESI A2 score. I also had a bachelor's when applying, but they don't take that into account. They only look at the test score and your pre-req completion and grades. I made it in on my first try, but a ton of people do not. It is highly competitive, and it seems that each application group gets more so. It's totally worth it though. I am nearing the end of my second semester, and I love it! Good luck to you both!

Well, acceptance to the program is based completely on grades and your score for the HESI A2 entrance exam. So, I would recommend getting all A's and getting a great grade on your HESI. There is a study guide for the HESI in the library for free, or you can buy it at the bookstore for a pretty penny. Good luck!

Regarding the book package, I think mostly everybody I have talked to regretted buying it. I wish I would have bought used books online...it would have saved a ton! They will try and sell the "electronic" package to you, which sounds really amazing, but in actuality, I have used it three times during the whole semester. Ha. Not worth the money.

Hi Judy!

Hi everybody! Congratulations on your acceptance into the program! I am currently finishing up my first semester in the program. It is so awesome! You are all going to love it. The faculty is so awesome! Let me give y'all a couple of words of advice...BE FLEXIBLE, OMG, you will see what I mean. Haha. Also, start saving up money, and lots of it! Books for first semester were over $1000 (don't panic, most of those carry on to all semesters). The books on the list that they will give you are only half of what you actually need, you need soooooooooooo many books. Also, you will need to buy a bunch of random stuff at the beginning of the semester (i.e. stethoscope, nursing kit, etc.) We were all a little shocked because nobody told us about all of the extras. So, I'm telling you this to warn you, not to scare you, get at least $1500 put aside for all your "stuff" this semester...books, scrubs, lab coat, stethoscope, nursing supply kit, pen light, etc. Don't run out and buy this stuff tomorrow, wait until you are given more instruction, just be sure to save up. Anyway, your next step will be success camp which was two days long for our group. They e-mailed us two extremely looooooooooooooong documents that we had to print out and bring with us (they e-mailed it the night before! remember that flexibility thing?!), and basically you read over some 200 pages for two days...rules, procedures, etc. They also had a bunch of speakers lined up to talk to us to promote different products. So that kind of gives you an idea of what to expect for success camp. We also had a big potluck on the second day of success camp which was cool. :-) Also, at the end of the second day is when we selected our schedules...it is based on a lottery system. You will draw a number out of a cup and they will start with 1 and go to 40 and let you pick your schedule. I'm only telling you all of this because I remember being in your shoes...I had a MILLION questions and nobody to answer them. :-) Good luck to you all! You are about to embark on an awesome journey! (How cheesy is that?!) ;-)

Well, I'm happy to help out. I know that I looked everywhere for more info about the program when I was trying to get in, and I had so many unanswered questions. So, I'm happy to answer your questions. :-)

Hi Crystal, You are allowed to miss only ONE day in each class per semester. Whatever you miss has to be made up though, so it is really not a good idea to miss. The faculty really frowns on missing class. This semester we are on the orthopedic floor, which consists of patients with broken bones, coming out of surgery (knee replacement, back surgery, etc.). They also put patients with lots of other random diseases on that floor when they run out of rooms on other floors. Most of the nurses are excellent, some have bad attitudes however. We just stay out of their way and stay busy. The day is long, but it FLIES by. It's crazy how fast the day goes by! We only have one lecture class, and we have a test every three weeks in that class. Apart from that class, we have skills lab and clinicals. Skills lab is where we learn all of the nursing skills. We learn a new skill each week. We practice the skill all week, then perform it in front of the professor(s). Once we are "checked off" on the skill, we are allowed to perform it in the hospital during clinicals. Apart from the tests in lecture, we have a couple of papers to write this semester. Previous semesters did have to wear all white scrubs. They changed the colors to hunter green for our semester. I was told that they had some complaints from hospitals about students wearing the white scrubs with no undergarments underneath...use your imagination. The tennis shoes have to be white, but they can have a little color...they aren't too strict on that. I am happy to answer questions for you! I know how you feel, I wanted in SO badly too. I did not take any of my prerequisites at Brookhaven, so I couldn't tell you who is good. I don't know anything about any of them... Sorry. :-( I don't remember any of the Hesi dates or application deadlines. Take a look at the Brookhaven nursing website...it has all of the dates listed. I hope you are having an excellent week! ~Chelsea

We started our clinicals last week. It's crazy and fun at the same time! We have already gotten to see some weird stuff! Clinical days are long, just under 12 hours. We had the choice between three hospitals: Medical Center of Plano, Baylor Irving, or Baylor Garland. We will be switching hospitals every semester based on what the semester is about, for example 2nd semester we will be learning about psych nursing and will be at a psych hospital. 3rd semester we will learn about L&D and pediatrics, so we will be at a children's hospital and a labor & delivery unit somewhere. It's good to switch hospitals each semester, so you can get a feel for how the different hospitals run. For first semester we go to clinicals one day a week, and we had the choice of Monday or Friday. By the time you graduate from the program you are going to clinicals 3-4 days a week. I have heard that some people are finding it difficult to find jobs. Due to the economy, a huge percentage of retired nurses have come out of retirement and gone back to nursing which takes the places of the newbie nurses. We were told not to worry too much about that though, because the economy changes so much and we still have 15 months to go. They also told us that a lot of hospitals are starting policies where if you have too many C's on your nursing transcript, they won't hire you. So, take that with a grain of salt, it's still an excellent profession to get into. If you are a driven person, you won't have trouble finding a job. When I studied for the Hesi, I read that evolve study guide from cover to cover (except for the sections that aren't on the test). I got a 94 on the Hesi. It's mostly math and grammar/vocab. It had very little A&P on it...only 25 questions. My suggestion to you is to do all of the practice problems in the study guide. Some of those exact questions showed up on the test. I also found more study questions for the Hesi online somewhere...just google it. I got in on my first try. The majority of the people in the program were on their second try. When you get into the program, they have what is called Success Camp where you get to meet the faculty and they give you a TON of info. Well, during Success Camp we were told that ALL 40 students from last semester passed and continued on to the 2nd semester. Almost everybody in my group of 40 is extremely driven and there is no way that they would consider flunking out. Everybody is very serious about getting through with flying colors. About work...they STRONGLY advised us not to work. If you have children it is ESPECIALLY difficult. I have a toddler and I feel so guilty that I never get to see her...I'm always at school or in my office studying. It has been a hard adjustment for all of us. I work one day a week. Plenty of people in the program work a few days a week but I know it's a strain for them. It IS feasible this semester...I can't speak for further semesters since I have not experienced them yet, but it seems to me that the program gets tougher and more intense the further you get into it. So far my experience has been amazing. I absolutely love the faculty. They are awesome. The nursing labs are brand new with lots of cool equipment. Everything has been awesome so far! :-)

Hello! It can be overwhelming...some weeks are better than others. There is a ton of reading and studying involved. That is the most stressful part. It's so awesome though! Regarding the volunteer hours, we are required to have 15 hours per semester. From what I understand, there are only a few days off between the end of this semester and the beginning of the summer semester. I am happy to answer any questions you might have. I was the same way... :-)

I can't remember exactly...I think I had 31.4 points. From the info that I've gathered from others in the group, I think that somewhere around 31 was the cutoff for this semester. Every semester is different. There have been semesters where 20 was the cutoff...so it just depends on the group of applicants.

My first semester clinicals are at Medical Center of Plano. We had the choice between Baylor Garland, Baylor Irving, or MCP. It changes from semester to semester.

I just started two weeks ago. We were given the option to do our clinicals on Mondays or Fridays, from 7AM-7PM. Then we have lecture from 9AM-2PM on Wednesdays and Skills Lab on Thursdays from 9AM-12PM. Then, any other classes that you are taking are on top of that (ex. dosage calc, pharm, etc.). That is by no means the only times that we are at school, there is a TON of studying and practicing that is on top of that. So far, I'm loving it though! I hope that helps... :-)