gc1010

So I am a CSUSMer that graduated in August '13 and I read the facebook page that my cohort used throughout the program and I see a lot of problems getting hired. To get in a new grad spot you NEED to either be working at the facility currently in another position (CNA/tech) or have done an externship. But even the extern doesn't guarantee a spot. It's not just nursing though. My MIL graduated with a masters in education a few years ago and couldn't find a job is SD. SHe also has JD so she is not under qualified. She had to intern for free and worked her buns off to get great recommendations while mailing thousands of apps all over and finally got an amazing job offer at notre dame. Fast track 3 years and my wife came out around january of last year from SD, quitting her 10 dollar an hour job that we were super grateful for having and moved out to Indiana to also work at Notre Dame. She was a Landscape architect, did some freelance work but never really worked in the field much. 4 months after temping she landed n amazing job at ND. And now what you have been waiting for I moved to IN immediately and applied to a great hospital in the area. I applied, interview 2 weeks later and got a job offer 2 days after that. First interview sent out maybe 15 apps between two facilities. Move if you can. Reverse frontiering.

Sorry, I'm in the ABSN, just finishing. I don't know what the generic schedules are like. The units will be all over the place with about 6-10 lecture hours and a similar clinical hours. the lecture is usually all one day and the clinicals are all over the place.

Finishing this program in one week. It had been fun at times and at others complete misery. After psych I jokingly created the disorder SAD, school affective disorder. You will probably feel like dropping out every semester. It is not because it is actually hard but the volume of work makes you just not want to do it. These leads to a sort of ambivalence to the work and you will go through periods where you would rather take a loss than complete that last damn care plan. But that is just the bad. The folks you will meet will be awesome. You will never bond more with classmate than in this program. Study your ATI now because at the end you will need to pass a comprehensive exam with a 77.3, which seems low but you will spend hours, perhaps days on practice exams to ensure you make that level. The scrubs and polo are horrible and if anyone is size large guy you can have mine because you will not want to wear them again.

just found this old post and I need to disagree with your statement about the whining clients. Being interested in physical education and nutrition myself, I think that working with the whiner is actually more valuable by means of health promotion. Once you are recovering from your amputated diabetes leg whining is a little pointless. However, whining to lose weight and or adjusting one's diet is much more important. Those are cues to adjust the regime to work accommodate the changes. That adjust may be what allows them to control diabetes before it is unmanageable and prevent the whines from loosing a leg.

@malzi, no guarantee on getting SM in the spring because of their random assignment. Keep that in mind. Temecula isn't bad, the equipement is fine but I don't know about a comparison with the SM campus because I've never been. The facility is actually pretty nice because it is small. Parking lot adjacent, free no less, 1/4 full at most. I strongly recommend that if you get into TM that you live in TM, if you don't already have a place to stay in SD. I like it and I have to drive an hour to get there.

we have to fill out a patient map that has CC, Hx, Meds, pretty much all the subjective and objective data collected. Then we go back and actually do our assessment the following day. then we do a nursing care plan. I think that we should come earlier in the shift and not need to come the day before.

I'm in fundamentals and health assessment so we are at the SNF and my school wants the students to go to the SNF the day before our clinical days to pick a patient and do a write up. Is this the way you have done it? There won't be an instructor or anything just students. The thing is that I don't think they are actual school hours so I should be able to do them any time, agree? The major factor is that the SNF is over an hour away. #firstworldproblems. just curious

love carhartt. Their stuff rocks.

You could work a lot the first semester. so far it is only three days a week. 2nd semester is also 3 days but much longer hours as we jump from 9 units to 14 or something.

I would suppose that fall is more competitive but the have hundreds/ thousands of applications rolling at all times. What the advisors say is that they offer the top 10 percentile and the next 10th and so on (not actual numbers but something like that). but the start quick. when the spring cohorts start they wil probably make offers for the next cohort. It may even be when a cohort is full, which may not be until pretty close to the start. Look at the points averages and just try to be at least at the previous years admission points average. The higher point students might get more offers from other places, too. Just nail the TEAS.

we are only in class 2-3 days a week, for 3 hours a day. Bad news with the san marcos campus... you are not guaranteed to get it. I applied for cohort 9 or 8-9 because there are two cohorts and I got temecula instead of SM and there is little you can do to vote for one over the other. And it is that way every time. Knowing that I could get temecul again in the spring I just opted for it now. So don't count on SM unless they change the policy of random assignment.

and there are a bunch of people that are figuring it out as they go along. so just worry about getting in, then worry about money.

@amyca, that is pretty close, 43k is high though. the low end tuition, suplies and fees is 33-34k but the high end is maybe 35-36. The requirements are well laid out and planned for. the major difference is in weither you pay full price for books and software as that represents the highend. But there is not a lot of play else were from what I understand because you have to use their scrubs, shoes, supply kits. The school is really the fixed cost. I don't know where you are coming (live) from but the 20k is pretty much room and board but on a mid to high range for a single person. If you lived in a van or rented a room that was really a closet it could be much less. depends on what you are comfortable with. But you need to have things like health insurance, which gets costly, and you should probably have a laptop and good internet access because it is easier to research online. I wouldn't be discouraged by the 20k because it could come down significantly. You would just have to work at it and part of the fun is the extra stuff you do with your cohort, which makes the experience way better.

You can work pretty heavily the first semester as there are only 9 units and the classes are easy. I haven't started clinicals but everyone seems to say that the hours on that are all over the place so working would be tough. You should qualify for 12,500 per year in loans unless you have insane first bachelors debt. 5500 sub/7000unsub. My understanding is that you can count on heavy driving in either san marcos or temecula so that is a factor. other than that your living expenses are whatever it takes to feed, house, and cloth you. Program should be 33,000 bare bones min just to pay for the actual schooling, so that leaves almost 10,000 you have to have in excess of loans just to go to school. I'm living with family so they give me a huge cut on rent otherwise. Private loans are brutal but for two years of just living in san diego/temecula seems to be like 20,000 so the program cost plus living for 2 years amounts to almost 80,000. loans cut that to 55,000. It's tough, and I don't have any good answers except find a rich benefactor.

It's alright. Be sure to do your fafsa before march because they are so behind that the semester has already started, we all have fee deferments until the 26th (sept) but you cannot do things until you are officially enrolled in the school. The first two weeks i was just going on good graces. But you have to do all your loan stuff before you can get a dispersement of funds. So it is cutting it close. The upperdivision classes you take first semester are okay but they really don't feel very connected to actually practicing nursing so that is a little bit of a let down. But the cohort model is great and I can already feel the cohort coming together which is sweet. classes are 3 days a week 3 hours a day. 2 evenings and one midday. If I think of anything else I will write it later.