Kat_everdeen

I was wondering if anyone on here is currently in the Lasalle Achieve program as a 2nd Degree student or if anyone is planning on applying to this program. How is/was your experience? I have to take 7 prereq's, A&P 1 and 2, Microbiology, Stat, Chem, Religion and Philosophy. Where did anyone take their prereq classes? I know Lasalle suggests you take the classes with them, but I just can't afford it. I am planning on taking them at CCP. Any recommendations on teachers to take or avoid? For maths and sciences I do best with teachers who are very organized and clear with their lectures and notes. Other than that what has your experience been like so far? Is anyone working full time while attending this program? Any information or suggestions would be really helpful. I apologize if there is another place for me to post this or look for this information, I looked for Lasalle in the colleges section but didn't see it.

I used to work for a company that was responsible for car insurance claims, they employed nurses to determine what questions need to be asked of an independent doc in order to figure out if the person could continue to claim disability and have the insurance company continue to pay out. Personally I found it to be soul crushing, I had a claimant who was clearly injured and needed pretty serious knee surgery, the independent doc said he needed a clearer Xray to answer definitively what needed to be done on this persons knee, but either way the person needed surgery. They wanted to leave her file in limbo so eventually her claim could be outright denied. I imagine you might be able to find a job in the pharma industry or in a doctors office, possibly plastics. I am not a nurse so this is just an educated guess.

@HouTx I've been creeping on this board for awhile, I've looked into all the specialities I thought I may have an interest in. I definitely realize that psych nursing is dealing with full-blown psychotic patients, I have no problem with that but thanks for telling me anyway. My whole thing is that I want to know the WORST parts of nursing not just the flowery, romantic stuff that people talk about like delivering gorgeous babies and wiping fevered brows. It seems like a lot of nurses on here enjoy a lot of different specialties, some love ortho some think it is boring. As for psychology, well unfortunately money IS a factor. I don't know about other states but in PA the average pay for an LPC is between 30 and 40 a year, I would need to spend another 70 to 80 to get a PhD and be able to make a decent living. If I won the lotto tomorrow I would do it. However, I am not looking into nursing for just the money, I know that the money would not be worth it if it was not something I could enjoy doing. @>JustBreathe

Thanks saramisu, I know a lot of my problem in HS and college was that I already had it in my head that I was terrible at math and not so great at science so I didn't try. I feel like if I actually made an effort and was that person who studied every night I could actually pull decent grades.

@suzilks1 thanks I will check that website out. Nice to see someone else who has the same issues with math that I do. Anyway, I am going to start studying for the nursing entrance exam, if I can't pass that then its not meant to be.

dkbstill good luck to you and thanks. I sort of feel the same way, like I have to at least try. I don't want to do nothing and look back and regret it. pinknblue82 I'm relieved to hear that I am not the only person who finds math challenging, and that you are a successful and competent nurse. You are right, if I make it through nursing school then I can make it as a nurse. Unfortunately for myself I am the type of person who thinks WAY ahead. So in my mind I'm already an impostor (something I hear is a fairly common feeling) nurse who knows nothing and is one step away from killing a patient. Again, I fully realize I'm thrown off, its just how I am. As far a far as being a psych nurse I actually just read and article/post on here by a veteran psych nurse saying something to the effect that the psych specialty is not necessarily appealing to newer nurses. Which is weird to me, I love psychology.

Wow, I would LOVE to be a psych nurse. I can't believe it's something that new nurses would not want to do. My long term goal would be to be a psych NP. To each their own I guess.

Wow that is pretty cool. I wish I had looked at math that way in college. I took an avoidance approach, which hasn't made my fear of math any better. I did go onto a website that has med. calc quizzes, I actually didn't do bad I was really surprised. I do well when people teach math to me in a certain way, I had a math tutor for little bit when I was younger and was starting to do a lot better, I don't know why I stopped going to her.

I am 26 and have a degree in English Lit. and have been thinking about going back to school for psychology. For some reason I can't shake the idea of going to nursing school. I talked myself out of it while I was an undergrad, because I am absolutely terrible at math. I have really severe math anxiety, I have only ever found one teacher that could make any kind of math make sense to me, which was my geometry teacher in high school. The one and only time I took anything resembling chemistry was, again, in high school. It was freshman year, and called "Physical Science" but it had a very heavy chemistry base, I did terrible in that class and barely passed. To be perfectly honest I never really applied myself in any of my science based courses in high school or college, just because I did well in English and it was easy for me so I tended to not really worry about science. In all my science classes in college I got at least a C as a cumulative grade without trying very hard. I was the person who studied REALLY hard two days before a test to pull in a C. I have a cousin who is an L&D nurse, when I told her I was terrible at math she waved off that idea and told me you don't use much math as a nurse. Which I don't think is true, since nurses have to do med. calculation. I am trying to be really honest with myself about my abilities. I think if I applied myself I could get As and Bs in A&P, Chem and Micro. as for med. calc, I don't know. I don't want to be the nurse that scraped by. I really don't want to be the person who makes a fatal medical mistake because I calculated a patients dosage incorrectly. That is my MAIN fear. I have been lurking around the internet looking for peoples perspectives on their nursing careers and realize, of course, that I don't have to work in med-surg but will likely have to start out there or more likely a nursing home. I think I would really like to be a psychiatric nurse, but that seems like a speciality that likely wouldn't be available to a new nurse. I also have tried to be honest about what nursing entails, ie I realize bodily fluid and body parts will be part of the job. I am not squeamish when it comes to blood, vomit, urine, bowel movements, wounds etc. I actually watch when people draw my blood. I have also worked in childcare for a number of years and have already been vomited, peed, pooped and snotted on. I'm not really sure what I am looking for here, honest opinions I guess. If its your inclination to say "hey maybe nursing is not for you" please do so. Like I said the main thing that is holding me back is the math issue, I don't want to be a nurse who barely passed something and risk injuring a patient. I am also very empathetic person, to the point that it may actually be a problem for me. For instance if I worked in hospice I don't think I could handle watching people die every other day and watching their relatives grieve. I think nurses who can do that are great, I think I would have a break down after even a month of it. As for why I want to be a nurse I do really want to help people, I also want to challenge myself for me it would a career not just a job and a paycheck. I think if I were just in it for the money I would burn out quickly. I realize I am nuts, no need to point it out. Any constructive comments/opinions would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the obnoxiously long post.