fourpeat

Usually the time to jump on those things is at the beginning to middle of your 4th semester. The hospitals open up their applications at very different times so just pay attention to when they post their application openings. You can use this semester to network a little and try to get your foot in the door/connections. Also, I found it very frustrating that recruiters and HR rarely answer calls or emails, just be persistent. Try making an appointment with the recruiters at some point to talk to them about the hospital. Some are rude and try to push you out the door but it really helps for them to interact with you and not just your resume. Thats how I got the job that I currently have, I just did a drop by and asked them what positions are available soon and I got fast tracked through the application process.

I suggest you start applying for internships and residencies early, its very very competitive out in Houston. Even though a lot of hospitals say BSN preferred or required, just apply anyway. Try to get into their career meet and greets/tours/career fairs where recruiters and HR can actually look at you and speak with you. If you have any connections, use them, because everyone else does. If you have the time/resources, the VA in Houston hires new grads and ADNs, the interviewing process is just very long. Good luck!

Turnover at temple is very high and its mostly filled with people who are there to work for 1-2 yrs to transfer elsewhere. Temple is very large, and filled to the brim with students, especially with A&M's med school attached. Just make sure you are aware of what you're doing and keep patient safety a priority, no matter what any nurse instructs you to do. Nurses on the floor tend to be very catty at temple and no one really has your back but you.

As a current OR intern for Baylor Scott & White, I will say the hospital is great for teaching but you must be assertive. It's a huge teaching hospital and everyone is used to having students and interns everywhere so make your presence known and have a thick skin. Temple is quite cut throat, round rock is a dream to work at and hillcrest is pretty relaxed as well.

i really urge you to get your content down as it will help you to understand and answer what you're reading. Saunders is great, i really enjoyed reading it because it made everything very easy to understand. Good luck on everything, you can do it!

I think the Kaplan questions are tougher than nclex questions, actually. Out of my 75 Q's i had 35 select all that applies but admittedly, they were not that hard compared to Kaplans and the wording of the qustions was very similar. As for content, hurst gave me a very good foundation but I supplemented that information with saunders so my content was very solid. I didn't watch all of Kaplans videos, just the meds and safety and infection but i did get that paperback purple content book and read that cover to cover as well prior to my fourth attempt so its really up to you to gauge that for yourself. After kaplan, the NCLEX questions seemed very easy actually, so hopefully that'll be the same for you. Hurst and Kaplan are two very different beasts as i'm sure you know and both helped me tremendously in different ways.

I graduated Dec 2012 with a 3.4 GPA and took my first NCLEX around march. The test shut off at 75 Q's and I had failed miserably but that was my fault as I thought I could get away with minimal studying. After that I took Hurst and did fairly well on their practice tests, I thought their content review book was awesome and had 265 questions my second try. By that time it was May and I was really discouraged and thought I still didn't know enough content so I took another month to read the Saunders blue book cover to cover and was scoring around 80% on the books CD practice tests. On my third NCLEX attempt in August it shut me off at around 120 Q's, which meant I did worse. At my wits end, I decided to try Kaplan. Kaplan helped me to read the question a certain way and I am happy to say I passed my test 2 days ago at 75 questions with the good pop up. Please don't give up, as my problem lied within how had to tackle the test strategy and reading the question, it wasn't because I was incompetent. My kaplan Qbank average was 62%, readiness/diagnostic was 63% and my QT's ranged from QT1 53% - QT 7 68%.