osbick_bird

I'd suggest tracking down the recruiters for the systems you will be applying to and asking them this question, since there seems to be a wide variation in how different organizations prefer new grad applicants to proceed. Just got hired myself for my first nursing position, though according to the posting a "required qualification" was 1+ year of acute care experience. While it's theoretically possible to be blacklisted for not having everything they ask for (and many HR robots might automatically kick out your application), it is also true that a person will never be hired for a job they don't apply for. While recruiters don't make the hiring decisions, they can help your application at least get looked at by a human being, and give you some insight into how the process works for that specific organization. In my neck of the woods it seems like every system "requires" experience but some will hire newbies who have had a clinical practicum in a related specialty while others won't touch you without 1 year under your belt already....you can't always tell without asking!

Official Legacy rejection emails went out this morning. Took a moment to shake it off, then....onward and upward! (Providence has some new grad postings, just FYI)

Not certain, to be honest. Not sure if they still have a relationship with Linfield or how important that might be, either. Not having gotten a call yet, I'm just going to assume that it's not going to happen for the sake of my own peace of mind!

Supposedly sometime this week, for Adventist.

Oh, how exciting, congratulations! For what clinical area?

Oh, do I hate waiting. Living in suspense has never been my strong suit! Thanks for the little bit of extra information, guys. Eight hundred applications might take some time to sort through! Good luck to us all!

Seems like it'd be nice to have a thread up for anybody applying for the Legacy or the Adventist Versant programs, there's got to be a few people going for one or both! Word has it that Kaiser is also starting a new grad program but I don't have any details about it. I'm interviewing for both programs, hoping for something in the critical care/cardiac stepdown/ED universe. Anybody else?

Many of my OCNE graduate ADN classmates have gotten jobs in rehab-type facilities, some in home care, some in clinics, a handful in acute care settings, so there really are jobs out there, though landing one in a hospital is pretty difficult with an associate's. The BSN will open more doors, and most of us seem to be either already working on it or planning to soon. For me, going to CC and finishing the last three terms up on the hill at OHSU--will be finishing up this March--have been absolutely the best of both worlds. I think because ADN graduates are expected to be able to go out and work after graduation, we are pushed a little harder a little sooner to be confident and self-directed. As a pretty cautious person, this is something I really needed, and it's been serving me well. Just a couple of observations about those accelerated programs: the pacing is supposed to be insane (just the normal pace of the OCNE curriculum seems insane, hard to imagine learning all that in less time), and there is less clinical time. People will say different things about the value of clinical experience, but for me it really takes some practice in figuring out what I'm looking at to begin connecting what we've learned in theory to the flesh-and-blood person in front of me. There are amazing & successful nurses who have taken all kinds of pathways (and I think having that diversity in how we get there is a strength! Not everybody thinks about things in the same way), but I personally feel pretty lucky to have had this opportunity to have gotten both the more practical hands on CC approach AND the big-picture view from the University. The Ac-Bac is the right program for a lot of people! But I personally wouldn't change a thing about my path through nursing school. Hope that some of that is helpful! Maybe some Ac-Bac grads can chime in with their point of view.

As a soon to be graduate of PCC's Nursing program, I can only speak to my experience, but I am so grateful to have attended here. Expectations are high and the program is very demanding, but it has given me a very firm grounding in both knowledge and clinical experience, moving forward I feel well prepared to take the next steps in furthering my education and starting my career. I might gently suggest that some ambiguity and disorganization, losing beloved classmates due to test grades, frustration and feeling overwhelmed are probably going to be experienced in nursing schools everywhere, that the first year of this program is the hardest as one acclimates to a new way of thinking and a huge mass of information, and that it is harder to be resilient to these challenges if all you can see is the negative side of it all. I'm currently trying to get everything pulled together for OHSU's CC transition program and there has been a lot of runaround and mixed signals from them, so....probably very safe to say that PCC is not even slightly perfect, but it is far from alone in its imperfections, and I personally would not change my decision to attend here for anything. Edited to add, re: NCLEX pass rates--Last year all but one member of the class of 2013 passed the NCLEX, and that one passed on the second try. Our pass rates are high.