tfesmire

As far as working goes, it really depends on your situation. I have worked 32 hours a week the entire time, but I work night shift, and I work in the PACU where I don't always have patients and have plenty of time to study. I know another student who works full time night shift in an ICU, but her kids are all grown. Most people work PRN or part time, but I have to work full time because my boyfriend can't support us both and I need the health insurance, so it really depends on if you have small kids, if you're on your own, and how comfortable you are with studying. Personally, I don't need hours and hours each week to study and I don't have kids whereas some people do, which makes it easier for me to work. As far as pharm goes, (and this really goes for the program as a whole) don't make it harder than what it is. What this program is really teaching you is how to answer NCLEX questions, and what they are going to drill into you is to look at the information given to you in the question, and only the information in the question. You are looking for the best answer in the answers provided even though there may be a better answer not listed (if that makes any sense). As far as pharm goes, they will give you everything that you need to know in the power points and the notes. I really don't recommend using the book for pharm because it contains WAY more information than you need. For example, tetracyclines are a class of antibiotic. There are a million things to know about tetracyclines, but the question that I remember them asking, that was covered in class, was that tetracyclines should not be given to children under 12 because it will permanently stain their teeth. You need to realize and get comfortable with the fact that you don't have to know EVERYTHING (even though we all stress out and feel like we do), but merely the information that they give you to pass the class. That makes studying a lot easier and less stressful as well. I think that a lot of people fail pharm because they freak out and make it way harder than it needs to be. Personally, I don't find the program to be that difficult. Other than psych and peds/ob, everything builds on itself so it's not like what you learn in 111 will never be touched on again, you build on it in each class that you have. Probably the most frustrating thing is their time management. You will probably find that your time at school is not being utilized very well, and that takes some getting used to. I will also say that I have found 111 to be the hardest class so far (I'm sure 213 in the fall will surpass that, but I'm not there yet) simply because it is a lot. It is 16 weeks, whereas every other class (except 213) is 8 weeks. You don't realize it because I'm sure you've pretty much always done 16 week classes, but it's draining. You are doing nursing 4 days a week (lecture, skills, pharm, clinic) for 16 weeks and it is a LOT of information being thrown at you constantly because they have to give you all of the fundamentals very quickly to get you into clinicals. It is easier if you have any sort of clinical experience (CNA, EMT, CMA), but it's still a major shift in your thinking process. We heard a lot of things when we were going through it, but I feel pretty confident saying that it gets better after this first semester.

Hey all, I am a member of the December 2016 class (so I started last Spring) and I was reading through this and thought I would give you guys a bit of a heads up as to what you're walking into since it's coming up fast. I don't know about the size of your class, but we started out with about 55 students (Spring classes are always smaller) and we had about ten people still taking Anatomy & Physiology. They tend to be a little more lenient than what they tell you about working with people's schedules if they're in A&P. You will have class from 4-7 three days a week (every other semester so far it's only been twice a week) with a six(ish) hour clinical. The benchmark for passing is a 78% (meaning your exams have to average that for you to pass the class). The biggest reason that people fail out of Nur 111 is the pharmacology portion of the class, so make sure to pay extra attention in there. The skills check-off at the end of the semester is also not a big deal, nobody in my class got kicked out because of skills. They will tell you a ton of ways that you can fail out of school, the best thing to do is just to ignore them. They also tend to micro manage (Girls, when you're in your scrubs it is absolutely unacceptable to wear your hair in a ponytail, it has to be off your neck. They also gave us a HARD time about wrinkled scrubs), but that has lightened up after the first semester. The biggest thing I can tell you is that they are still trying to weed people out, so do not let them get to you.

I agree with SioanainnRN. Most PACU's do not take new grads...you have to have critical care experience. Something smells fishy to me.

Has anyone received their scrubs yet? I had mine sent to my parents house because I moved two weeks ago and I didn't want to risk losing them, but they haven't arrived yet...I'm just wondering if I need to contact the company

I don't know if this answers your question, but I work in a PACU at a level II trauma center at night, and I am a CNA. The whole reason that I was hired is because they were dinged with a violation for only having one provider in the PACU at night. They hired two CNA's full time to cover all of the nights with the nurse so they are not alone, and we still schedule an RN on call as backup (since CNAs are cheaper than RNs). I don't know if that's an option you might explore.

I got in with 39 points, and an 89 on my TEAS test, but the reason that my points were low is because I have been taking my pre-reqs at UNCG and so I don't have the computer or communications classes...but I already have a BA so I'm wondering if maybe that had something to do with it...or maybe I just got lucky because there weren't that many applications. But this was my first and only application, so I guess I just got really lucky