San Francisco State University (SFSU) ABSN 2023

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SFSU ABSN Summer 2023 Nursing Program

I haven't seen anyone start a thread for SFSU's ABSN program this year. Hoping to connect with people who applied for Summer 2023! 

Does anyone know if we need to submit official transcripts to NursingCAS only? Thanks! 

I guess we won't be knowing today either. I wish we got an exact date like other schools

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Hi all,

I'm a current student in the SFSU BSNA program. While I can't answer any questions you have about when you'll hear about acceptances and whatnot, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the program itself based on my experience.

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Specializes in Medical Assistant.

Hello everyone! I caught up on the chat and also eagerly waiting to hear back from SFSU ABSN. I was accepted into SMU ABSN program but I would love to go to SFSU ABSN. I hope we all hear back soon. Wishing us all the best! 

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@polina11 Thank you for jumping on! I am amazed that we haven't heard back yet since the program starts so soon, but oh well. In the meantime, to help me prepare, would you mind sharing -

  • How many days are your classes in-person vs. remote/online? I know a lot of schools are doing hybrid now
  • Do many students carpool to classes? I don't have a car and getting to the CSM campus will be hard, especially if it's 5 days per week, but I'd be happy to get to any Bart station and chip in gas $
  • Do clinicals start right away?
  • Are clinicals very well-organized?
  • Are there any breaks, like for Thanksgiving, Christmas? Or are you pretty much working straight through?
  • Were you able to take out FAFSA loans?
  • Is there a lot of community, studying together, etc. or does it feel like students are kinda independent/in it for themselves?
  • Since you heard back to late last year, did you have to do all the clinical requirements within a matter of weeks (drug test, etc.)?
  • Do you know if they drug test for marijuana (happy to quit if needed but would need to know a month in advance, LOL)?

Thanks!!

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@hannahkv

I wish someone had been able to answer questions for me before I started so I'm happy to help you guys out. You asked lots of good questions. I'll start with my disclaimer that everything is my opinion and based on what happened during my program. Things could be different for the next cohort. Also, I was also very surprised that it took so long for us to hear from SFSU and even once acceptances went out, it took a long time for them to schedule our orientation and tell us our class schedule. I'm here to tell you, this is foreshadowing for how the program will be. Lots of last minute info and changes. This is in part due to the shortage of clinical placements and nursing instructors, so I imagine most if not all programs are impacted by this. And things are apparently even worse since Covid. We usually don't know our class schedule until about a week before the start of the semester.

 

On to your questions...

 

1. The remote/in-person classes largely depend on the instructors. We had 1 theory class that was entirely over zoom because the instructor was hired last minute and that was the only way she could fit it into her schedule. My feeling is that the program prefers and kind of pushes the instructors to be mostly in-person. That being said, most of the instructors we've had so far are willing to be flexible. This semester our theory classes have been about half and half.

2. I would say maybe 25-30% of the cohort carpools, but it's mostly the students from the east bay so that they can save on toll fees. At most, we have had to go to CSM campus 2 times per week. As soon as our cohort was finalized, we created a Discord channel to communicate and people were quick to start arranging carpools. FYI, the clinical placements can be all over the place: random parts of SF, East Bay, Peninsula, and even San Jose. If you don't have a car, you need to make friends with your classmates and find rides to all you clinicals, some of which start as early as 6am.

3. Clinicals start on the 3rd week of the semester. This gives you some extra time to be able to get your background check, titers, drug test, etc done. With our cohort, they tried a "new thing" where they just started us off on the first day doing assessments in the community without any kind of orientation. It was a bit of a cluster*** and we were all terrified but it turned out fine. Your clinical experience depends a lot on the instructor you get and luckily all of the instructors I've had so far have been good and really wanted to help us learn and have a good experience.

4. Kind of related to the above answer. The clinical placements themselves can be very varied. I did not like my labor and delivery placement because it was super slow and we barely got to see/do anything but some of my classmates got really good hospitals where they had the opposite experience. This semester my pediatric clinical instructor backed out on the first day of the semester so the program was scrambling to get a new arrangement in place. My group didn't get to start until 6 weeks into the semester and we had to do a bunch of online simulations and "alternative assignments" (informal research papers) to make up the hours. But I am loving my current adult Med Surg placement. I get to see so much and try lots of the skills we learned in lab. As I said before, the instructors really do a good job of trying to help you have a good experience. But there is also a lot to be said for self-advocating. When you're in clinical, ask for the experience you want. If you want to see or do something specific, ASK! If you're offered to try something, DO IT, even if you are terrified and you are afraid to mess it up.

5. Usually it's about a 1 week break between Summer and fall and then between Spring and Summer. BUT the Winter break for us was like 6 weeks long. This program follows the SFSU academic calendar so check that out to know the exact dates for breaks. Sometimes you will get an "extra week" of break if you can convince your instructor to have the final on the last week of classes instead of during finals week.

6. I did not qualify for FAFSA but I know many of my classmates who did. There is a really good scholarship opportunity that is only for this program. It's through Sequoia hospital. You'll get more info once you start but basically I think 9 people get $10k and 1 person gets $25k. It's pretty good odds and not that much effort. There's also a scholarship through Sutter Health that I wish I knew about before. That one isn't specific to this program but be sure to Google it because they also give out a good amount of money. Also, FYI: this program uses ATI and it costs about $2700 split into 4 equal payments due at the start of each semester. 

7. The community that your cohort builds will really depend on the people in your cohort. My cohort is amazing and we support each other through everything. We use our discord channels to ask questions, share helpful videos, co-create test study guides, etc. It usually takes at least 1 person to start the ball rolling but I would really recommend forming a good relationship with the cohort. There will be a lot of things that you guys will need to band together and advocate for to either your professors or the program administration.

8. Because clinicals don't start until the 3rd week, we had enough time to get everything done in time. The most annoying part for me was scheduling the drug test because it has to be through a specific agency and they only had a few locations that do the test.

9. Yes, they do test you for marijuana. They also test for amphetamines and benzodiazepines so if you take those by prescription, it would be a good idea to get a doctor's note.

 

Phew, that turned out to be very long. I hope I answered all your questions. Let me know if anything didn't make sense or if you have more questions.

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Gurwantk said:

Hello everyone! I caught up on the chat and also eagerly waiting to hear back from SFSU ABSN. I was accepted into SMU ABSN program but I would love to go to SFSU ABSN. I hope we all hear back soon. Wishing us all the best! 

Thank you so much!! Couple more questions -

• Did anyone work part time while in the program, and if so, did they survive? LOL

• Are the odds pretty good of getting hired at a clinical site if you make a good impression?

• Were clinicals ever night shifts?

• Were most people local, or did some people move to the bay for this program?

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@polina11

thank you for answering those questions!

I was wondering if you had any insight into the times classes start, how many days a week they are? As well as do they run into the weekends? How are clinicals...times, days?

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NurseFlex said:

Thank you so much!! Couple more questions -

• Did anyone work part time while in the program, and if so, did they survive? LOL

• Are the odds pretty good of getting hired at a clinical site if you make a good impression?

• Were clinicals ever night shifts?

• Were most people local, or did some people move to the bay for this program?

1. I think maybe 30-50% of my cohort started the program while having part-time jobs. You need to have a job that is very flexible. We don't get our finalized class schedule until about a week before classes start so that can make it hard to fit in work. It's doable, but hard.

2. I can't speak to the odds since I don't think anyone in my cohort has tried to get hired yet at a clinical site. My opinion is that it can definitely help if you are able to build connections and make a good impression during your clinical. At the very least, your rotations will give you a good idea of which places you'd like to work and where you DON'T want to work.

3. None of our clinicals are overnight shifts. But I think there has been at least 1 group so far that had their rotation start in the afternoon and end around 11pm. We were told for our capstone clinical rotation in the last semester that it is very likely we will have to do evening and weekend shifts. 

4. In my cohort, most of the people are local. 1 student moved down from Sonoma and 1 moved up from Santa Cruz but everyone else was already living in the Bay Area.

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Darollipolli said:

@polina11

thank you for answering those questions!

I was wondering if you had any insight into the times classes start, how many days a week they are? As well as do they run into the weekends? How are clinicals...times, days?

Classes are never on the weekends, but clinicals can be. The schedule pattern has been pretty consistent so far: 2 days of theory and lab and 2 days of clinical (except for 1st semester where you only have 1 clinical day). Classes and lab are generally 2.5-3 hours each. Clinical rotations are either 8 or 12 hours long. I'll give you my current schedule as an example:

Sunday: Pediatric clinical 6:15am to 6pm (but we sometimes end by 4:30)

Monday: Med Surg Clinical 6:45am to 3:30pm

Tuesday: Lab 1:30pm to 4:30pm

Wed/Thurs: no classes

Friday: Med Surg Theory 9am to 12:15pm & Peds Theory 12:30 to 3:15pm

Everyone in the cohort has classes together but we don't have clinicals on the same days because it depends on the placement site. So some of my classmates have clinicals on Saturdays or Wednesdays this semester. This was the first semester that we had clinicals on a weekend, previously all of our clinicals have been only on weekdays.

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@polina11 did they continue to drug test throughout the program, or just at the beginning? 

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NurseFlex said:

@polina11 did they continue to drug test throughout the program, or just at the beginning? 

Technically, the school only requires you to do a drug test in the beginning. Make sure you do not drink too much water before your test so that your results don't come out diluted. I accidentally did that. The school accepted my "dilute negative" result but this semester one of my clinical placements asked me to redo the drug test because they do not accept the dilute result. So just keep that in mind.

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One thing you guys haven't asked about yet but I think is important to know is the types of capstone preceptorships you can get in this program. I know several of my classmates wish they had known this before they decided to attend this program. If you are pretty certain that you want to work in labor and delivery or pediatrics or NICU or anything related to children and pregnancy, you should look for a program that allows you to do your capstone in these areas. SFSU does NOT allow it because their capstone is strictly an adult/geriatric med surg class. While it's still possible to get a new grad job in one of these specialities without the capstone, it can be much easier if you did have the specialty capstone.

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