San Francisco State University (SFSU) ABSN 2023

[lennecita]

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! 

[Christalyn]

From a 2022 ABSN student:

Congrats to those who got in. You have accomplished something amazing, remember this day because you will need to remind yourself of it when you are in the thick of care plans and finals.

For those who didn't get in and are still waiting to hear, please keep trying, getting into a competitive program is not what will make you a good nurse. It is your drive, your passion, and your heart. Keep on going!

 

I just wanted to chime in about our overall experience of the program (2022 cohort). We have been extremely disappointed with the poor communication, organization, and overall education. I honestly feel I would have gotten a better education pretty much anywhere else. I know everyone complains about their program but the ABSN program is an entirely different level of crazy. We have barely had any time to practice in the skills lab, we do not get to use the simulation lab at SFSU or CSM, and we are constantly being asked to pay for extra things or change our schedules at the last minute.....I could go on and on. I am not trying to talk any of you out of SFSU,  it might still be a good choice for you because of time, cost, or location. But I do want you to be prepared and know what to expect. Stick with your cohort, support each other, and advocate for your education.

[hannahkv]

@Christalyn Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

How much extra do you think you've been asked to pay? The school told us we should anticipate around $6k in extra costs for books, scrubs, testing software, etc. Is the more you were asked to pay above this amount or is that around accurate?

Re: schedules, once you get the schedule for the next semester (even if that is last-minute), does it at least stay the same throughout the semester or is there even more change than that?

How many hours of any simulation lab do you think you get each week?

Trying to decide just how much crazy I can put up with, LOL

[Mochi10]

Christalyn said:

From a 2022 ABSN student:

Congrats to those who got in. You have accomplished something amazing, remember this day because you will need to remind yourself of it when you are in the thick of care plans and finals.

For those who didn't get in and are still waiting to hear, please keep trying, getting into a competitive program is not what will make you a good nurse. It is your drive, your passion, and your heart. Keep on going!

 

I just wanted to chime in about our overall experience of the program (2022 cohort). We have been extremely disappointed with the poor communication, organization, and overall education. I honestly feel I would have gotten a better education pretty much anywhere else. I know everyone complains about their program but the ABSN program is an entirely different level of crazy. We have barely had any time to practice in the skills lab, we do not get to use the simulation lab at SFSU or CSM, and we are constantly being asked to pay for extra things or change our schedules at the last minute.....I could go on and on. I am not trying to talk any of you out of SFSU,  it might still be a good choice for you because of time, cost, or location. But I do want you to be prepared and know what to expect. Stick with your cohort, support each other, and advocate for your education.

Thanks so much for your honesty and encouragement! It is very helpful to know what we are walking into. Could you share with us why you were not able to use the simulation lab at SFSU or CSM? 

[Christalyn]

@hannahkv

hannahkv said:

@Christalyn Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

How much extra do you think you've been asked to pay? The school told us we should anticipate around $6k in extra costs for books, scrubs, testing software, etc. Is the more you were asked to pay above this amount or is that around accurate?

Re: schedules, once you get the schedule for the next semester (even if that is last-minute), does it at least stay the same throughout the semester or is there even more change than that?

How many hours of any simulation lab do you think you get each week?

Trying to decide just how much crazy I can put up with, LOL

I think 6k might be an overestimate but I didn't keep track. I think the ATI system was about 2.5k which they did not warn us about before admission. One piece of advice, they will tell you that you must buy an expense stethoscope for clinical, but you honestly don't. The cheapy ones work great and no one at clinical cares what brand you have. Also, I would wait to buy the textbooks. You can often find a PDF version somewhere for free. I personally have rarely ever used textbooks (MedSurg, OB, etc.), and there are some books included with ATI. 

The schedule gets fairly stable a couple of weeks in, but that is of course if they were able to place you at a clinical site. Our group got shuffled around this semester so we didn't start our peds rotation until week 7, it was a ****show.

There is NO SIM lab. We do get an extremely small amount of time in "skills lab", but this semester our "lab class" has been like 90% lecture. This is probably my biggest complaint about the program because it is something that could have been easily done.

[Christalyn]

Mochi10 said:

Thanks so much for your honesty and encouragement! It is very helpful to know what we are walking into. Could you share with us why you were not able to use the simulation lab at SFSU or CSM? 

LOL, I wish I knew! That is a question for the department/director. It might be worth reaching out to them now and asking if that seems like something that would be important to you.

[bon bon, BSN, RN]

@Abi GG @polina11 @Christalyn 

Thank you guys for taking the time to respond to everyone! I was wondering if any of you or others from your cohort were able to work during the program and how often? There's a per diem job that I'm interested in, but I'm not sure how flexible they'll be and how intense the pace of the program is yet!

[Abi GG]

BON BON said:

@Abi GG @polina11 @Christalyn 

Thank you guys for taking the time to respond to everyone! I was wondering if any of you or others from your cohort were able to work during the program and how often? There's a per diem job that I'm interested in, but I'm not sure how flexible they'll be and how intense the pace of the program is yet!

I responded to this question earlier in the thread but re-posting here:

Yes, I have been working 20 hrs/week throughout the program (I think about a third of my classmates currently work). I was worried about how I would be able to balance everything before I started but it actually hasn't been that bad. If you have good time management skills and are OK studying in the evenings after class/clinical, you'll be fine. It does help if you can work remotely or have the flexibility to set your own hours because clinical/class schedules change every semester. 

[megan.ach]

Hi All, 

I was hoping some of the current students could chime in to their experience with clinicals.

1. Where have you had your clinicals?

2. How has the experience been? I did read that Peds was delayed by 7 weeks, but how have the other rotations been?

3.  Have they talked about preceptorship and what that looks like?

4. Since there isn't access to simulation labs, do you feel prepared when going into clinicals?

I'm deciding between 2 schools and trying to get a handle of what is offered here.  The other school I'm considering has a wonderful sim lab but no preceptorship.  I believe the preceptorship is more important but would love to get anyones thoughts on this.

TIA!

[polina11]

megan.ach said:

Hi All, 

I was hoping some of the current students could chime in to their experience with clinicals.

1. Where have you had your clinicals?

2. How has the experience been? I did read that Peds was delayed by 7 weeks, but how have the other rotations been?

3.  Have they talked about preceptorship and what that looks like?

4. Since there isn't access to simulation labs, do you feel prepared when going into clinicals?

I'm deciding between 2 schools and trying to get a handle of what is offered here.  The other school I'm considering has a wonderful sim lab but no preceptorship.  I believe the preceptorship is more important but would love to get anyones thoughts on this.

TIA!

1 & 2. First semester our clinicals were in the community and in skilled nursing facilities. You spent half the semester in 1 and half in the other. For the community clinicals, my group would go to different public/low-income housing buildings and do health fairs where we did blood sugar, BP, and other basic assessments. My group was at the Linda Mar Rehab Rehab in Pacifica for the SNF portion. Second semester is Psych and Labor/Delivery. Most of us did psych in a community setting, I think a few people were at SF General for their psych clinical. I was rotating between a short-term residential set-down program, which had zero nurses, and a psych urgent which did have nurses. I got placed at Sequoia for L&D. It was super slow and boring there. My classmates got placements at General, Stanford, UCSF, and I think 1 other hospital. This semester is Med Surg and Peds. My med surg placement is at Mills-Peninsula which I LOVE. Others are placed at St. Francis, UCSF Parnassus, and Sequoia. For Peds, we have students placed at Kaiser Oakland, Kaiser Santa Clara, and UCSF Oakland. My group was supposed to get placed at UCSF Mission Bay but the instructor quit at the last minute so we got placed at Kaiser Oakland instead.

3. Perceptorships will be during the 10-week Summer semester coming up. We were given a survey to complete so we could indicate what our priorities were (specialty, hospital, day or night shift, cohort or individual, etc). I'm not sure when we'll find out our exact placement. It sounds like, except for the cohort option, we will be paired with 1 or 2 nurses and we will have to work with them to figure out a schedule for us to do our preceptorship so we can meet the 135 hr requirement. They told us it is very likely that we will be paired with nurses who work nights or weekends because the hospitals save their day nurses for new hires, but there's still a chance to get days.

4. This is my own personal opinion and may differ from my classmates, but I'm not so upset about the lack of sim lab (anymore). I find my clinical rotations to be far more valuable in learning to do skills because you're doing them in a real setting, with real equipment and real people. Don't get me wrong, I'm very mad that I'm paying so much money and not getting the sim lab opportunity but I'm trying to focus my energy on getting as much as I can out of my clinical time. If you get a good nurse (and I've very rarely had one who wasn't) and you take the initiative to ask to do things, you will learn SO MUCH more and faster. I personally think a good preceptorship is better than an amazing sim lab but it really comes down to how you learn best.

[megan.ach]

polina11 said:

1 & 2. First semester our clinicals were in the community and in skilled nursing facilities. You spent half the semester in 1 and half in the other. For the community clinicals, my group would go to different public/low-income housing buildings and do health fairs where we did blood sugar, BP, and other basic assessments. My group was at the Linda Mar Rehab Rehab in Pacifica for the SNF portion. Second semester is Psych and Labor/Delivery. Most of us did psych in a community setting, I think a few people were at SF General for their psych clinical. I was rotating between a short-term residential set-down program, which had zero nurses, and a psych urgent which did have nurses. I got placed at Sequoia for L&D. It was super slow and boring there. My classmates got placements at General, Stanford, UCSF, and I think 1 other hospital. This semester is Med Surg and Peds. My med surg placement is at Mills-Peninsula which I LOVE. Others are placed at St. Francis, UCSF Parnassus, and Sequoia. For Peds, we have students placed at Kaiser Oakland, Kaiser Santa Clara, and UCSF Oakland. My group was supposed to get placed at UCSF Mission Bay but the instructor quit at the last minute so we got placed at Kaiser Oakland instead.

3. Perceptorships will be during the 10-week Summer semester coming up. We were given a survey to complete so we could indicate what our priorities were (specialty, hospital, day or night shift, cohort or individual, etc). I'm not sure when we'll find out our exact placement. It sounds like, except for the cohort option, we will be paired with 1 or 2 nurses and we will have to work with them to figure out a schedule for us to do our preceptorship so we can meet the 135 hr requirement. They told us it is very likely that we will be paired with nurses who work nights or weekends because the hospitals save their day nurses for new hires, but there's still a chance to get days.

4. This is my own personal opinion and may differ from my classmates, but I'm not so upset about the lack of sim lab (anymore). I find my clinical rotations to be far more valuable in learning to do skills because you're doing them in a real setting, with real equipment and real people. Don't get me wrong, I'm very mad that I'm paying so much money and not getting the sim lab opportunity but I'm trying to focus my energy on getting as much as I can out of my clinical time. If you get a good nurse (and I've very rarely had one who wasn't) and you take the initiative to ask to do things, you will learn SO MUCH more and faster. I personally think a good preceptorship is better than an amazing sim lab but it really comes down to how you learn best.

Thank you SO SO much for your response @polina11.  This is really helpful information! 

[Kozera]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if any of you live in the East Bay Area willing to carpool together. I doubt I will be moving near campus because rent is expensive there so the best choice I have is either carpooling or taking bart. Does anyone know how to make a discord server or a facebook group? That'd be very helpful to get us acquainted. We are not that far away from starting the program!! 

[megan.ach]

I just created a facebook group for our cohort.  Click on this QR code of you'd like to join.