Sentara RN program graduate

Thanks for offering up your experiences and advice! Does Sentara still offer the diploma program? I thought that they were finishing their last diploma classes now and will go to only BSN next Aug...

I hear the Sentara program offers lots of clinical time - was this really helpful to you? Do you feel you received more clinical time than students in other programs?

Also, how is your job search going? Did Sentara help you with placement right away?

Yes, they are moving to only the BSN option come next August, however, I felt there might be students who have just started the program now in August, as well as students who have been accepted or wait-listed for the January semester that still have questions :) But yes, you are correct, they are no longer going to be a diploma program after the January class.

One of the big draws of Sentara is that the program does offer many additional clinical hours. From the first semester on you are in the skills labs and the hospital. I definitely feel that made a difference between the Sentara program and other local nursing programs. In the last semester, when we performed our role transition 'preceptorship' it was very apparent who the Sentara students were, versus other nursing school students.

Also, just being familiar with the hospital system and the computerized charting system was very helpful to ease the transition from student nurse to new graduate employee.

As far as the job search, I'll be honest. I think it's all about how much effort you put into it. We had representatives come in from human resources in our last semester and begin setting up interviews, and some people found jobs through that route. I was set up with two interviews through human resources, but I found my job through networking with the nurse manager on my preceptorship floor. She referred me to another manager in the same hospital, and I was hired prior to taking NCLEX or actual graduation. Others in my class were not so fortunate and took longer to get jobs, but in all honesty, I think they expected the school to practically find a job for them because it was a hospital based program.

Hope this helps! :typing

Thanks for all of the great info! This definitely helps! And congrats on graduating and getting hired even before graduation - way to go!! :)

As far as I know there is NO January class. I'm in the class that just started on the 17th of August. We were told that we were the last diploma class, and if "life" happens, there is no class after us to fall back on.

Cheryl

As far as I know there is NO January class. I'm in the class that just started on the 17th of August. We were told that we were the last diploma class, and if "life" happens, there is no class after us to fall back on.

Cheryl

For the BSN program there is a class starting in Jan. however it is all online. There are a series of classes that you take to start that are all online. It starts in January.

I found this very helpful considering that I am interested in the BSN program but I had a few questions hopefully you could answer.

First, what have you heard about the 6 online nursing prereqs? How might they compare to other online classes? Are they too faced paced considering they are only 6 and 8 weeks long?

Second, I contacted ODU and they said that they would not be able to recognize the BSN portion of sentara graduates as far as getting a MSN because of accredidation. Would this be a problem for other schools and what would you recommend?

Thank you!

Hi CNU girl!

When looking for a bachelor degree in nursing, always find a program with either NLNAC accreditation or CCNE accreditation. You need to graduate from an accredited BSN program to be admitted into any MSN program. So do your homework up front!

Don't waste your time or money in an unaccredited BSN program.

NLNAC Website: Search accredited programs: http://nlnac.org/Forms/directory_search.htm

CCNE Website: Search accredited programs: http://www.aacn.nche.edu/CCNE/reports/accprog.asp

Debbie

It's also important to look if a program is fully accredited. There are many programs that will allow you to sit for the NCLEX and become an RN, but they are not fully/ regionally accredited and therefore furthering your education becomes very limited.

how long does it take to get accredited? assuming students enroll in sentara's bsn programs, how many can hope that they get accredited before they graduate? and if you enroll in their 2011 class and they don't get accredited until 2012, does this mean that the '11 class are just screwed?

any help would be great! i was going to go to sentara but now i'm getting nervous...

AFAIK, Sentara's program is accredited as of 2008 when it was still a Diploma program. I was told (I'm not in that school, but one of my instructors mentioned this) that they would not be able to receive acreditation for the BSN until they at least graduated a class under the new program and that probably won't happen till around 2012. I would think the quality of the instruction is probably as good as it ever was, but I don't know how the BSN accreditation thing will play out down the road. So I would not rule it out, but would ask lots of questions beforehand.

I'm in the 2012 BSN class. On the first day of class, we were told that originally ODU wouldn't accept BSN graduates from Sentara, but that there was a change and ODU will now accept Sentara BSN students into their graduate program. However, I'm not sure if this applies to other schools.