Texas Tech Accelerated 2nd Degree Program 2022

ICUtoCRNA2, BSN · Jul 26, 2021

Yay! Good luck everyone!

For me it was 8/19 that I heard back, so it's a bit of a wait. But from there, it moves pretty quickly! Interview was within a week and I heard back less than a month after the interview.

risingAna · Jul 26, 2021

Hello Everyone! I am here to warn everyone on this thread that this program is a disaster.

*Let me start off by saying I am currently in the Austin cohort, so I cannot speak about how the other locations are.*

Every student is required to take and pass basic skills in order to continue in the program. What the faculty doesnt tell you is that you literally have 1 or 2 days in the lab to practice these skills before youre tested on them. Over 1/2 of the class had to remediate. Why? Because they do not give student the opportunity to practice.

once you pass this you're in for one HELL of an experience.

1. They do not lecture, provide power points, or provide recorded lectures. It's just YOU and book. If you have any questions, do not bother asking them because they will not give you a straight forward answer. I get it, nursing school is hard, but they couldnt even give the student the correct resources to succeed. We are 7 months into the program and there is still no guidance on how to pass these exams, quizzes, or HW.

If youre struggling in this program, the best the could tell you is to "read more and try harder". Is that the type of NURSING school you want to go to? No

We started off with 40+ people, and 15 people have dropped from the program.

theyre lucky they got out early before it got 10000x worse

2. There's a chance that you may not have a coach. You paid all this money the first semester 6k+ but there were literally people in my cohort who had no coach and were expected to complete a certain amount of hours. The SADDEST part was that those who didn't have a coach were forced to drive nearly 1.5hr from austin to an elementary school in the middle of nowhere. How ghetto is that?

3. The faculty is austin do not care about your time. It's A MESS. The communication SUCKS. Be prepared to reschedule and cancel anything you have planned during your week, because everything is SO last minute with these people.

The admission committee is selling you a lie. Please please PLEASE avoid this program at all cost.

ICUtoCRNA2, BSN · Jul 27, 2021

I'm also in the Austin cohort and I agree with MOST of the above but to a lesser extent.

To be clear- this is unlike any other online courses you've taken. I think that is SO IMPORTANT to know going into this. There are no lectures, powerpoints, etc. You're told which chapters of the textbook are assigned each week, when the quiz/exams are, and that's about it. There is a study guide provided about half the time, which actually has been very helpful for me. Personally, I try to read the chapters and answer the questions on the study guide, and that's how I study for the exams. Our retention counselor hosts a "study session" a few days before the exam to do a quick review that is SUPER helpful, but if you haven't already studied the material on your own, you won't get much out of it.

Regarding basic skills, there is a two-week Basic Skills "Boot Camp" at the very beginning of the program. It's typically all in person, but due to COVID, we had to do half the days online and the other days in-person but split into very small groups and socially distanced. We were on zoom Tuesday and Wednesday and in person Thursday and Friday for two weeks. It was definitely challenging to do it on zoom. The in-person days were much better. Unfortunately, I don't really know what to tell you to expect in 2022. You have to pass this boot camp to move on in the program.

I haven't personally had the experience of being told to "just read more and try harder" but I know MANY in my cohort have. My experience has been that asking blanket "what should I focus on for the test" questions don't get very good results, but if you ask specific questions about a particular topic that you don't understand, the faculty are willing to discuss it with you one-on-one. Again, this pertains to asking very specific questions, so if you haven't already gone through the material to teach yourself first, you won't be able to ask these types of questions and foster helpful dialogue to learn more.

Regarding your clinical coach- unfortunately, not everyone got a coach right away this year. Again, it was mostly due to COVID, but that is very likely to still be impacting the program in 2022. I want to say 7 out of 40 students didn't have a coach at first so they were floated around to different types of facilities and units (ER, PACU, a school nurse's office, etc.) to try to get them hours while they worked on finding a coach. Many students this year have had their coaches quit mid-semester and are already on their second or third coach. I know one girl in particular who has already had five coaches. My experience has actually been the opposite - I've had the same coach the entire program, which is how it's *supposed* to be (but definitely isn't for a lot of our cohort). I think a lot of that is outside of the faculty's hands with coaches quitting due to graduating from NP school, getting a new job, etc, but it's still something to be aware of.

To my knowledge, we've only lost 8 students out of 40 (1 in basic skills, 4-5 after the Spring semester, and 2-3 this Summer), but I also know there are several on the verge of dropping for different reasons. That seems like a lot for sure. I can't speak to their situations, but can only provide objective data on how many we've lost.

Communication has definitely been a struggle for me. I understand that things get rescheduled, etc. but we are not given much notice for mandatory events and then not given much grace for it if we have personal conflicts. For example, we recently had a conference rescheduled and I had to miss my daughter's dance recital because the new date/time conflicted with it. I didn't even ask about being excused so I could go to her recital because I knew it wouldn't happen. Even outside of rescheduling, we often aren't given dates and times until a week or two beforehand. It makes it hard to have any sort of personal life, but I have just resigned myself to that fact and keep remembering this is only for 11 months and then I'm DONE!

There have been some growing pains this year as 2 out of 3 of the site coordinators are new and they are all finding their footing to grade consistently among the three of them. I think that is to be expected, and hopefully they'll work out the kinks and this will not be an issue next year.

***All that said, I'm still glad I picked this program over any others in the Austin area. To me, the benefits (finishing in 11 months, 750+ clinical hours, flexibility to study/teach myself on my own schedule) outweigh the costs (short notice for mandatory events, having to teach myself instead of having lectures) and I would still encourage people to pursue it.***

I think perspective and expectations are key, so please don't go into it thinking this is a traditional program just crammed into 3 semesters. It is designed MUCH differently than any other nursing program I've seen, and you have to decide for yourself if it's for you or not. For me, it was.

drewerin · Jul 27, 2021

Hi everyone! I am currently in the Lubbock 2021 cohort. I would highly suggest joining the group me that was listed on the first few pages to ask questions and get answers quickly!

I just wanted to chime in on this discussion. This program can be really intense. If you are not an independent learner, I wouldn’t recommend it! There is a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time. There aren’t really “lectures”, we are just provided chapters to read and then take quizzes and exams over the material. We don’t have a lot of contact with our professors from the course and actually never usually meet our individual professors (speaking for Lubbock). However, if you are able to study on your own and teach yourself the material - you will be fine! It is very possible to do well in the program. There are students that drop out and those that do struggle. In my opinion, students do in every program.

I love this program and would encourage anyone interested to apply. However, I’m an individual learner as is and thrive in this type of learning environment. I LOVE my coach and my clinical placement; but not everyone can agree to that! We graduate with close to 1,000 clinical hours in this program. By the Summer semester, we independently care for 2 patients at a time. You really become like a staff nurse on your floor and in my case, people highly respect the ABSN students. Your clinical experience really connects the online learning environment into real life, hands on practice to help it click. I just want to reiterate that it is possible to do well and succeed in this program. I love that I can study when I need to, make my own clinical schedule, and pick up hours to make money on my own time.

Everyone’s experience is different but all perspectives are extremely valuable in making your decision to attend the program. Good luck to everyone applying! I know the wait is hard - but it will be here before you know it!

DCV · Jul 29, 2021

Hmm..I'm an independent learner as I have taken online classes for year now. What worries about the recent posts is that it was mentioned that the program does not offer any lectures or slideshows, just books. I can handle that, but do the professors at least give you an outline on the points students need to concentrate on when reading chapters? Or are there questions at the end of each chapter in the textbook that you complete by yourself? I have usually had some type of outline or study guide to concentrate on before a quiz and/or test... is that not the case for this program? It seems like half of the time you'll have a study guide. Please clarify. Thank you.

DCV · Jul 30, 2021

How do you know what to concentrate on when you are studying if you don't get reviews half of the time??? Can someone please answer me this? I'm used to having an outline or study guide for chapters before being tested on them. @drewerin @allipalmer

ICUtoCRNA2, BSN · Jul 30, 2021

@DCV we always get a blueprint for exams, but only a week ahead of time. It gives a VERY loose breakdown of how many questions come from each chapter and are the focused on nursing care, patho, related meds, etc.

I went back and looked and we did get some sort of "study guide" or "key points" for each exam in each class. But some of them literally didn't narrow it down at all. It was just a bulleted list of the entire chapter written in question form for you to fill out. Or it would be a list of key meds to know from a given chapter, and it would list out every med in the chapter except like two. It's hard to explain without showing you, but it felt like we didn't get any direction and we really did have to study ALL of the material for a lot of the classes. The tests were literally over the entire chapter, and exams usually cover 10-20 chapters of a textbook (depending on the class).

So there is SOME guidance. And some classes give actual worksheets and study guides that really narrow it down. But mostly, you need to read all of the text. The classes I've done best in have been ones where I've just read the book and taken my own notes on the material. I just had to use my judgment to decide what I thought was going to be important and what was too detailed to need to know specifically. Our retention counselor is good about guiding you on this sort of thing. For pharmacology in the Spring, I showed her my notes and she told me in general terms what she thought was good, what I needed to just skim over and not worry about, etc.

It's a lot, but again, I think it is doable! I'm more than happy to help anyone in the incoming cohort once you get accepted and give you more specific study tips! It just won't make sense trying to explain my study methods before you're in the program and see how classes are set up.

drewerin · Aug 1, 2021

@DCV I 100% agree with Ali’s comment from above. There are some study guides and key points, but it really just depends on the class/instructor. Sometimes, we are given several chapters to read and we just have to do it. In some of our books there are questions at the end of the chapters to check for your understanding. We do use ATI as well and there is an ATI book for every class (except maybe 2) as well. The ATI books are helpful in most of the classes I would say but you really have to focus on both the textbook and ATI book because questions can come from either. However, the ATI book condenses the content into much shorter chapters and has questions at the end. It depends on the type of learner you are whether you may prefer the textbook or ATI book.

Like Ali said, it is definitely a manageable program. It is hard and it will take a majority of your time. But it is only a year and if you can hang through it, it’s definitely worth it. We would definitely be willing to pass along more study tips once the next cohort is accepted. For now I would focus on nailing the interview and write down your questions you have about the program that we can help answer once you’ve been accepted or not! You’ve got this though, best of luck!!

DCV · Aug 1, 2021

@drewerin thank you for your input. It seems like a hard program but you guys keep saying it's doable. Can you tell me...how many hours do you put into this program a week? Is it 60 hours? More or less?

ICUtoCRNA2, BSN · Aug 1, 2021

@DCV I actually tracked my hours for a while in the Spring because I was curious how much time I was actually putting it. Personally, I never do every single recommended reading, online module, etc. I kind of pick and choose what I think is going to be most important and go from there. Another important thing to note is that I'm married and have 3 young kids, so spending time with my family is the priority for me. Having a clear distinction between family time and school time actually helps me study more effectively during the time I am working on school bc I know that time is limited.

I'd say on average, I spend 30-35 hours a week on school (including clinical hours). That said, I know PLENTY of people who spend closer to 60 hours a week. It really depends on your personal study style, habits, etc.

Here's a general breakdown of how I structure my days/weeks:

*Each week I spend 1-2 days in clinical (you're required to do at least one day of clinical every week, but some weeks you'll need to do two so you can hit the required hours for the semester). Sometimes one of those days is a Saturday, but usually I do two weekdays. I always take Sundays off to spend time with my family. I try to keep weekends completely free, but the occasional Saturday clinical does happen.

*Days I'm not in clinical, I get up around 530am and do a quick overview of what I have going on that day. I usually spend less than an hour in the mornings on school work.

*I have childcare 4 hours each day M-F and I spend probably 3 of those hours doing school stuff. I often spend another 1-2 hours in the afternoons doing school stuff when my kids are napping. I always shut down and focus on my family from the time naps are over (3 or 4pm) until the kids are in bed (730pm). About half the time, I may study another hour or two after they're in bed.

wannabnurse123 · Aug 1, 2021

Couple of questions:

If anyone is in the program, can you work and do the program? I’m applying for the Austin cohort and I currently work at St. David’s and would love to keep my job (I only work 2-3 shifts a week)

Also, do y’all think that they take attendance at TTU for undergrad into consideration? I just graduated with my degree from Tech and would love if they took previous enrollment into consideration! (and I know some schools do that like TWU)

ICUtoCRNA2, BSN · Aug 1, 2021

@wannabnurse123 you CAN work but it’s not recommended. I know several in our cohort do but everyone that I know of has dropped to PRN by this point. Which St. David’s hospital and unit are you on?

They do give preference to Tech grads as far as I know! I’m pretty sure that gets you an extra point on the “admission rubric” if you will. There are a handful of us in our cohort with our first degrees from Tech :)