Things you wish you knew about NP school?

roaringlion · Apr 29, 2016

I wish I knew, before I went to Duke, how horrible it was. I also wish I knew how PAINFULLY expensive it would be and that they would raise the price by nearly a hundred dollars per credit constantly even after you've already signed up! I wish I knew not to look for a school that helps with clinical placement. I thought it would be great, but the clinical placement office at Duke is horrible. They do not work with students for placement, often place people hours from their home, and then get mad if you try to change it. Find something closer to home after they placed you 3 hours away with traffic? Too bad, they don't like that - take what they find or suffer the consequences. Also, I wish I knew about all the red tape, politics, and drama behind the scenes. I wish I knew how poorly managed the program was. I wish I knew that the "on campus" sessions that I was so excited for were nothing more than the online lectures in person, with only a little time reserved for hands on.

simplicityscape2 · Apr 29, 2016

I'm sorry for your bad experience. =[ I actually spoke to a Duke graduate recruiter at the most recent NSNA conference and was excited to hear they offered clinical placement in my area (many states away). It sounded too good to be true, and apparently it is. That is helpful to know.

Drama is the worst. We're there to learn, people, please take this seriously.

I have a friend (different friend from the one in OP) who is about to begin one of Duke's non-clinical distance MSN programs. I'll warn her about tuition.

Again, sorry for your bad experience. Are you graduating soon? Is the worst of it over? Thank you for sharing - these are exactly the kinds of things I want to have my eyes wide open to going in.

roaringlion · Apr 29, 2016

I'm sorry for your bad experience. =[ I actually spoke to a Duke graduate recruiter at the most recent NSNA conference and was excited to hear they offered clinical placement in my area (many states away). It sounded too good to be true, and apparently it is. That is helpful to know. Drama is the worst. We're there to learn, people, please take this seriously. I have a friend (different friend from the one in OP) who is about to begin one of Duke's non-clinical distance MSN programs. I'll warn her about tuition. Again, sorry for your bad experience. Are you graduating soon? Is the worst of it over? Thank you for sharing - these are exactly the kinds of things I want to have my eyes wide open to going in.

Definitely don't by sold by the clinical placement office at Duke. If anything most students wish we could find our own at this point. When you canvass on your own, you know where you want to look based on traffic, etc. You can also spend as much time as you need on it to make sure you have a placement. With the placement office, like I said they don't care at all where you want to be. They will happily stick you in the middle of a ghetto 3 hours from your home with traffic and if you try to complain and point out that they promise 2 hours, they just say that they use mapquest and traffic is not considered. In addition, they often DO NOT have a clinical placement for a number of students by the start of the semester. They don't tell these students until last minute, which at times leads to people starting late and having to make up hours. Many of the staff in the office are also extremely difficult to speak to, often act annoyed when you try to email them, and are unwilling to even taken student leads on placements. It's billed as some wonderful plus to choosing Duke, but really it's one of the main reasons you should run away as fast as possible. Yes, the tuition is also crazy. Already expensive, and then they have a history of hiking it by 5% or more every single year, outpacing inflation. If you start in the Fall but put in your deposit in May, the rates will rise over the summer AFTER you've already paid your deposit. It's almost scam-worthy. Like I said, the other main reason I picked Duke was the hands on sessions. I was so excited to have multiple days on campus to practice suturing, physical exams, etc. It was SUCH A WASTE. We would spend 3 full days on campus, and maybe do two small 1 hour workshops of hands on skills? The rest of the time was panel discussions on ethics or how to be published in a nursing journal. Every on campus session all of the students would get together and wonder why the f*** we were even there. People flew in from all over the country to do something they could have just streamed online? Overall, a huge letdown. They think they can do whatever they want because of their name recognition and money, but there are so many lesser known programs that would be 10000x better option for most students. Even the quality of the education was questionable at times, with students often questioning if they were really prepared enough. AVOID AVOID AVOID. I cannot say it enough. Any other school is a better option other than a few of the for profits.

littlepeopleRNICU · Apr 29, 2016

For me, I can't really think of any big cons on my list for my school. I would have said that they don't find you clinical placement automatically, but I hadn't thought of it like the previous poster mentioned. That's a good point and makes for an awful experience. The word is that my school is going to be hiring someone to help place students, and I hope it doesn't turn in to the headache they mentioned. :/

Honestly, I haven't found much difficulty with looking for preceptors so far. I am in a very student-saturated area, but I think going to where I go to school helps since it's local and the school's medical and nursing programs have partnerships with many facilities around here. I hope I don't eat those words and it changes.

If I HAD to think of a negative, I miss the social aspect of school. We have discussion posts that are required and a good amount of group work, and I did have 4 on-campus days this past semester, but I miss sitting in a classroom with other students weekly. It sounds silly because it is purely for the social and support aspect of knowing your classmates better.

I still like the online format. I'm not sure I would be able to even go to campus for all classes if there was the option. I don't think I could swing it with work. So, I like the flexibility this program gives me and the lectures are very thorough. They have all been PowerPoints that have additional information voiced over, so it's not just the teacher reading out loud what I can already see for myself. I feel like I am being taught like I paid for.

Everything has been pretty organized and my professors get back to me very quickly with any questions. They make themselves available for office time if needed too.

So that's my trivial con lol. I am overall very happy with my program.

bebbercorn · May 6, 2016

It definitely is more challenging than I thought to find a preceptor, and I was pretty sore about it for a while. However, I know quite a few people who are in a situation like a PP described... like 1 student at a prestigious school, who had a placement cancelled, had to withdraw more than once. She has also had preceptors that took her on and left the practice the next month. It has taken her 4 years to complete her NP program because of this situation. Mostly, I think she has had bad luck, but there are lots of issues with NP programs/precepting nowadays, not unique to any situation anymore.

So I suppose my "what I wish I had known" was that I would not graduate 100% on time. I also wish we had a few more assigned clinical hours (I think it'd be great to have 1200 across the board).

synaptic · May 6, 2016

Nursing education (especially in NP schools) is notoriously awful at most places. You have these previous nurses trying to teach to diagnose with little or no understanding of the basic sciences.

its pretty awful from most people I have spoken to at most universities.