UMass Boston Summer 2021 ABSN

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Hi everyone! 

I've applied to UMass Boston's ABSN program for the Summer 2021 cycle. Has anyone else? I feel applications are going to be sporifice this cycle!

Hey, I’m in this program currently and just want to offer a little input since I didn’t see any reviews of the program before enrolling. This program is workable if you’re fine with very minimal teaching (the Power point lectures are very sporifice), can put up with *very* poor communication and changing expectations (with regular revisions of the syllabus), and can put up with very poor test questions in some of the classes. It’s a cheap and quick program, but there’s a ton of nonsense and incompetence to put up with. I have all As, but I absolutely hate the program. The professors are mediocre at best.

 

Again, I want to emphasize that the program is workable, it’s just not a good educational experience at all, in any way. They know how to sell the program (I thought it would be great during orientation), but the program itself is very poorly run. The teaching quality that I experienced taking my prereqs at a local community college was unbelievably better than what is offered in this program.

 

For the person who asked the clinicals question, they take your ability to get around (public transportation vs car) into consideration I think, but all of the clinicals are in the immediate Boston area. I haven’t heard of them giving you a clinical based on which part of town you live in.

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3 hours ago, Nurse1010 said:

Hey, I’m in this program currently and just want to offer a little input since I didn’t see any reviews of the program before enrolling. This program is workable if you’re fine with very minimal teaching (the Power point lectures are very sporifice), can put up with *very* poor communication and changing expectations (with regular revisions of the syllabus), and can put up with very poor test questions in some of the classes. It’s a cheap and quick program, but there’s a ton of nonsense and incompetence to put up with. I have all As, but I absolutely hate the program. The professors are mediocre at best.

 

Again, I want to emphasize that the program is workable, it’s just not a good educational experience at all, in any way. They know how to sell the program (I thought it would be great during orientation), but the program itself is very poorly run. The teaching quality that I experienced taking my prereqs at a local community college was unbelievably better than what is offered in this program.

 

For the person who asked the clinicals question, they take your ability to get around (public transportation vs car) into consideration I think, but all of the clinicals are in the immediate Boston area. I haven’t heard of them giving you a clinical based on which part of town you live in.

Thank you for this! This sucks, I hope your cohort communicates this to them. How about the clinicals, do you learn from those? How long have you been in the program? Are all the professors like that?

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I haven’t started clinicals yet and I just started the program in January. So far, my clinical instructor (via Zoom and a couple days in the lab on campus) has been helpful and instructive. The clinical sessions are not overly involved and much of the clinical sessions have focused on watching Youtube videos to demonstrate different procedures, etc. So, it hasn’t been the best, most enriching experience, but fair overall. I imagine the hospital clinicals will be fairly good based on what I’ve seen from my instructor so far.

The key thing to know about the program is that a lot of it amounts to lightly guided self-study with minimal instruction. If you’re comfortable with that, it can definitely work, as long as you can put up with the many problems (as I said above) with the program. It’s not a pleasant experience, but it’s functional in terms of getting a nursing degree quickly. The professors vary in terms of their quality in different areas, but they’re all mediocre overall. The poor organization and communication are systemic issues though and are bad.

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41 minutes ago, Nurse1010 said:

I haven’t started clinicals yet and I just started the program in January. So far, my clinical instructor (via Zoom and a couple days in the lab on campus) has been helpful and instructive. The clinical sessions are not overly involved and much of the clinical sessions have focused on watching Youtube videos to demonstrate different procedures, etc. So, it hasn’t been the best, most enriching experience, but fair overall. I imagine the hospital clinicals will be fairly good based on what I’ve seen from my instructor so far.

The key thing to know about the program is that a lot of it amounts to lightly guided self-study with minimal instruction. If you’re comfortable with that, it can definitely work, as long as you can put up with the many problems (as I said above) with the program. It’s not a pleasant experience, but it’s functional in terms of getting a nursing degree quickly. The professors vary in terms of their quality in different areas, but they’re all mediocre overall. The poor organization and communication are systemic issues though and are bad.

How time consuming is the program? Do you have class 5 days a week? Can you do the online work at any point in the day?

 

 

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There aren’t any regularly scheduled classes. All of the coursework is asynchronous. They post a powerpoint once/week (sometimes with audio, sometimes without) and will usually have a live optional study session once every week or two.

The program is extremely time-consuming, but it depends on how you choose to do the program. If you try to do all of the readings (which the professors openly admit is impossible, but oddly still assign them anyways), it’ll take a lot of time. If you go over the Powerpoints, study guides, and do some of the readings, it’ll still take a lot of time, but less time than if you tried to do all the readings. According to our syllabi, the classes should only take us 50 hours/week, but I spend more time on it than that.

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11 minutes ago, Nurse1010 said:

There aren’t any regularly scheduled classes. All of the coursework is asynchronous. They post a powerpoint once/week (sometimes with audio, sometimes without) and will usually have a live optional study session once every week or two.

The program is extremely time-consuming, but it depends on how you choose to do the program. If you try to do all of the readings (which the professors openly admit is impossible, but oddly still assign them anyways), it’ll take a lot of time. If you go over the Powerpoints, study guides, and do some of the readings, it’ll still take a lot of time, but less time than if you tried to do all the readings. According to our syllabi, the classes should only take us 50 hours/week, but I spend more time on it than that.

Do you wish you had done a different program? Would it be worth it worth it to spend more time/ money? I was close to starting another program, and I found it super disorganized. We had homework assignments we were never told about due the first day, the teachers changed mid-course, I heard from people who stayed on. I'm wondering if many of the ABSN programs are hectic by nature. 

Do you have in-person obligations the first month? I've been invited to a family member's wedding out of the country in mid June and I'm wondering if I can do the work online. I know that's a bit of a ridiculous question, but your thoughts would still be appreciated if you have time. 

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@Nurse1010

Thank you so much for all this information. I’ve been trying to find someone whose in the program or completed it to get their honest feedback. All this helps sooo much! 

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@Nurse1010yes, thank you!! Overall, do you regret choosing this program? I hate how it’s online but it’s so cost efficient, so hard to walk away. 

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I don’t really want to say whether I’d do the program again, because that decision would have a lot to do with my own level of patience for nonsense in addition to the program itself. ? A lot of nursing programs have chaos and difficulties. I don't think the degree of nonsense in this program is normal, but it's the only nursing program I've done. One of my friends hated her accelerated program, but my sister loved her program.

If you’re okay with a self-guided program and can put up with a good amount of nonsense, it’s certainly economical and can make good sense. The books we have are good, so the content is there if you’re comfortable being independent with your learning. If you really want good professors and quality of instruction, I’d be hesitant to choose this program. One huge thing I’d recommend though is that if you do the program, it would make it a lot easier is to start reading about pathophysiology, pharmacology, and nursing assessments now. Just jump into it like you’re already in school. That would make it much more manageable.

For the question about in-person obligations in this first month, I would ask them ahead of time. They had some random dates where we did need to come in (to pick up supplies, go to the lab, etc.). Things pop up out of nowhere all the time, but they do have a degree of flexibility (in *some* ways).

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I forgot to mention something that I think is important in describing what the program is like. In terms of assignments, we have tests and we have adaptive quizzing with NCLEX-style questions. There are a few other minimal assignments (such as discussion posts and virtual sims here and there), but testing and quizzing are by far the main focuses. So there aren’t any papers, presentations, group assignments, etc. I think one of the things that especially bothers me about the program is the intense focus on NCLEX-style questions. These questions are absolutely a necessary evil in nursing school, but a lot of other programs will assess you in many varied ways and then also include NCLEX prep. For this program, it’s NCLEX-style questions and only NCLEX-style questions the whole way through. Also, once you’ve taken the tests, they’ll never show you which ones you missed because they don’t want to expose their test bank. This is an adamant policy with no flexibility. This, combined with the very minimal teaching and poor communication, is what really bothers me about the program. I don't mean to sound entirely negative about the program - I like paying only $35k and having it only be 11 months long, but I do wish I had known these other things before enrolling. 

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@Nurse1010 thank you for your feedback about the program! I'm definitely going to start reviewing pathophysiology and pharmacology.  Are you currently using any books that are helpful? I know we will receive resources on our iPads but would prefer to keep things consistent even if that means purchasing books before the start of the semester.

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The readings in the program are different than I expected in that we have maybe 8 or 9 books (each is 1500+ pages long) and we read chunks from them here and there. So I wouldn’t recommend sitting down and reading one of the actual textbooks.

More helpful I think, is if you private message me (which looks like it is possible on here?), I can send you the syllabi we have for this term to give you an idea of the topics and readings. They could be different for your term, but it would at least give you an idea. I think they try to keep things as unchanged as possible from term to term though, so it’s probably not going to be too different. I don’t feel comfortable posting them openly in this discussion just because I’m not sure if that’s allowed.

Aside from that, watching Youtube videos (particularly those on this channel: https://www.Youtube.com/user/RegisteredNurseRN) can be helpful. Non-textbooks that are especially helpful include Saunders Comprehensive NCLEX Review and Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple (by A. Berkowitz). 

This is probably true for any accelerated program, but the more thoroughly you look through these things now, the better your life will be later.

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