University of Louisiana Lafayette (ULL) RN-BSN Experience

Nursing Students School Programs

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Hello Everyone,

I just graduated from an ADN program and passed the NCLEX-RN last week. Today I signed up for ULL's RN-BSN program and am interested on other people's opinions on the program. I believe I have all my pre-requisites completed--is the school reasonable about accepting coursework from other institutions? I would love to hear from people who have experience with this program. How did you like it? Any feedback would be welcome. Thank you!

Oiseau_libre!! Thank You so so much for your feedback! This has made me feels so much better. Being out of school since 2002! Online we were still using actual libraries at the time! I for sure need to brush back up on APA format skills but I'm guessing that will come with time! I have heard the discussions also need to be in APA format? I assumed at first when I heard message board it was just that students having a conversation. I have heard that you must have students respond to you. Will students usually respond to you or have you ever had trouble with that? For some reason I'm anxious about the discussion board of all things! I'm so happy that you said it was well organized! That makes me fill secure. I was looking into one school but I had a few friends attending and they were very unhappy not getting responses back. Do you know for Capstone if you actually have to do a project in your hospital and implement it? Good Luck with your last class!!!! That must feel amazing :) :yes: Thanks again!! Paige

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Hi Paigertexas! I think you will like ULL. It is well-organized, and I found the assignments to be clear and not impossible to do. Whenever I had any questions, my instructors or teaching assistants were quick to respond. Yes, you will need to use APA format for everything, including discussions. It may be difficult at first, but you will get better at APA with time. I found the small handbook APA: The Easy Way (second edition by Houghton & Houghton) to be a big help for a quick reference guide on APA. You may want to purchase it. The discussion forums consist of an initial post of no more than 300 words with two references from Nursing journals that are cited in APA format. Then you relpy to another student's post in no more than 200 word with one reference from a Nursing journal and citations in APA. I actually enjoyed the discussion forums and didn't have any trouble with them. You just do your initial post and then look around at other students' posts to find something that interests you, and then you post a comment about it. You can comment on any student's post. I never had any difficulty finding something to post, so I wouldn't worry about it. It will be clearer once you do it the first time, and the instructor and teaching assistants give you instructions and help if needed. As far as the capstone is concerned, I heard that you develop a project about a policy at your facility that you feel needs to be changed, but you don't have to implement it. I think that would be impossible to do in seven weeks anyway! I will know more when I start the capstone in about a week. I haven't gotten any info on it yet since it's been Christmas and New Year's break. I hope this information helps you. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

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Hi Paigertexas! I think you will like ULL. It is well-organized, and I found the assignments to be clear and not impossible to do. Whenever I had any questions, my instructors or teaching assistants were quick to respond. Yes, you will need to use APA format for everything, including discussions. It may be difficult at first, but you will get better at APA with time. I found the small handbook APA: The Easy Way (second edition by Houghton & Houghton) to be a big help for a quick reference guide on APA. You may want to purchase it. The discussion forums consist of an initial post of no more than 300 words with two references from Nursing journals that are cited in APA format. Then you relpy to another student's post in no more than 200 word with one reference from a Nursing journal and citations in APA. I actually enjoyed the discussion forums and didn't have any trouble with them. You just do your initial post and then look around at other students' posts to find something that interests you, and then you post a comment about it. You can comment on any student's post. I never had any difficulty finding something to post, so I wouldn't worry about it. It will be clearer once you do it the first time, and the instructor and teaching assistants give you instructions and help if needed. As far as the capstone is concerned, I heard that you develop a project about a policy at your facility that you feel needs to be changed, but you don't have to implement it. I think that would be impossible to do in seven weeks anyway! I will know more when I start the capstone in about a week. I haven't gotten any info on it yet since it's been Christmas and New Year's break. I hope this information helps you. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

This helps so much!! Thank for taking your time to reply! I will for sure get the APA book! This is super helpful information. This makes me feel much better about discussions. So far as you know I haven't started class but everyone has been so nice. Some of your and a couple other girls post were really my final deciding factor! So ULL should thing you Oiseau_libre! :)

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Specializes in High-risk OB.

I'll just throw in my two cents here. I attended ULL's RN to BSN program and graduated this past December. I thought it was a good program. The classes were not overly difficult, but were time consuming. The professors and teaching assistants were helpful and I even got to meet a few of them when I attended my commencement ceremony, which was really nice.

I'm also going to make a comment on Health Assessment. Know your information. Read the power points and be sure to read your textbook, including the information at the end of each chapter. Many thought that it was a difficult class, but that was because the quizzes were structured differently than the other classes in the program, and some people struggled with them.

You're required to take Capstone by itself as it is a 6 credit course. It is a good bit of work, but I thought it was interesting to research and create a policy that could be implemented in order to improve a process in your facility. I actually had difficulty in keeping my paper to the limited number of pages. I kept going over.

Good luck to you paigertexas! And to you, as well, Oiseau_libre!

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I'll just throw in my two cents here. I attended ULL's RN to BSN program and graduated this past December. I thought it was a good program. The classes were not overly difficult, but were time consuming. The professors and teaching assistants were helpful and I even got to meet a few of them when I attended my commencement ceremony, which was really nice.

I'm also going to make a comment on Health Assessment. Know your information. Read the power points and be sure to read your textbook, including the information at the end of each chapter. Many thought that it was a difficult class, but that was because the quizzes were structured differently than the other classes in the program, and some people struggled with them.

You're required to take Capstone by itself as it is a 6 credit course. It is a good bit of work, but I thought it was interesting to research and create a policy that could be implemented in order to improve a process in your facility. I actually had difficulty in keeping my paper to the limited number of pages. I kept going over.

Good luck to you paigertexas! And to you, as well, Oiseau_libre!

Thank you for your insight, it is greatly appreciated!! :yes:

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Just a quick update on the ULL RN-BSN program: I am now in the Capstone class, the last class. It basically requires you to do a project where you propose a resolution to an issue or problem significant to Nursing practice. For example, you can propose a solution to a problem that you encounter at work. I find the class to follow a format similar to the others, and so far it hasn't been difficult.

On another note, I noticed that some people found the quizzes in the Health Assessment class to be difficult. I am wondering if this has been changed...When I took the course a new book had just been adopted, and the quizzes were not tough at all. In fact, I found them to be very easy. Maybe they changed the book for the course and wrote new quizzes to go with the book that are easier? I don't know, but I finished this class last December and didn't hear any complaints at all from other students about the quizzes. Hopefully they won't be too bad!

Hope this helps. Good luck with everything! Let me know if you have any more questions.

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Specializes in High-risk OB.

You're welcome 1mrsbs!

Oiseau_libre - we used the Jarvis textbook. Many thought that the quizzes were geared more towards nurse practitioner students. I didn't have much trouble (but then again, I tend to overstudy), but several others did. I took it in March/April 2014. Congrats on making it to the last class and good luck!

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Hello all,

I am currently enrolled in ULL RN-BSN program. I have completed the 353 (orientation) & 354 (transition) classes. I am on my second 7 week course which is the 327 (community) class. My opinion so far is that is has been fairly easy. The 353 class required you to take two quizzes & they could be completed anytime before the end of the 7 weeks. It honestly takes less than a day to get this class out of the way. 353 was an orientation class on how to use ULL's resources. 354 required weekly quizzes, three discussions, two or three papers, & a crossword puzzle. Honestly, with minimum effort I made an A in 354. 327 requires a bit more work. The quizzes are a little harder, but definitely manageable. Again, 327 requires quizzes, discussions, crossword, & papers.

The question I have is what classes should I take after 327? I am going on week 4 & need to register for classes soon! For the fellow RN-BSN graduates, what classes did you take together, which ones did you take separately? I need advice.

Thanks in advance!

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

This thread is super helpful. I plan on enrolling in the ULL program before the ink dries on my ADN! :)

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Thank you so much for your advice! It's going well so far I was having a harder time with computer lit than the nursing courses! Proctoring is very strange. I think I will take the rest at a community College!

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Just a quick update on the ULL RN-BSN program: I am now in the Capstone class, the last class. It basically requires you to do a project where you propose a resolution to an issue or problem significant to Nursing practice. For example, you can propose a solution to a problem that you encounter at work. I find the class to follow a format similar to the others, and so far it hasn't been difficult.

On another note, I noticed that some people found the quizzes in the Health Assessment class to be difficult. I am wondering if this has been changed...When I took the course a new book had just been adopted, and the quizzes were not tough at all. In fact, I found them to be very easy. Maybe they changed the book for the course and wrote new quizzes to go with the book that are easier? I don't know, but I finished this class last December and didn't hear any complaints at all from other students about the quizzes. Hopefully they won't be too bad!

Hope this helps. Good luck with everything! Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks so much for the update!! I'm thinking at this time Oiseu_libre you might be done! Congrats!

These tips are so much apprceciated thanks for taking the time to come back to the thread :) I'm taking the next 7 weeks off to do algebra. I need 4 classes. If I could give anyone advice it would be finish all prereqs before you start. It would be so nice to just have to concentrate on the nursing classes!

CHEERS!!! Paige :) I hope your capstone went well!

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Hi Nikki I think we must be in the same class but I have to take some prereqs now. What is next on the plan that advisor gave you? My advisor said they keep it about the same for the students they know which ones they should and should not take together. I know that helps but I asked my advisor this same question! Have you started working on your powerpoint yet for 327?

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