University of Minnesota - Rochester Campus

Dancingqueen94 · Mar 29, 2015

Hi SaraG21! Congratulations on your acceptance! I am currently a sophomore nursing student at UMR and I really like it! We have about 30 students in our class so you really get to know each other and the nursing faculty on campus. Fall semester consisted of our lab course, a course called Nurse as Professional, and then the main class which is called Nursing Care of Adults. You connect with the Twin Cities campus via ITV for the adults lecture and there is also an instructor on campus in class with you. Spring semester so far has consisted of our second lab course, a genetics course, and then our Nursing Care of Families course. Just like fall semester, you connect with the Twin Cities via ITV for families.

I start my clinicals in the fall so I can't give much advice there, but from what the current juniors and seniors say, it is a WONDERFUL experience. The lab courses you take sophomore year really work on preparing you for clinicals. It is probably one of my favorite classes. About three times each semester we go to the simulation center that is run by Mayo in order to practice some of our skills. They set up a scenario for us and we take care of the patient just like we would if we were the real nurse. They give you about 20 minutes to work through the scenario before debriefing with you and your team members about the scenario. It's an awesome learning experience and it's really fun!

As for commuting to campus, I live about an hour west of Rochester. This year I have been driving to campus but it does get tricky sometimes with weather and different things. I would highly recommend finding housing in Rochester. I was on campus about 3 or 4 times per week. This semester I have only been on campus once a week but there is also an optional study group that meets on Mondays so some people are on campus two days per week. There is on campus housing called 318 Commons or there are many apartment complexes around the area with lots of transportation options to downtown Rochester.

I hope this helps you! Congratulations again and I'm looking forward to welcoming the incoming sophomore class! Let me know if you have any other questions! :-)

SaraG21 · Apr 3, 2015

Thank you SOOO much for your response! You are so helpful!

I have tried my best to make a mock schedule of what my first year would look like and it does seem like I would be on campus 3-4 days/week. Relocating might be in my near future. I also emailed someone at the U to ask about clinical opportunities. I just really want to experience a peds rotation somewhere in there and I want to be sure Mayo can provide that.

You mentioned that you connect with the Twin Cities via ITV, but you also have an instructor in your classroom as well. Is it strictly lecture (no group work) while you're attending courses like that? As in, do you show up for the class and listen to a couple professors for a few hours straight and then get dismissed? I ask because I wonder if I could just attend those lectures in person, instead of through ITV.

Another weird question - what would you say the average age of the students in your cohort is?

Can you tell I'm an over-thinker? :) I just want to make the best decision and I'm scared I'll make the wrong one! This is just so important to me!

Dancingqueen94 · Apr 4, 2015

3-4 days sounds about right. During the fall, I was on campus on Mondays for our study group, Wednesdays for Nurse as Professional and our lab lecture, and then Thursday I had my full day of lab and adults lecture. This semester I am only there on Wednesdays for lab and our families lecture.

As far as clinicals, Mayo definitely has peds opportunities! Junior year you will rotate through four different clinicals. Mental health, Med-Surg (Adults), OB/Maternity/Peds, and then Public Health. Each clinical rotation is about eight weeks I believe. For me, I will start in mental health this fall for the first eight weeks and then the last eight weeks I will do the Med-Surg clinical. The really neat thing about the University's program is that you get to do an immersion your third year. You get to pick a specialty that you would like to shadow a nurse in and they try to arrange it for you to be in that department. Mayo has endless opportunities!

For lecture, it is fairly interactive between the Twin Cities and Rochester. I had an amazing professor for Nursing Care of Adults that really tried to keep the Rochester students just as involved as the Twin Cities students. We would do in-class activities as small groups and then talk about what we did when we joined the large group again. I actually enjoyed the ITV lecture much more than I thought I would. They really do make you feel like you are in the same classroom as they are. As for going to lecture in the cities, they sadly don't allow that. There are a few times though that you will go to the Twin Cities campus for various things such as orientation, and then in the spring you go to the Twin Cities campus once for the genetics course you take.

The Rochester campus has a wide range of ages and backgrounds in the program. Some of my classmates are working and have families and are coming back to school, some are true sophomores, and others are somewhere in-between. If I had to give an average for age, I would say maybe 25 years old. Even though we are all different ages and are at different stages in life, we all get along great and we have made such good friendships with each other. You really get to know everyone in your class and they become family!