Vanderbilt MSN 2019

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Hi! I'm starting a thread for Vanderbilt MSN Fall 2019. Anyone else applying/re-applying too? Please comment!

@tarrab

Were you pre-specialty? If so what was your experience? What did your schedule and study routine look like?

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I was pre-specialty - my background prior to entering into VUSN was a bachelor's degree in behavioral neuroscience.

Schedule? Pretty much classes from 8a-5pm Monday-Friday. Starting around week 3 of your first semester you are in the clients room, so weeks 1-3 you are learning and getting assessed on skills with your first clinical team. You will be assigned a hospital floor and that will be your unit for the first semester. By the end of the first semester you will be doing two full clinical days with post conferences.

During your didactic days you will be in the auditorium most of the day for HEHI, Ethics, Community, and Pharm.

I personally drove being a native tennessean and unwilling to deal with Nashville traffic and rent costs. I drove 1 hour each way every day, and I soils be on campus by 6am studying for the classes that would start at 8am. I would stay after the last class ended at 5pm for an additional hour to let rush-hour traffic clear out prior to driving home. Then, study until you fall asleep in the weeks leading up to the exams.

It is a very intense program but if you are proactive you can and will adjust by week 6 and thrive.

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9 hours ago, tarrab said:

I was pre-specialty - my background prior to entering into VUSN was a bachelor's degree in behavioral neuroscience.

Schedule? Pretty much classes from 8a-5pm Monday-Friday. Starting around week 3 of your first semester you are in the clients room, so weeks 1-3 you are learning and getting assessed on skills with your first clinical team. You will be assigned a hospital floor and that will be your unit for the first semester. By the end of the first semester you will be doing two full clinical days with post conferences.

During your didactic days you will be in the auditorium most of the day for HEHI, Ethics, Community, and Pharm.

I personally drove being a native tennessean and unwilling to deal with Nashville traffic and rent costs. I drove 1 hour each way every day, and I soils be on campus by 6am studying for the classes that would start at 8am. I would stay after the last class ended at 5pm for an additional hour to let rush-hour traffic clear out prior to driving home. Then, study until you fall asleep in the weeks leading up to the exams.

It is a very intense program but if you are proactive you can and will adjust by week 6 and thrive.

Thanks for the info! Do you know if the schedule has changed since your pre-specialty year? On the website, it says we have 1 day off between Wed-Friday? Do you know if the lectures are recorded and/or if we are allowed to record lectures?

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Current Pre-Specialty student. You have didactic class from 8-3 on Monday and Tuesday. You have either community health clinical on W, Th, or F. Mine is on Wednesday, so then I have hospital clinical Thursday and post conference Friday. This varies person to person.

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54 minutes ago, graceMae13 said:

Current Pre-Specialty student. You have didactic class from 8-3 on Monday and Tuesday. You have either community health clinical on W, Th, or F. Mine is on Wednesday, so then I have hospital clinical Thursday and post conference Friday. This varies person to person.

Thanks! Is it sort of luck of the draw on when you have community health clinical versus hospital clinical and conference?

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2 hours ago, FutureCNM8 said:

Thanks! Is it sort of luck of the draw on when you have community health clinical versus hospital clinical and conference?

Yes, you can pick your top 3 community health sites and they assign you to one, it either meets on Wednesday’s or Friday, and then they fill in the hospital clinical around that.

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Sounds like you guys have a more recent and up to date resource.

If any PMHNP peeps have questions, advice, etc. please reach out to me if I can answer questions.

I happened to see a Facebook memory from 2014 reminding me of being in this exact spot, waiting for news and scrolling all nurses. I would like to pay it forward with some perspective post-graduate, 3 years into practice experience if it helps someone.

?

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1 minute ago, tarrab said:

Sounds like you guys have a more recent and up to date resource.

If any PMHNP peeps have questions, advice, etc. please reach out to me if I can answer questions.

I happened to see a Facebook memory from 2014 reminding me of being in this exact spot, waiting for news and scrolling all nurses. I would like to pay it forward with some perspective post-graduate, 3 years into practice experience if it helps someone.

?

Hi, I, am a bachelors prepared RN now, moving towards one year in an inpatient psych setting. I’m a hopeful that I will be admitted for fall 2020. Do you have any advice concerning ways to improve likelihood of admittance? Also, how do you feel about the one year model for the PMHNP program? Did it feel rushed, or crammed? Thanks!

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2 minutes ago, nyum said:

Hi, I, am a bachelors prepared RN now, moving towards one year in an inpatient psych setting. I’m a hopeful that I will be admitted for fall 2020. Do you have any advice concerning ways to improve likelihood of admittance? Also, how do you feel about the one year model for the PMHNP program? Did it feel rushed, or crammed? Thanks!

Hi,

Things that the program in general look for in students is work life balance. They want to know that when you are stressed out you have good support systems, and appropriate coping skills. They also want to hear the passion behind what you want to pursue. Not just an interest, but a scenario that shows you understand the value of nursing based model of care, and have exhibited those characteristics in real life ways, such as volunteering.

Example, my background was behavioural neuroscience. I wanted to do research, and in learning about neurocognitive disorders which had devastated my family I decided I wanted a more active role than research and applied via PRE-SPECIALTY Entry with a bachelors and some change in neuroscience. I had no previous nursing experience at all, save working as a CNA in an memory care home. However, they admitted me.

I cannot speak directly to the one year program as I was PRE-SPECIALTY. However, my peers that did direct entry said they felt like they were jumping in, in the middle of a game. Our cohort was close, we just did nursing school together and then two classes (Pre and direct) are mixed together and paired up. There is a learning curve, for sure. A lot of the direct students did not know how the professors tested, or what the structure of the assignments were. So in some ways they felt like they started handicapped so to speak, since our class had a year to learn how to prep for exams and were used to prioritizing studying, and none of us worked in addition to doing school. I think it is fair to say some of them felt crammed, it is doable but stressful. They always allow some students to go part-time.

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Just curious for those who are doing the 2 year MSN programs- are you planning on working full time/ modified schedule/ part time? Wanting to see what most of the group is planning to do or if those who have graduated have recommendations.

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I’m entering the PMHNP direct entry starting this August. Does this program require some sort of capstone project/quality improvement project like many other NP programs?

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When I was a student it did. We had to implement a PICO at a site and do a presentation over it.

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