An Accelerated Bachelor’s Program in Nursing Meets Its Perfect Candidate

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, accelerated baccalaureate degree programs “offer the quickest route to licensure as an RN for adults who have already completed a bachelor’s or graduate degree in a non-nursing discipline”.¹ It was precisely an eagerness to move quickly into her nursing career that attracted Stephanie Rivera to New York University (NYU) College of Nursing’s 15 Month Accelerated Progression bachelor’s program in the fall of 2008.  Rivera graduated in January, 2010, received her RN license in March and began her new job as a neurology nurse in May.  Days before she began her new career, Rivera said “I am really excited because it feels like there has been a big time gap since graduating, studying for my boards and interviewing. Now I really just want to get started!” 

Rivera’s enthusiasm made her a perfect fit for the challenge and intensity of NYU’s accelerated nursing program, which the school introduced in 1990.  American health care consumers need more nurses like Rivera—and more programs like NYU’s to help bridge the gap between the highly skilled nurses needed and those available to care for a growing patient population.   An aging baby boom and other factors are predicted to result in a shortage of some 260,000 nurses over the next 15 years. As of 2008, there were 218 accelerated bachelor’s programs like NYU’s in 43 states.² With demand—and enrollments—increasing, more are being launched every year.

When Stephanie Rivera started college, she was on a pre-med track and planned to become a physician.  While working part time in a physician’s office, however, she realized she was “hitting a ceiling and wanted more interaction with patients than physicians have.”  So she changed her major, earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and decided that in order to provide the kind of comprehensive patient care she envisioned, she would instead become a nurse.  In fact, Rivera sees her social science background as a perfect complement to nursing: “It’s their family life, the resources they have access to, all these things affect how a patient is going to do, especially once they’re discharged from a hospital. As a nurse you have to figure all that out, it’s more than just physical care.”

With her pre-med coursework, Rivera knew she’d already met most of the prerequisites for a bachelor’s degree in nursing, so she began to look into accelerated programs in the New York City area where she was living.   After weighing factors such as credits accepted, starting dates and commuting distance, Rivera chose NYU’s 15-month program: no summer off, just a fast track to her nursing degree.

Anyone who’s taken college summer classes knows that the pace of learning in that kind of compressed schedule requires a lot of focus and discipline. According to Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean of the NYU College of Nursing, applicants who choose this program are typically “mature, focused, determined and aware of their own strengths and weaknesses as students.”  Rivera herself believes that her previous college experience was indispensible preparation for the program.  “I knew how to deal with stress. I knew my study habits. I knew how to navigate the system, register online and basically get what I needed. I had all those skills,” says Rivera.

Rivera is not only anxious to begin working as a nurse, but feels extremely well prepared as a result of her 15 months at NYU, and was especially impressed with the way the coursework, on-campus clinical simulation and off-campus clinical rotations all reinforced each other.  While the lectures were typically large classes, it was during the hands-on training that students got real, one-on-one teaching time.  “In simulation, we’d have ten students in a group, and in clinical it was six, eight at the most, so you could ask the instructor anything and there was always time for mentoring,” said Rivera.

Fulmer explains this is very much by design.  “The content in the classroom, in the on-campus clinical simulation and in the off-campus clinical setting is coordinated to reinforce the students’ learning.” And, adds Fulmer, “our model also decreases the number of clinical sites and instructors required during this time of a nursing faculty shortage” while providing “excellent teaching sites and faculty.”

Rivera found the weekly mix of classroom time and hospital or simulation time was an ideal way for students to immediately apply and test their knowledge. Fulmer notes that the simulation sessions give students “a safe setting” to practice their nursing interventions in the context of a patient, which ensures a higher degree of patient safety in the actual clinical setting where students transfer their learning.  Rivera is also grateful for the wide range of clinical settings in which she had a chance to work (a long-term care facility, a public school, a children’s hospital and several other hospital units) and believes that experience will help her adapt and succeed in the workplace.

One of those clinical sites is also the hospital where Rivera is now working in the neurology unit. She credits NYU with helping her gain the position not only through its career support services but by placing her in the hospital where she was able to get to know the staff, one of whom served as her clinical instructor. Among its many services, NYU hosts an annual career day where nursing students are recruited for positions across the country, as well as résumé and interview skills trainings each semester.  Students also get meetings with program alumni and local nurse recruiters as they approach graduation.

Whether she will remain in neurology, Rivera doesn’t know.  What she does know, however, is that she has no regrets about abandoning her pre-med program and transitioning to nursing. “It’s better for me. I spend more time with the patients. I like that.”  When she does decide to pursue another degree, Rivera expects it will be a master’s degree in nursing, because eventually she would like to teach other people who’ve decided that nursing is their calling, too.

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¹ American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Issue Bulletin. “Accelerated Programs: The Fast-Track to Careers in Nursing.” Updated May 2010. Accessed August 19, 2010. http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Publications/issues/Aug02.htm

² Center to Champion Nursing in America. “Nursing Workforce Solutions for 21st Century Health Care: Addressing Education Capacity.” Accessed August 19, 2010.
http://championnursing.org/sites/default/files/EducationCapacityfinal5.5.10.pdf.