Past Pre Nursing Students

beeatriss

Hi all,

I am a mature student starting the Fetac Pre Nursing Course this September and would love to hear from past students on their overall thoughts of the course. Just a few questions to get the thread started.

The Benefits of the course?
Any problems encountered?
Did you find the course intense?
How many study hours outside the classroom per week?
Views on work experience?

Please add any relevant info you may have as it can benefit all future students.

Thanks

deisedave

beeatriss wrote: »

Hi all,

I am a mature student starting the Fetac Pre Nursing Course this September and would love to hear from past students on their overall thoughts of the course. Just a few questions to get the thread started.

The Benefits of the course?
Any problems encountered?
Did you find the course intense?
How many study hours outside the classroom per week?
Views on work experience?

Please add any relevant info you may have as it can benefit all future students.

Thanks

My girlfriend has just finished that course, she is on here her name is Yunnie I will get her to answer whatever questions you have when she wakes up

beeatriss

Thanks deisedave would love to hear from her!

Yunnie

Hey,
Most of the stuff covered in the pre nursing course is covered in the first year of nursing so if you plan on progressing to level 8 you have alot of groundwork covered.
Do you plan on going into nursing next year?
Im sure you know the course subjects you will be doing. As all of them are relevant to the course and any future career in nursing, I found 2 quite tedious; Safety and Health in the work place and Communications. I just couldnt wait to get into my Anatomy & Physiology and Biology classes. For me and most of the people in my class they were so interesting.

For this course you need to buy 3 text books; Anatomy and Physiology, Biology and nutrition and dietetics. There is a mental health text book but nobody bought it because the teacher gave us notes from hers.
We really didnt need it as there is no exam for Mental health studies so we didnt see the point in forking out nearly €50 for a book we wouldnt need.
Its handy if Mental health nursing is what you wanted to do but after spending just over €100 for the other 3 books it didnt seem important.

Where are you doing your course?

For Work experience the college required 20 weeks placement but to pass the work experience module FETAC require a minimum of 10 weeks. You should start looking for a placement early on.
When you begin your work placement dont leave any important documents with your work placement. At the end of our work placement when it came to getting important documents back, we found it very difficult as a few of our placements had lost them or misplaced them.

If you go over the notes you get in class or any work you do its better to go over them that night again. I know this is said so much by people but it is easier in the longrun.
In Anatomy and physiology there are alot of diagrams, ALOT.

Our assignments weren't too hard. Its easy to gather all the information but putting it all together is quite hard, so I would say that when you first get your assignments do some of them that day. I usually left them for a while and found it all piling up. It does become stressful.

I cant really think of anything else at the minute, is there anything else you want to know or anything you want more information on?

Cliona99

Introduction to Nursing is a really great course. It's been expanded in some colleges to make optional modules available.

Benefits: you can learn a lot. You'll definitely know by the end of the year if you want to work in the field.The most useful classes are probably Anatomy and Physiology, and Introduction to Nursing.

A and P is the most academically demanding, so work at it from the very start and don't expect to cram it all in after Christmas!

Intro to Nursing will teach you basic nursing skills from hand-hygiene and bed making to taking observations and filling in fluid balance charts. Practice plenty for the practical exam and it's easy to get full marks. The first aid and manual handling courses were very worthwhile.

Word processing for anyone who can type and use a computer is a bit of a time-waster. But it can't be helped if everyone in the class is at a different level. If the teacher is on the ball he/she will always have extra assignments/exercises to hand out for the people who finish in five minutes. It was all about Microsoft Word (may differ in other colleges?) and even people who knew what they were doing usually learned at least one new shortcut/tactic in each class.

I'll second what Yunnie said about Safety and Health and Communications! (Possibly the best approach to Communications is to get through it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Just get the assignments overwith. That way you'll have a few hours a week free towards the end of the year to work on other things).

Downsides: this is possibly a problem in all FETAC/PLC courses but some teachers will act like the students are children (especially if there are a lot of school leavers). But some teachers go in the opposite direction and are way too lax about deadlines and punctuality. Depends on the teacher. Also, some teachers will expect college-level assignments while others expect leaving cert standard. You get to know who wants what. (This probably varies; your college may have very clear guidelines available).

Problems: Trying to get assignments in on time. The teachers may not co-ordinate with each other so you end up with deadlines very close together. Be realistic about how long work is going to take. Leave time for proof-reading and to do a properly formatted bibliography.

Being depressed by things you see happen on work experience.

Intensity: depends on what kind of grades you want to get. It's perfectly possible to coast through the year doing the minimum amount of work and pass. But if you want to go on to do nursing/midwifery you'll need at least 8 distinctions to be in with a chance. Work hard and consistently and it's absolutely achievable. But intense.

(The above covers hours study outside the classroom too. If you want to do well, you'll be studying a lot. If you're not too bothered, you don't have to study at all).

Work experience: could break your heart. Most people go to nursing homes and some nursing homes are horrendous. Even the "good" ones are not somewhere you'd want your parents or grandparents to end up. This does lead to confusion because in the classroom you're learning "best practice" and it's so very different to what you see in real life. It's an eye-opener.

Sorry for going on and on!

cocoshovel

Just curious as to what the hours are like? Are you sitting in the classroom from 9am-4:30pm every day? Thats one thing I didnt like about my previous fetac course. I wish it was more flexible as often we were left with nothing to do at all and sitting around for ages on end.

Rasheed

Didn't do the pre nursing course but I am a nurse. As regarding placement, just show plenty of interest, ask loads of questions, don't do anything you are not comfortable with and if you have common sense you'll be sound as a bell.

You may feel a little out of place on placement at the start, as we all did but this will pass when you get into your stride. If the course is similar to nursing 1st year, it will be intense but very interesting. Hope you enjoy it and best of luck!

beeatriss

Thanks for all your informative posts! I really appreciate use taking the time to answer this thread it means a lot. I can now look forward to September without feelings of apprehension and I'm sure other students alike will find this thread beneficial

To Yunnie, I've had offers from CCOC and McEgan. I would love to do Mental Health Nursing next year, not sure yet if this is covered on the course. However, I will certainly look into purchasing the books you mentioned. Thanks

To Cliona99, no need to apologise you can go on as much as you want, a very interesting read! I never knew I had to gain 8 Distinctions for Nursing but as you say if I put the work in its achievable. Thanks

To Cocoshovel, If I remember correctly from the interview CCOC was a full day and McEgan College finished around 2.00pm. I understand what you mean, sitting about with no work would make the day never ending. Thanks

To Rasheed, Its great to hear from someone who is where I want to be. As a very mature student, I hope to apply my life experiences/skills to the work placement and the classroom. Thanks for your advice and words of encouragement they are much appreciated.

SusieBlue

I haven't done the course myself but a friend just finished that course this year in CCOC and has been offered a full time position in The South Infirmary Hospital as a Nursing Assistant, so it gives great opportunities She was also offered a position in a nursing home but opted for the Hospital instead. Best of luck!

Yunnie

The hours were great, I suppose the timetables are down to the college but we were out most days at 1.30 except for one day in the week when we were out at 4.30. We started at 9 and had 4 days college 1 day work placement.

beeatriss

WhiteRoses wrote: »

I haven't done the course myself but a friend just finished that course this year in CCOC and has been offered a full time position in The South Infirmary Hospital as a Nursing Assistant, so it gives great opportunities She was also offered a position in a nursing home but opted for the Hospital instead. Best of luck!

Thanks WhiteRoses,

It's reassuring to hear the course can lead to employment as well as a degree. Congratulations to your friend and all the best in their new job!

Triona00

Hi,
I am intersted in harig abut the nursing couse rom someone who has lreay done it.
Is the course more group work then individual?
How many hrs to attend lectures?
What standard does your knowledge on biology have to be for first year?
Recommendaions for college?

Any more info much apprecited.