Ep. 72 - What is the Nursing major?

In Episode 72 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast, Matt Markin chats with Dr. Jie Yu, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Nursing. Dr. Yu answers your questions about being a Pre-Nursing major, prerequisites, tips for applicants, and more!

Check out the BSN Current CSUSB Pre-Nursing Admission Requirements & Application Process website!

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Transcript

Hello, this is Matt Markin, an academic advisor at Cal State San Bernardino. And welcome back to the CSUSB Advising Podcast. This is episode 72. And on today's episode, we're learning more about the Nursing major. And we have the department chair of Nursing Dr. Jie Yu. To help us learn more. Dr. Yu welcome. 

Thank you very much, Matt. Good morning, everyone. My name is Dr. Jie Yu, the chair for the Nursing department. And very I'm very excited to be here and sharing some news about our department admission, and some very useful tips for any applicants if you're considering about applying into our program. 

Yes, absolutely. And before we jump into those questions, let me ask you this first question, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your path into higher ed and being at CSUSB?

Very good. And I'm still relatively new to CSUSB. I joined a nursing department from last fall, fall 2022. So this is currently my second year. And prior to CSUSB, I have taught at a private institution for nine years. And I've been in higher ed for about 15 years total. So I'd heard entry level master program before and undergraduate and had been a Program Director in the past. Yeah, so I really enjoying the higher ed with nursing education. And I found interactions with nursing students, and helping my students to achieve their potential in the nursing profession, is my goal. And I really enjoy that. And I want to continue that path for the rest of my professional life.

Awesome. So can you tell us how you would describe the Nursing Major? From our understanding, it's also an impacted major we have at CSUSB.

Yeah, so when we're talking about the impact, that means we typically receive more applications than the capacity we can accommodate. So for a nursing program, we are strictly regulated by the California Board of Registered Nursing and also our program accredited about national body, which we call it the CCNE. So our capacity has been predetermined by these agencies. And so even though we have very strong candidates, but the capacity is fixed, so that's when I'm fortunately, we had to turn away a lot of very well qualified applicants.

And let's say a student was a student that was able to apply to the university and they were accepted into a pre nursing. Can you kind of talk about the general path that that student would take from going from pre nursing to potentially being accepted into the nursing program? 

Sure. When talking about the nursing program, first I want to clarify, so like our nursing department, we offer undergraduate undergraduate and nursing programs. So, undergraduate is typically when we refer to the pre licensure undergraduate nursing program. So students entering into the pre licensure undergraduate program, so eventually, they will complete the program they will be eligible to take the board exam, which will be called NCLEX exam, and they will be licensed as a registered nurse and will also get their Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. And so this is for undergraduate program. We also have a graduate program we call is Master of Science in Nursing graduate program. These are for students who already are RNs who had the BSN degree, but they want to continue their journey and they want to pursue a higher further education. So we offer concentration for nurse educator, and for community and population health. So different concentrations. So Matt, you're asking about the pre nursing into nursing. So that is for entering into the pre licensure, undergraduate or nursing program. And we we have a two step admission. So, first step means being admitted into the university into CSUSB as a pre nursing students, so these like are for high school graduate after they finish high school will apply to CSUSB. And as they get admitted, they like a considered a pre nursing student. So these are the first step. So in one and a half years, sometimes one year, they complete, we call the prerequisite. These are the eight prerequisites, we call like a force science and the other four, non-science prerequisite. After that, after they finish all the eight prerequisite, they are going to be starting the second step of this two step admission. So, for the second step, they will apply directly to our nursing department. So we will look at their transcript and your cumulative transcript and zere GPA on the prerequisite like microbiology, anatomy and physiology and chemistry, critical thinking and oral communication written communication and statistics. So besides this will also require students to take a TEAS test. TEAS test is more for general prep, to for critical thinking something and a the tea's test, the full name is test of essential academic skills, and the nursing department will have the minimum requirement. So students they need to achieve a minimum score 70% on the TEAS test. And we also require a mandatory information session. And these are offered by the department mostly twice a month before the application cycle. So students are required to attend these in person information session to obtain further information and further logistics about submitting the application. So by all doing all these students are completing their step two, the second step of the application. So once we receive all the information, and the department will have a committee, the faculty will look over the application data. And we'll make a decision and to decide who are going to be admitted, for example, into the San Bernardino campus, and who will be admitted into the Palm Desert campus. So that is the two step from one to eventually there'll be admitted into our nursing department to start the pre licensure BSN nursing program. 

Wonderful. And I know we get this question a lot with students, and I'm sure students have asked you this as well. So you know, they're they're taking the prerequisite courses, they're doing the TEAS exam. But let's say student asks, Is there anything else I can do to stand out? You know, or make my application better? How would you answer that?

That's a very good question. Yeah. So we, we do receive quite like a similar question from our applicants or from our pre nursing students. So my best recommendation is to, for these pre nursing students to put more efforts to into the prerequisite, especially for a science prerequisite. So there are a lot of evidence in the literature showing a very strong correlation between the science, the scores, the grades, to the eventual their success in not only in a nursing program, but eventually in the success of the nursing profession. So I do highly recommend for pre nursing students to get a much higher performance, academic performance in the science prerequisite and also put out first in the TEAS test. So this is a general like recommendations. And there's another thing I forgot to mention, but I believe that is more most of our applicants should not be having trouble for that is a risk. You know, our requirement is for a California residency. So our CSUSB nursing program is impacted approval as we discussed earlier, so we have a much higher number of the applicants then the number of we can accept. So our program is to meet the local area. So in our local area, especially Riverside and San Bernardino area, so we require our students who have California residency, and four applicants from Riverside and San Bernardino area will be having a higher priority when we consider about their applications.

And of course, you know, being an impacted major, like it's mentioned before, you know, not every pre nursing student will be accepted into the nursing program. And of course, not every student that applies to CSUSB trying to get into pre nursing will be even admitted into pre nursing to start at CSUSB. So do you have students that inquire about you know, could I still maybe take classes at CSUSB, and then possibly transfer to another institution and try to get into their nursing program?

Yeah, we have so many like different career pathway, different alternative. And even within our own CSUSB, within our own College of Natural Sciences, we have different career pathway. So for our pre nursing students, these eight prerequisite they are taking, these are some very common for other majors, like for our health science, and even for our kinesiology, the pre PT majors, please can be accepted. So our colleges natural sciences were developing even like a degree a Bachelor of Science degree in natural science. And so that degree program will also be able to take in these prerequisites the printers in student has been taking. So we have been working very closely with other department and to create a multiple career pathway. So for any pre nursing students, if they are not able to be admitted into our own nursing program, they can still use their prerequisites to go to other degree programs within our college and within CSUSB.

And are there any misconceptions that you think one might have about either the nursing degree at CSUSB, or even the nursing career?

I think maybe like a some better understanding for the profession is much needed for our any potential applicants. So I guess, because from the pandemic, you know, and also a lot of like, meat exposure for nurses, and especially about the shortage and the challenges for the nursing workforce. So that drew a lot of attention. But for any students come want to come into the nursing profession, I highly recommend and have some better understanding of the nursing profession. Nursing is very, I will, I will say, is really a calling, because we are dealing with humans lives. And it could be very challenging, physically and emotionally, for every single nurse, especially working in the bedside. So like I highly recommend for nursing students to have more direct, direct exposure. So like, for example, they can volunteer in a hospital, they can start as a certified nurse's assistant, to have some direct patient care experience, and to witness what artists are doing in the hospital setting. A lot of them are not may not be very glamorous, but is is really a calling for nurses. So my strongest recommendation is, once you make the commitment is a lifelong lifetime commitment to human life. And it will require a lot of like a sacrifice, a sacrifice, from physical challenge, and maybe a lot of time from the emotional stress. So I really want to call out for any students. Are you ready for this? Are you prepared for this?

Yeah, and I guess going off of that last part about asking the student like, are you ready for this, you know, to do this as a profession. You know, even students starting out as pre nursing and doing some of the prerequisites and I know you were mentioning Want to try to focus more on those prerequisite classes, especially the science courses? If a student let's say from the very beginning is starting out with, let's say, the anatomy and physiology classes, and then really struggles with it, and maybe they don't pass it? Do you have conversations? Or do you have students that come to us saying, you know, should I still pursue this? Or should I repeat the class? Any advice, you know, for student in that type of situation? 

That's a very good question. And each nursing department like the admission requirements may be differently. And for current for our current admission, criterias and we are looking at for the science prerequisite, we're looking at a first attempt. So when we're checking when we're looking at as your performance, even if some students they are able to repeat, so that may able to improve their cumulative GPA. But unfortunately, we're looking into their science prerequisite, we are only looking at their first attempt grades. That is the current practice, that department is adapting for now. There could be some changes. But unfortunately for now, we believe that practice first attempt for current is the best practice for us to choose the best, competent applicants. 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And, Doctor you I think there's very informative a lot of great information that that you're giving a students do this podcast episode. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and talking to us about the Nursing Major. 

Thank you for having me.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai