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

Matt Markin  
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.

Dr. Jie Yu  
Thank you very much. Matt, good morning everyone. My name is Dr. Jie Yu. I'm 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 are considering about applying into our program. 

Matt Markin  
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?

Dr. Jie Yu  
Very good, and I'm still relatively new to CSUSB, I joined the nursing department from last fall, fall 2022, so this is currently my second year. And prior to CSUSB, I have I taught at a private institution for for nine years, and I've been in a higher ed for about 15 years total. So I taught entry level master program before and undergraduate, and had been a Program Director in the past. Yeah, so I really enjoy 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.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. So can you tell us how you would describe the Nursing Major, from our understand, it's also an impact in major we have at CSUSB?

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

Matt Markin  
And let's say a student was a student that was able to apply to the University and they were accepted into 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?

Dr. Jie Yu  
Sure we're talking about the nursing program. First, I want to clarify. So like our nursing department, we offer undergraduate undergraduate nursing program. 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'll be eligible to take the board exam, which we called NCLEX exam, and they'll be licensed as a registered nurse, and they also get their Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. And so this is for the undergraduate program. We also have a graduate program. We call it Master of Science in Nursing graduate program. These are for students who already are audience who has the BSN degree, but I want to continue their journey, and I want to pursue 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 and to nursing. So that is for entering into the pre licensure undergraduate nursing program. And we, we have a two step admission. So first step means being admitted into the university, into CS USB as a pre nursing students. So these like for high school graduate after the fifth. High School, they apply to CSUSB, and they get admitted. They like considered a pre nursing student. So these are the first step. So in one and a half year, sometime, one year, they complete, we call the prerequisite. These are the eight prerequisite we call, like a fourth science and the other four, nine science prerequisite. After that, after they finish all the eight prerequisite, they're 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 their cumulative transcript and their GPA on the prerequisite like for these, microbiology, anatomy and physiology, chemistry, critical thinking and oral communication, written communication and the statistics. So beside this, we also require students to take a teeth test. Teeth test is more for general prep to for critical thinking something. And the teeth test, the full name is test of essential academic skills. And the nursing department, we have the minimum requirement so students, they need to achieve a minimum score of 70% on the teeth 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 this 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 to the second step of the application. So once we receive all the information and the department, we have a committee, the faculty will look all the application data, and we make a decision and to decide who gonna 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 they will be admitted into our nursing department to start the pre licensure BSN nursing program. 

Matt Markin  
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 a student asks, Is there anything else I can do to stand out, you know, or make my application better? How would you answer that?

Dr. Jie Yu  
That's a very good question. Yeah. So we, we do receive quite a like a similar question from our applicants, from our pre nursing student. So my best recommendation is to for these pre nursing students to put more efforts to into the prerequisite, especially for the 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 the nursing program, but eventually in the success of their nursing profession. So I do highly recommend for pre nursing student to get a much higher performance academic performance in the science prerequisite, and also put efforts in the teeth 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, a requirement is for a California residency. So our CSUSB nursing program is a impacted program, as we discussed earlier. So we have much higher number of the. Applicants, then the number of we can accept. So our program is to admit the local area, so in our local area, especially Riverside and the San Bernardino area, so we require our student to have California residency, and for applicants from Riverside and the San Bernardino area will be having a higher priority when we consider about their applications.

Matt Markin  
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.

Dr. Jie Yu  
Yeah, we have so many like a different career pathway, different alternative and even within our own CSUSB, within our own College of Natural Sciences, we had different career pathway. So for our pre nursing students, these eight prerequisites they are taking, these are some of very common for other majors, like for our health science and even for our kinesiology, the pre PT majors, these can be accepted. So our College of Natural Sciences, we are developing even like a degree, a Bachelor of Science, degree in natural science, and so that degree program will also be able to take these prerequisite the pre nursing 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 prerequisite to go to other degree program within our college and within CSUSB.

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

Dr. Jie Yu  
I think maybe, like, 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 mid 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'll, 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 the nursing students to have more direct direct exposure. So like for example, they can volunteer in the hospital. They can start as a certified nurse assistant to have some direct patient care experience and to witness what our ends 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?

Matt Markin  
Yeah. And I guess going off of that last part about asking a 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. Working 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 you 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?

Dr. Jie Yu  
That's a very good question. And each nursing department, like the admission require, 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 their performance, even if some students, they are able to repeat, so that may able to improve their cumulative GPA, but unfortunately, when we're looking into their science prerequisite, we are only looking at their first attempt grades. That is the current practice the 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.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And Dr. Yu, I think this is very informative, a lot of great information that you're giving students through this podcast episode. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and talking to us about the Nursing Major.

Dr. Jie Yu  
Thank you for having me.