UIC Nursing

Well, welcome everyone who is joining us. We're going to give it a couple seconds here for everyone to get in and come over from their other sessions in case they're running just a few seconds behind.

OK, so welcome, everybody. My name's Catherine Kleeman. I'm part of the admissions team here at the University of Illinois, Springfield. Before we get started with the nursing presentation, I have a couple of housekeeping items to go over so that you're aware this session is being recorded and will be made available for viewing. So don't feel like you have to take notes for your privacy. Please do not drop questions about your personal application into the chat.

Also, while we are monitoring the chat do the size of the group, we may may not be able to answer every question in there. If you have follow up questions that were not answered, please feel free to e-mail admissions@uis.edu.

I know there are a lot of people on today, which is great. We're happy to have you here. With that, I'm going to introduce Caitlin Kulick from the UIC College of Nursing. Thank you so much, Caitlin, for joining us this evening.

Thank you, Catherine, and thanks for everybody for being here. I'm very excited to tell you a little bit about the College of Nursing and our Bachelor of Science and Nursing program on UIS campus. Again, my name is Caitlin and I am the program advisor for UIC nursing Springfield. So I've been with the College of Nursing.

For a little over a year now, I advise our current nursing students, the juniors and seniors do academic advising. I also work with the UIS pre nursing students to help them get prepared for applying for and starting the nursing program with us. And I work with the GPA student as well. And so we'll talk a little bit more about that. I did want to kick off this session.

And we have this great video where you can actually hear from some of our students and faculty about our program, so I will.

Go ahead and start that and hopefully it works.

I think I shared my screens. You do that first.

Really.

All right. I love that video because.

In addition to hearing from some of our students and faculty, you actually get to see where you would be taking your classes and in in the lab, you got to see some of that too. So if you haven't already scheduled a time to come out to UIS and see the campus and you want to see some of the College of Nursing area in the Student Affairs building, we'll be happy to show you around there in person as well. So in addition to all those lovely things.

From the video, I just have some other kind of like our highlights for the College of Nursing. So our our program is that we have the Bachelors of Science and Nursing offered on the Springfield campus and we also have a couple of graduate programs as well. So we are through the University of Illinois, Chicago, but we are on the Springfield campus and we are a top highly ranked program throughout Illinois in the country. So just some of the.

The kind of facts and figures there, but I think one of the cool ones on here is that one in 23 registered nurses in Illinois is a graduate of UIC College of Nursing. So that's a pretty big number and really great. We at the Springfield campus are obviously different than this spring than the Chicago campus. With UIC we get to share the lovely UIS campus and participate.

And then everything that goes on there utilize the Springfield campus resources in addition to the Chicago and UIC resources as well.

Since we are in Springfield, we do have about, we have smaller class sizes compared to the other UIC campuses. We're about 48 students in each of our junior and senior classes. And out of the three campuses that have the BSN program, so Chicago, Springfield and Urbana, I'll have the Bachelors of Science and Nursing program. We actually have this this past year had the highest influx rate and historically.

We've had the highest unflexed past rate out of all three of our campuses. So although we are, you know, part of the UIC system and we get to enjoy all of the curriculum and resources from Chicago, we do have our own kind of tight knit community down here in Springfield too. We do have students from Central Illinois and from all over the state, the country and even international students. So I would say about half of our students come from the Central Illinois area. We do get it.

A lot of students from the Chicagoland area as well, and like I said, across the country and international students too. So in addition to our Bachelors of Science and Nursing program, I did mention that we offer a Masters and a DNP Dr. of nursing practice. So if anybody in the session today is interested in the graduate program, so I would definitely recommend, I'll give you my contact information but reaching out.

Anticipate more vouchers.

Interested students. So we're going to go ahead and go over an overview of that, so as you are all learning about UIS and hopefully applying and.

Potentially coming here soon, you would actually start off with UIS for your pre nursing classes so these take place during your freshman and sophomore years. Typically during this time you're considering UIS student taking the the courses required to get into the Bachelors of Science and Nursing program, which you can see on the screen here. All of these again would typically be taken during your freshman and sophomore years.

And we also have, if you do decide to go to US for your first two years and eventually want to come to UIC nursing for your junior and senior year, we have a program for first year applicants that provides guaranteed admission into UIC nursing. But but otherwise we also have the traditional application route which is during your sophomore year. So you'll take all these classes again your freshman and your sophomore year.

And then you would complete the BSN program. So all of your nursing classes would be your.

Um, junior and your senior year, so.

That again that would be through UIC. At that point it is a full time program.

Each semester you'll have a combination of face to face instruction and lab work and clinical rotations. It is 4 semesters only. So again, this is once you're in, taking your nursing classes junior year and senior year, so fall, spring, fall, spring, no summers. And although we're in Springfield, again, we have the same highly ranked curriculum as the Chicago and the Urbana campuses. You don't need to go to Chicago.

For any reason, all of your classes are in Springfield. All of your clinicals aren't Springfield or the Central Illinois area. And again, it's really nice because you'll have access to everything that you AC has to offer, like they're tutoring their academic Center for excellence, counseling, different things like that. But you can also use US resources such as housing, meal plans. We have our own.

Springfield nursing tutoring on campus too and the activities if you want to go to the track, if you want to go to health services or counseling on campus, all of that is available for you. So you get the four year experience on the UIS on the Springfield campus. But again, your first two years you're taking your pre nursing classes as a UIS student and then the last two years still on the same campus.

Taking the nursing classes as a UIC student.

OK. A little bit more about the clinical experience. Once you're actually in the nursing program, we provide you with hands on experience from the first day on each semester you have at least one.

Mostly 2 clinical rotations that you'll go to each week, averaging about 12 to 16 hours in in those clinical and also simulation lab.

Rotations and so what's really nice is you could see in that video, um, some of our students working with the mannequins that's actually in our in our simulation lab on campus. And so you can learn all of the nursing skills that you need to use in your clinical experience on campus first practice it with the mannequins with your faculty there helping you learn along the way and then applying it in your real world clinical experiences. It is important to note that.

It is the students responsibility to get to clinicals. So although all of your classes will be on campus, if you're going to clinicals you might need to drive there or take.

You know, usually we drive around Springfield, we have public transportation like the bus and everything, but typically our students will be driving to their clinicals once they start those.

We get to placed, we get you set up with where you need to go and you have your clinical instructors there to help you along the way, but you do need to make sure that you can get there. So that is a little overview of kind of what your four years would look like through UIS and UIC nursing.

So let's talk a little bit about how to actually then get into the program.

So I mentioned briefly, we do have kind of two ways to enter the BSN program. The first one is traditional admissions. So you'll find this at a lot of of nursing schools. You take all of your pre nursing classes your freshman and sophomore year and then you transfer into the nursing program your junior year. So traditionally you would complete that application for UIC College of Nursing during your sophomore year after you've been working through those pre nursing.

Nurses and then you would apply to begin all of your nursing courses with us for your junior year.

So that's the typical route that you would go. But for anybody who would be a first year applicant to UIS and you, you're like, yes, I know I want to go into nursing already. I want a spot in there already. If I could get it, that'd be great. We do have what's called the guaranteed professional program admissions. And so basically what this is if you're a first time applicant to UIS, you apply as a pre nursing student, you have to have a 3.

.25 GPA and I'm going to go on our next slide so we can read more about it. But if you apply and get into this program, you will get guaranteed admission into the UIC College of Nursing Springfield campus. So you know right away before you even start college, you're going to complete your pre nursing courses with UIS and you're already in. You already have a spot and you don't have to apply later on down the road. You have that spot with.

Us at the UAC College of Nursing on the Springfield campus. So again, you do need to have a 3.25 high school GPA to be able to apply for this. And along with that, come that guaranteed admissions, also comes the opportunity to apply for additional scholarships like the Memorial Health Scholarship. While you're in the program, in addition to having that opportunity for the scholarship and the guaranteed admission, you'll also be focusing on building.

Viewership skills and networking within the College of Nursing. Getting to know faculty and nursing students before you even start the program.

You will have your own UIS pre nursing advisor and you will also get to work with me as a UIC advisor, so you'll have that experience in that.

Connection while you're still in the pre nursing program with UIS.

So again, I'm just going to go back to that last slide. If you don't have that 3.25 high school GPA to be eligible to apply for the GPA program, that is totally a OK, you would just go the traditional admissions route. Or if you're not sure and later on down the road, you're like, Yep, I want to apply. You would just apply during your sophomore year or once you're done getting almost done taking your prerequisite courses.

So a little bit more about the GPA program, what goes into applying and then what goes into your time as a student in the program. So I just have the application requirements here. When you're applying for UIS, make sure you click on the pre nursing for your major or nursing and then in addition to your typical application that you're submitting for UIS, you'll need to make sure that you do have two recommendation letters.

And then also there will be some essay questions on the GPA nursing specific form for you to answer.

Also within that application process for GPA, there is a formal informal interview with myself and with our director of UIC nursing Springfield, Dr. McPherson. So if you.

Hit everything. You have the GPA, you submit everything on the application. Then you would be invited for that informal interview with us over Zoom, Virtual interview, and then.

If you get accepted into the program, you have that guaranteed admissions. You're taking your select your prerequisite courses that you select with your pre nursing advisor, and you do need to make sure you're maintaining A3 point O GPA to ensure your spot in the nursing program once your junior year rolls around.

Otherwise, like I said, um, typical applications take place during your sophomore year. Um, you can see on this slide the different requirements that are within the application. So.

You will need to apply to the College of Nursing for the BSN program to be able to take those nursing classes at that point.

So I did show the pre nursing courses on a previous slide, but again these are what you would need to take the GPA's.

That we require when.

Selecting applicants for the program are a cumulative GPA and a science GPA. So overall for all of your pre nursing courses that you've taken, you need to have at least a 2.75 GPA out of four. And then there's five science classes within those prerequisites that you need to take, and you'll need to have at least a 2.5 out of four for those science classes.

So again, here's all the prereqs. And then you can see the five science classes, anatomy and Physiology one and two, microbiology, General Chem. And organic chem.

So just some things to keep in mind as you are working through your pre nursing courses, making sure you're maintaining a GPA and making sure you're applying your sophomore year before starting the program and your nursing courses your junior year.

Alrighty. So some other things to consider, and I think we have about 10 minutes left. So make sure if you do have any questions, you're putting them in the chat and I'll be sure to get to them as well.

For funding your education.

On your pre nurse nursing classes are again through UIS. So your first two years of your pre nursing courses you would be paying you I guess tuition and you can find out all of the information for tuition fees and financial aid on US's website. I'm sure you've heard about them today as well. And then your second two years are through UIC.

For your tuition and your financial aid.

As well. And so I've included the website here, but if you have any questions, it's all on our website as well, which I have a link to at the end. And so in addition to paying for school, there's also scholarships and financial aid that come along with it. So when you're actually in the nursing program as a UIC student on the Springfield campus, we have several scholarship opportunities just through UIC College of Nursing that our nursing students can apply for.

Each year specific to the Springfield campus, we do have the Memorial Health Scholarship that is available for US pre nursing students and UIC nursing students in Springfield.

You can see the estimated tuition. Again, this is just during the two years that you're in the nursing courses, your junior and your senior year, and we hope that you reach out if you have any questions about financial aid or scholarship or anything about funding your education.

Over 80.

So in addition to some of the things that those students in the video mentioned being on the Springfield campus and the fun things around town as well, our students in Springfield have access to all the UIC services like the Honors College, the Urban Health Program, Student Nurses Association and we actually have our own Springfield chapter of that. But our UIC students also participate in US activities.

A lot of our nursing students still live on UIS campus and like the townhouses and apartments that you can live in once you hit your junior year. They have access to the library, the student Union, disability services, the counseling center, all of the the clubs and student organizations on the US Campus you can stay apart of during your last two years in the nursing program.

All right. And then just to sum it up, I just have some last key points here that I think is important to consider when you're you're choosing where you want to pursue your nursing education.

One thing that I didn't mention is that US has great living learning communities and we have a nursing, pre nursing one as well. So a lot of our our pre nursing students like to live in those living learning communities and and get to know each other and and kind of.

Form that community before even starting the nursing classes, which is a fantastic opportunity as well.

Alrighty. So we still have a few minutes left, so I'd like to turn it over to anybody that may have questions. I have some FAQ's that I'll just display and I'm going to try to.

Read through the chat, see if there's.

OK.

Yeah.

I don't think that there's any questions in the chat for Caitlin, so I'm gonna say thank you, everyone for joining us this evening. If you have any questions for Caitlin after this event, her contact information is down on the slide. It's KKULEK at uic.edu is her e-mail. And that's probably the best way to get in touch with her because then she can answer it wherever she's at. So thank you so much for joining us.

Tonight and have a great evening. Goodbye.

Thank you.