By Sam Ingemie | Observer Reporter
One of the more popular majors at Mount Wachusett Community College is the Nursing Program. Preparing its students for work in the medical field and beyond, the MWCC Nursing Program has an array of rigorous courses involved including one 14-credit course. “It’s a lot, a lot, of work,” Judy Giacoppe, a nursing professor at MWCC said,” but at the end of the day, it’s a very rewarding field.”
As with every other major, students interested in the Nursing Program must first start out with the respective general education courses such as English, math, sociology, psychology, etc. One difference between the Nursing Program and a Liberal Arts program is the electives. The Nursing program electives are more limited in terms of what the students can take and still be relevant to their course of study.
From the more general courses, a student would move into Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) I and II and microbiology, two courses more specific to Nursing. And finally after a student is done with A&P I and II, he or she would move into the actual nursing courses.
“Most of our students take the general education courses first and get them out of the way,” said Giacoppe, “and then they take their nursing courses during their last two years – the last two years being more fundamental nursing courses.” Pediatric Obstetrical Nursing, Medical Surgery I and II, and other courses covering more advanced concepts in nursing are some of the classes the students would have to take in their last two years.
Two of the main ways in which the Nursing program at MWCC is evaluated is by the National Licensure Exams and exit surveys that are distributed to students who have graduated. The National Licensure Exams are federally mandated tests that measure the extent to which nursing students have learned the information presented to them. Typically, MWCC has a pass-rate in the low-90s.
The exit surveys are distributed to graduates of MWCC about 6 months after their graduation. One of its questions explores how well the students think the MWCC program prepared them for the workforce, “And we usually do really, really well with that,” Giacoppe said.
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