The University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Date: Apr 20 2011
Major: Nursing (This Major's Salary over time)
I am a Senior here at Umass, currently in the Nursing Program, two weeks away from graduation. I'll try to keep this short. Coming into this program I knew it would be challenging as they only accept about 60 out of every 1000 applicants. I lived on a nursing floor my Freshmen year. I've found that most people who meet freshmen year are friends for the rest of their college years so I would not recommend transferring in unless you already have friends that go here. For the most part the social life was pretty fun, there are always going to be boring weekends but I have my share of good stories. The food isn't half bad and as long as your willing to go up and introduce yourself you'll have a good time here. A lot of people will write reviews talking about how they hate all the preppy kids that go here, but they don't tell you that they've never made an attempt to make friends. Ya there's douchebags but then again what did you expect, there's 25,000 people who go here, they're not all gonna be scholars. I think the school gets a bad rap because the classes are so big but that is only for the first two years, for the last two all of my classes were very close knit and personal. The campus is huge and it can be daunting as first but there are a million different clubs you can join to meet new people. The nursing program needless to say has been absolute hell. I had heard as a freshmen that the last two years were daunting and they weren't kidding. The assignments are insane, requiring endless hours of researching databases, and reading texts, it really is crazy. A good majority of the work in later years is just busy work and you grow to despise it rather quickly. For your last two years you do clinical, however we only ever had one skills workshop before they threw us into the hospital. For your last semester you do an internship one on one with a nurse in a setting you choose. Be warned that this program IS going to impede on your weekends. For my internship I had overnight (7p-7a) weekends clinicals. In all honestly it forces you to grow up, it's what separates the nursing majors from the management majors. However, This school focuses too much on the theory behind nursing and not enough on the actual job skill. I always tell people to avoid this nursing school unless you want to get an advanced degree in nursing. Otherwise just go with an associate degree program at a community college, they actually teach you hands on skill and when you get out, you might not have a bachelor's degree but you'll be making the same amount of money as someone who does guaranteed. However if you really enjoy a good challenge go for it, or you could take the easy road and be an art major here but I suppose it depends on how badly you want a job. Overall, the nursing program is very extensive. The professors are almost all PHD's and one of the professors writes NCLEX questions, as a result her NCLEX review course is astonishingly helpful. The assignments such but now that its done I can say I'm happy I made it through, it's been a very long four years and the hard work is paying off.