FCC Nursing Program is Getting Ready to Accept New Students

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The Fresno City College’s nursing program is getting ready to close applications for their program and select the next 110 students for the fall 2022 semester.

The nursing program at FCC started to collect applications from Jan. 7 through Feb. 4.

Lorraine Smith, dean of instruction allied health, physical education & athletics division, said that in the past years they only had around 500 to 600 applications.

However, in 2021 received over 1,000 applicants and are expecting to reach around the same number for this semester.

The program has already reached 700 applications and is expecting more as the deadline gets closer.

Smith said, the applications then get evaluated to see if they met the standards of GPA, finishing their prerequisite and their scores from their Test of Essential Academic Skills (TEAS) score.

The applications that pass the evaluations are then put into a lottery to avoid favoritism and someone with a 2.0 GPA and one with a 4.0 GPA has the same chance of getting picked, said Smith.

Only 110 students are picked each semester from the lottery, making the FCC nursing program the largest for community colleges as other colleges only accept around 50 students.

Despite being the largest program, Smith believes the reason for the many applications has to do with the people working to make future nurses.

“A lot of our faculty actually graduated from the program because you have to love teaching to want to be not just a nurse, but many of our faculty too are practicing nurses,” said Smith.

The nursing program never stopped in-person classes, besides the first week of lockdown of March 2020, said Smith.

Some lecture classes were moved online, but this semester they are having most of their classes back in-person again.

These in-person classes are simulation courses often making a mock hospital due to the fact that some hospitals did not allow students to get clinic hours during that semester.

Michelle Hoffman, is a counselor for the registered nursing program who works one-on-one with students in the nursing program or trying to apply.

She offers Q&A for students on Zoom for questions about the application process. The Q&A starts when the program begins accepting applications.

“I hope they [students] feel that they have had a weight lifted off their shoulders and that they feel that they are going in the path they have chosen,” Hoffman said

However, the biggest challenge they have faced, according to Smith, was making sure students were vaccinated, getting students fitted into a N95 mask, which is fitted to that exact student’s face and getting students the resources they needed to succeed with online courses.

Susan Nguyen, a nursing major who started the program in January 2020, said the FCC nursing website made it easy to apply as there was a list of qualifications.

However, she does think there can be an improvement to the program.

“I feel some instructors can be a little more helpful and less intimidating when students have questions,” Nguyen.

The FCC nursing program has still managed to graduate around 400 students since the pandemic started.

“Everybody who graduates is just so glad that they did it, they gave up a lot to do it, They give up their kid’s birthday parties or family events because they’re in a clinical,” Smith said.

Smith encourages people who are interested in the medical field to apply for the nursing or other programs FCC offers.