Are you hunting for a University to help you attain your dream future as a nurse? Concordia, Texas is here for you! 

Concordia is located in Austin, Texas. The campus is located in-between groves of trees, with a 2,700 acer preserve. Concordia is offering in-person as well as online classes. The University offers the traditional BSN track, which is a 4 year program in which students will first enter as a Pre-Nursing majors and then after the pre-nursing sequence can then apply for the nursing program to complete the nursing sequence. They also offer a BSN direct entry track, and an Accelerated BSN Track. 

If you are ready to be interacting with your peers and doing hands-on work in class, or listening and answering questions on a zoom call  Concordia professors are ready to help you have a great experience. Student Jake Moorhead says that, “Teachers are interactive and want to get their students involved,” and Caroline Anton agrees saying that, “Everyone is nice and willing to help.” Later on, when I was talking to these students, I asked them why they chose to be a nurse? What had inspired them?  Caroline answered me, saying that, “I did a pediatric rotation. I realized the role of the nurse and I wanted to have a more hands-on role of care in the patient’s lives.” Jake said, “I lived in Indonesia before coming and deciding to come back to college and I wanted to help people with a practical skill and I saw nursing as a skill that I can help people with, here and everywhere” Another student named Lauren Nguyen told me that she originally wanted to be a doctor but then noticed that it was going to take a lot of work. But she still felt passionate about helping really sick people so she decided to be a nurse. Each of them had a different journey coming to nursing but they all wanted to help people out, who couldn’t help themselves. I thought this was really nice.  As we heard earlier from Lauren, studying to be a nurse, even a doctor can be a lot of work, and it’s good to have a schedule or plan for studying. I asked Lauren if she had any tips for studying and organizing herself and she told me, “I came up with a system to organize myself, print out a sheet every month and write down everything I have to do.” I thought this was a great tip, not just when it comes to nursing school but also for your grade-school life. Nursing was hit hard when Covid-19 invaded the earth. Classes had to move to online and students couldn’t go to clinics and in-person classes to practice as much. To overcome this challenge Jake says, “I am now practicing at my house, I asked my roommates to pretend that they are patients and practice on them.” I thought this is a really good idea, especially to help get some hands-on, real-life practice.  

Talking about real-life practice Concordia also opened a new nursing satellite campus. It’s a place to practice what you have learned in a realistic, hospital-like setting. Students can attend Nursing Skill Labs and Simulation Labs. It’s a place where students are introduced to medical procedures that later in their nursing career, will perform on patients. In the simulation labs, students find a manikin that is suffering from some sort of sickness. These mannequins are robotic so the professor is controlling how the manikins act in response to it’s situation and how the nurse treats it. It’s a very real-life experience, and is great for practicing nursing skills. 

After talking and learning about Concordia’s nursing program, I asked the 3 students, Caroline, Lauren and Jake if they thought that Concordia had prepared them for their future as a nurse. Caroline said, “Yes, I think they have because of their holistic approach to patient care, they teach us to look beyond the diagnostic, and to look to the patient’s heart, mind and family.” Lauren said, “I think so, so I’ve been prepared… no matter how much they teach you in school, you never learn enough until you are on the job. Yes, I know just enough that I can get hired, I know a lot but I feel like it only goes so far until I actually go with a real patient.”

And Jake said, “Yes, so far. They have a lab where we can practice on mannequins and they were making sure that I did everything right.. they give me second chances when I do something wrong. And they will walk me through how to do things correctly” 

So, if you have your heart set on a certain career or if you are still thinking about what you want to do, Concordia nursing is a good option. So, if you like helping people that need you, nursing just might be your thing.

Learn more about Concordia’s nursing program, and applying for the fall of 2021, at www.concordia.edu