Lower Division

I just want to give a brief idea of what my first 2 years in nursing was like. At my university, the nursing program is divided into Lower Division and Upper Division (from here on to be abbreviated as "LD" and "UD," respectively); LD consists of core courses and basic, non-clinical nursing courses, while UD consists of exclusively nursing classes, some clinical and others higher-level nursing courses. Ideally, one would spend 2 years in LD, and 2 in UD, and though I did that for the most part, I did stray from the norm a little by spending one semester abroad (see that blog at grenobletwentyten.blogspot.com). Required LD classes consist of ENGL 101 and 102 (or the AP equivalent), US History (or AP), foreign language (unless exempted by the placement exam), STAT 110 and either STAT 201 or college calculus, one fine art (I took music appreciation), PSYC 101 and 420 (developmental psych), general/organic chemistry, anatomy and physiology, microbiology, pathology, history of nursing, communications in nursing, public health nursing, transcultural nursing, clinical nutrition, and a certain number of elective credits. Despite some less-than-ideal professors (though others were great) and some long nights studying for subjects I wasn’t exactly passionate about (that means you, microbiology), I was still happy with my decision about nursing at the end of my 2 years. Movement into UD isn’t a given (in fact, a lot of people get turned away since it’s so competitive and only 200 students can be accepted due to faculty restrictions) and is based solely on GPA. It gets more and more competitive each year as the students who didn’t get accepted the year before reapply with higher GPAs in addition to the 300-400 other nursing students who have been working hard because they were warned from the get-go that they would need a high GPA; the cutoff this year was a 3.4. I enjoyed most of my classes in LD, but I'm so glad to be taking classes that are obviously and directly relevant to what I'll be doing as a nurse. Plus, I get to wear scrubs ;)