Students interested in becoming a nurse or who want a career in the nursing field can benefit from the AVC Nursing Program, which is a combination of a classroom lecture and clinical experience in medical facilities. The lecture is in a classroom setting which involves instruction provided by the experienced nurses on the college’s nursing faculty. The clinical is hands-on experience where students go out into medical facilities and apply what they learned in the classroom.
With the experience gained from all this, nursing provides a variety of career options, including work in hospitals, medical offices, public health, home care and others. Here in the Antelope Valley, area hospitals are the primary employer for nurses.
Nursing students have an option to progress further in the Associate Degree Nursing Preceptorship Program offered through Corporate and Community Services. The purpose of this program is to provide opportunities to implement leadership and management skills, assist in developing skills in advance clinical practices and allows them to care for groups and individual patients in the clinical or outpatient community setting.
There are three directors over the AVC Nursing Program. One director Debra Dickinson has been teaching for the nursing program for 15 years and was also once a graduate from the program.
We talked to a few of the currently enrolled students and got their opinions about the program. We asked what they thought about the nursing program here at AVC. “I like the overall curriculum and it's very organized [...] they have all the materials needed,” said student Courtney Glantz. Jeremiah John, another student involved with the program, added that "it does a good job preparing for becoming a nurse, [...] I had to wait a full year to even get into the program."
The students enrolled in the nursing program all appear to find it to their liking and see it as extremely helpful in reaching their career goals. “I like the clinical,” said Esther Lopez, “the job is interesting, patients are funny, and you never know what you going to get.”
To complete the program it takes 2 years, after which you will receive an Associate of Science degree. Afterward, you can then take the state board and will be licensed upon passing.
-By Katrina Green
