Southern Vermont College

Last week was National Nurses Week, which ended on May 12, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. Having recently participated in our nursing graduates’ beautiful pinning ceremony, I have been thinking about the nursing program at Southern Vermont College and the amazing careers opportunities that exist for our students – now and into the future.

New Trends:

There are vast and varied opportunities for graduates of nursing schools.  To the surprise of many, only 50% of nurses will actually work in a hospital setting over the coming decades.  Nurses will be in elementary and secondary schools, community health centers, businesses, pharmaceutical companies, ambulatory care facilities, nursing and assisted living facilities, governmental organizations and research institutes. 

The range of professional settings in which nursing graduates will work has never been broader – in part because as we think about healthcare prospectively, we are moving from a “disease” model with delivery of services in hospitals to a “health” model with access to services across our communities. 

A recent article in a Philadelphia paper noted that increasingly, some urban hospitals in that region are only looking to hire new nurses with a bachelor’s degree. Indeed, it seems clear that, moving forward, a bachelor’s degree is the minimum entry-level degree requirement for nurses.

At Southern Vermont College, where we have both an Associate and Bachelor’s degree program, we encourage our students to complete their Bachelor’s degrees, and we welcome students with Associate degrees from other institutions to complete their Bachelor’s degree with us. One of the advantages of our program is that students can complete their Associate degree, take the nursing licensure exam, and then work in a nursing setting while completing their baccalaureate degree. 

Nursing as a ‘Team Sport’:

Importantly, our nursing program is growing, in part as a response to the need for nurses in state and our region.  To that end, we have added slots into our Nursing One program (for students who have completed their nursing course prerequisites elsewhere), and we installed a high tech Simulation Laboratory, where students learn on robotic patients.   We are increasing the size of our nursing faculty, which is itself a challenge given the national shortage of nurses within the academy. For these reasons, we have no waiting list at present for our Nursing One program. 

There are many reasons to come to SVC for a nursing education, and the people who best express the strengths of our program are our graduates.  As one of this year’s graduates said in a speech to fellow graduates and their families:

“We have students from all walks of life, religions and ethnicities. We have students who have started with us right from high school, students working on second degrees, and students making career changes. But, we all share this common bond.  Nursing is truly a team sport.  We have learned to help and support each other… Even though we still have a lot to learn, we are compassionate, knowledgeable, skilled advocates [for our patients].  We are NURSES.”

If you or someone you know is  interested in a thriving career as a nurse, call our Admissions Department at 802 447 6304 or email us at admis@svc.edu. Or, try our Transfer Credit Hotline at 1-802-681-AT SVC or 1-802-681-2878.  Best of all, come to our On-the-Spot Healthcare Admissions Day on June 15 where we can review your application and transcripts right then and there and perhaps even register for Nursing One classes for Fall 2010.

A career in nursing awaits you!