UAB College Visit with John

Today was our third college visit - this is the first time I've been on an official tour of UAB. The directions provided were easy to follow and the campus is just a short distance off I-65.

We started out in the Nursing Department. The UAB Nursing program is 5 consecutive semesters (typical of most programs in AL) and has a high NCLEX pass rate (about 97%). There is an early acceptance program for which John meets the requirements and all he would need to do is maintain a 3.0 GPA to maintain that acceptance. There is also a specific Nursing honors program that provides research opportunities. During one's freshman year, the required 1st Year Experience course provides shadow experiences. A&P has the unique opportunity of cadaver labs. We were able to tour the simulation labs --- lots of  'people' in hospital beds and body parts on tables. The new Nursing building (scheduled to open Fall 2018) will provide even more opportunities. There are five hospitals within walking distance for clinicals.

The Nursing tour ran long so we were a few minutes late for the overall campus introduction but I don't think we missed anything of importance. We were there for the info about scholarships - ROTC scholarships can be stacked with Academic scholarships. Two Trailblazers took us on a campus tour - it is way more urban than Memphis. We were told that jaywalking will cost one $180. Most of the campus is divided by city streets but there is a small park where student activities are held and a one block campus green surrounded by campus buildings. The new residence hall has two person rooms (carpeted, mini blinds) with standard furnishing, a private bathroom and kitchenette (mini fridge, microwave and sink).

UAB has Army ROTC; we ran out of time to run by there but we did meet a young man who was in it his freshman year (has a medical condition that prevented him from contracting). They PT twice a week at 5:45am and are one of the largest batallions in the southeast as they have students from many other schools in the Birmingham area. I had already asked Nursing about the summer courses as that's the same summer as ROTC training and the Nursing dept and ROTC are good about working out solutions.

Who knew that John would be a city boy? He now ranks UAB as his first choice and because of the unique cadaver lab opportunity, we are going to switch his DE class to our initial thought of Intro to Psychology.

Update Sept 2nd:
We met with Mr Garcia with ROTC on our way to visit Troy.  ROTC cadets can be placed together in Blazer Hall for living. Only maybe 4% of scholarships are 4 yr scholarships. If for some strange reason John doesn't get a national scholarship, he said don't worry call him as he usually can make something happen. For Nursing students, MS2 and MS3 years are swapped so that one can concentrate on their Nursing studies. Advanced camp (or whatever that summer training is called) is after sophomore year for Nursing students as they have nursing classes summer after junior year. Their batallion is over 100 cadets.