College of Nursing

Nursing Students Gain Valuable Experience — and Job Offers — During Honors Immersion  

Nursing Students by Bed

100% of the College of Nursing students who participated in the Honors Immersion Experience were offered full-time employment by the participating facility.

Students in Seton Hall University's College of Nursing are kick-starting their career in the Honors Immersion Clinical Experience, a highly selective clinical experience open only to senior level B.S.N. students. Conducted during the Synthesis Practicum in the College's undergraduate program, the purpose of the honors immersion is to provide selected students with a personalized clinical experience with a practicing expert nurse clinician to increase student readiness for transition to professional nursing practice.

During the Honors Immersion Clinical Experience, students work one on one with a nursing preceptor at participating clinical sites to achieve the following objectives:

  • provide a realistic clinical experience for the student;
  • link the senior nursing student with a nurse expert on an inpatient clinical specialty unit; 
  • help students refine clinical judgment skills with full immersion in the healthcare facility's environment; and 
  • allow students to more actively participate in safe and competent patient care with exposure to the facility's structure of leadership and quality measurement through individualized mentorship.

In past years, 100% of the College of Nursing students who participated in the Honors Immersion experience were offered full-time employment by the participating facility. "I believe this is because of the high-caliber student nurses who participate in the program," said Kristi Stinson, Ph.D., R.N., APN-BC, associate professor and chair, Undergraduate Department, College of Nursing. "These Seton Hall students utilize high-level, critical thinking and clinical decision making and, therefore, can truly embrace this learning approach to the clinical experience."

Interested students go through a rigorous application process that includes GPA and clinical course grade assessment, faculty recommendation letters, personal essays about why they should be chosen for the program, and, finally, interviews at the clinical sites by the nursing staff.

This is the fourth year that the Honors Immersion Clinical Experience has taken place at Seton Hall. During its first year, one student in the immersion experience was placed in the emergency department and another one in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, New Jersey. The program now has seven highly qualified students at three additional medical facilities – the oncology department at Hackensack University Medical Center; the in-patient pediatric department at St. Peter's University Hospital, New Brunswick, New Jersey; and oncology department at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Middletown, NJ.

Seton Hall's nursing students have a rigorous curriculum. They spend their first three semesters at Seton Hall on the South Orange campus, taking core courses as well as foundational science and humanities courses. They begin immersing themselves in clinical and nursing courses and skill development on Seton Hall's Interprofessional Health Sciences (IHS) Campus. The IHS campus, located in the towns of Nutley and Clifton, New Jersey, is just 11 miles from Seton Hall's main campus and home to Seton Hall's highly acclaimed College of Nursing, the School of Health and Medical Sciences and the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. This integrated and interprofessional environment allows for a unique and innovative team-based approach to healthcare education, increasing a student's ability to work collaboratively, to improve patient care and be better prepared for entering the healthcare profession. The IHS campus also serves as a major site for health science research and discovery activities.

About the College of Nursing 
6 Reasons to Choose Seton Hall's B.S.N. Program 

1. Four-year B.S.N. program (123 credits) leads to eligibility for licensure as a registered nurse 
2. Curriculum provides the foundation for graduate education in nursing 
3. State-of-the-art simulation lab provides high-fidelity simulation experiences 
4. Robust academic options: students in the college can be members of the University Honors Program, the University Buccino Leadership Institute and College of Nursing Honors Synthesis Clinical Immersions, plus options for minors and dual majors 
5. Opportunities for faculty-led international experiences in health care 
6. Clinical experiences in acute care, community, behavioral/mental health, primary care and many other settings where registered professional nurses are found

Categories: Health and Medicine

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