A Look Back on September

Newsletter October, 2017 Volume 2, Issue 2 A Look Back on September The 2017-2018 school year is underway! In September we welcomed back our returning students, and we got to meet some new ones, too! The Student Engagement team hosted Taco Tuesday events on all four of our campus locations to kick-off the fall semester. On September 17th our student leaders came together to learn more about their roles and responsibilities, and each other. The American Red Cross came to our Newark campus for a blood drive where students and staff were able to donate blood to help those in need. To close out an exciting first month we held Ice Cream Socials on each campus where students had a chance to take a break and enjoy a cool treat! Department of Student Engagement Inside this Issue A Look Back on September Leadership Retreat Tips on Preparing for Exams Tips on Resume CV Writing Exercise Your Options: Out of Hospital Nurse Residency Community Outreach Blood Drive and Sickle Cell Disease Social Media Shout-outs Upcoming October Events

Leadership Retreat Fall 2017 On Sunday, September 17th, over 80 combined undergraduate and graduate student leaders from all four School of Nursing campuses traveled to the Livingston Campus in New Brunswick for the annual Rutgers School of Nursing Student Leadership Retreat. All of the School of Nursing s student leadership organizations were represented, including student senate/government, peer mentors, RSNA, and GSNA. Student leaders attended a conferencestyle retreat complete with a full day of team building activities and development-focused workshops. Melissa Ruiz from Swift Kick, an internationally renowned leadership development organization, kicked off the day with an energetic spin on increasing student participation inside and outside of the students organizations. She also provided great insight on how to recruit new members and future leaders. Ceil O Callaghan closed the morning with some important career advice for our nursing students including resume writing and interview skills and etiquette. The afternoon session consisted of a workshop rotation lead by the Student Engagement team and students leaders from the Executive Board of Student Senate. Our student leaders were randomly assigned to four different groups that they worked within throughout the day. During the afternoon, each group rotated through various workshops focused on building their skills and knowledge as student leaders. The workshops covered important topics such as effective communication, conflict resolution, knowing your role and working with advisors. The day concluded with the first group-training session for all Peer Mentors, as well as break-out sessions for each individual council and organization to establish their goals and vision for the academic year. With the largest attendance to date, this year s retreat was an incredible success, which can be seen through the below quotes from some of the attendees. We are already looking forward to next year! Melissa s presentation was very inspiring and motivational. It was upbeat and fun. - Amber Mariano, President of Blackwood Student Council The workshop is so appropriate and needed for young and senior leaders. The Student Engagement Team are ideal role models! They are true to form. - Maureen Mendoza, Executive Vice President Rutgers Graduate Student Nurses Association I didn t realize how important the formatting of a resume was, and now I know who I can reach out to when I need help. - Nabina Park, Peer Mentor

Tips for Preparing Exams 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Preparing for nursing exams begins your first day of classes, weeks before the exam. Attend and arrive on time for class. 30 minutes late for a 3-hour class over a semester is equivalent to missing 2.5 classes. Complete reading assignments and test your knowledge. Attend your professor s office hours and bring questions about the coursework. Use CAS tutoring services as a supplement to your coursework; attending weekly tutoring sessions can increase your comprehension of the material. Center for Academic Success Tips for Resume and CV Writing Resume Tips 1-2 pages in length (only use a second page if the information on page two is directly relevant and would adversely impact your candidacy if it was omitted). Is used to provide employers with the enough information for them to want to speak with you in an interview but is not a comprehensive view of your background. Start by looking at job descriptions for the type of position you are seeking. Make sure you include the language you see in the job descriptions in your skill descriptions this will ensure your resume comes up in keyword searches. Focus on skills, include action verbs in either present or past tense and in the active voice. Use varied highlighting and white space to make the resume easy to read. Text should be in a font between 10 and 12 points. Headings and Name can be slightly larger than general text. Include clinical experiences and the skills you gained through those experiences. Be consistent in your formatting of dates, punctuation and highlighting. Arrange material so that the most relevant information hits the employers first. Proofread, Proofread and Proofread again! Have your resume critiqued by the Career Counseling Officer, ceil.ocallgahan@rutgers.edu. Curriculum Vitae (CV) Tips Two or more pages in length provides prospective employers with a comprehensive view of your background, with an emphasis on academic qualifications. Include your degrees, research, presentations, publications, honors and teaching experiences. If your categories have long listings of presentations, publications or teaching experiences, consider arranging them into topical groupings. This will enable readers to digest the information more easily. Describe your experiences using action verbs in the first-person, present or past tense, and in the active voice. Make sure your name and the page number appear on each page of your document. Be consistent in your formatting of dates, punctuation and highlighting. Proofread, Proofread and Proofread again! Have your CV critiqued by the Career Counseling Officer, ceil.ocallaghan@rutgers.edu. Ceil O Callaghan Career Counseling Officer

Exercise Your Options: Out of Hospital Nurse Residency Many nursing students assume that their path into the profession is laid out graduate, pass NCLEX, take a position in a hospital typically in Med Surg, and after a year or two move into an area of their choosing. But, if you had another option, is this the path you d choose? You have options! And, the Out of Hospital Nurse Residency program can help you explore those options. Fast forward to where you see yourself in five years? The route to that five year destination may be more straight forward than you thought. In the summer of 2017, RUSON placed its first cohort of BSN graduates through the Out of Hospital Nurse Residency program. The Out of Hospital Nurse Residency program, which is funded by a generous grant from the Helene Fuld Foundation, is aimed at enabling graduates to pursue nursing opportunities in varied, non-hospital settings. One of the barriers new nurses encounter in non-hospital settings is that these settings weren t able to offer the training and guidance afforded by hospitals. The grant connects graduating students with opportunities at facilities that have agreed to provide new nurses with that training and guidance. Areas such as mental health facilities, home care, long term care (nursing homes, assisted living and subacute care), and insurance (care managers), work with the School of Nursing to identify qualified graduates (residents), develop preceptors that are trained through the grant, and provide training to the graduate nurses throughout their first year of work. The residents are hired and paid by their employer as full time employees, and their training hours are included in their work schedules (i.e., they are paid for the training). This training and support will ensure you have the tools to advance your career. In addition, as working outside of hospitals may result in you being one of the only new graduates in your facility, the residency program facilitates a cohort model that will enable you to interact with other new graduate nurses. This can be invaluable through your transition into the profession. If your plan to advance in the field of nursing includes graduate study, the Out of Hospital Nurse Residency assists by providing two opportunities for you to continue your education. At the conclusion of your residency education, you will be offered a graduate level Nursing Leadership course. Upon successful completion of that course, participants are able to enroll in one Rutgers School of Nursing graduate course of their choosing. Both graduate courses are free to the residents. If you would like to learn more about the breath of opportunities available to you through the Out of Hospital Nurse Residency program, visit the website (http://nursing.rutgers.edu/residency/index.html); attend an information session fall information sessions will be held in Newark on Thursday, November 2 from 12-1pm in SSB620b and in New Brunswick on Friday, November 10 from 10-11am in 110 Paterson St., Room 302; or schedule a time to meet with the Career Counseling Officer, Ceil O Callaghan (ceil.ocallaghan@rutgers.edu). Ceil O Callaghan Career Counseling Officer

Community Outreach Do you enjoy giving back to others? Do you want to help make this world a better place? Do you want to meet other nursing students who also like to do these things? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you need to come volunteer at RUSON Student Senate s Community Outreach events this October! The Commu-nity Outreach Committee exists to empower RUSON students to come together, get involved, give back, and see the good that they can create in this world. Whether the Community Outreach Committee is fundraising to help fight childhood cancer, cheering our hearts out at the AVON 39 Walk to End Breast Cancer, or volunteering at our local Special Olympics games, we work together to make a huge impact on the world around us! What in the world is the Community Outreach Committee doing THIS October, you may ask? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month! The Community Committee will be traveling into New York City on October 15th for our 7th Annual Cheering Station at the AVON 39 Walk to End Breast Cancer! We will be sporting our RUSON We Wear Pink to Find A Cure tie-dye shirts and will be cheering our hearts out for the brave women and men who are walking 39.3 miles to help find a cure for breast cancer! But that s not all SAVE THE DATE! October 27th! Do you want to learn how to take a manual blood pressure and check an HgbA1c level? Do you want to refine your clinical skills and improve your communication skills with patients? Do you want to come out to an incredibly fun event and meet your local community members? If so, then come on out to Community Outreach s 3rd Annual Healthy Halloween Event on October 27th! Refine your skills in every step of the nursing process while enjoying a spoooooooky evening with your fellow RBHS colleagues. Not interested in either of those events? Do you want to join in the fight against childhood cancer and help improve the quality of life of children battling cancer, sickle cell, and other serious health challenges? Then come on out to the AMAZING RU4Kids events that will be taking place throughout the month of October! Nothing sparked your interest yet? Come on out and volunteer at your local Special Olympics games with your fellow RUSON students, or join us at Elijah s Promise Soup Kitchen, at the Ronald McDonald House in New Brunswick, or at GoodWill in Newark. The options are endless! Please keep an eye out for emails from Molly Naft, Community Outreach Chairperson, at mollynaft@gmail.com to find out more information about these incredible events! If anything listed above has sparked your interest, please do not hesitate to email Molly and she will get back to you promptly with how you can get involved and give back to others. Most importantly, please remember that no matter how small an act of kindness may seem, when we come together our small actions collectively can make an incredible difference in this world. Justin Baldoni once said, Give. Everything beautiful comes from that word if we choose it. Please make the choice to give back to others! Make the choice to make this world a better place, filled with positivity, love, compassion, and service! Molly Naft Community Outreach Chairperson

Blood Drive and Sickle Cell Disease On September 26th, the American Red Cross hosted a successful blood drive on the Rutgers Newark campus in Ackerson Hall. Students, faculty, and staff from all across the campus scheduled appointments and signed up to donate blood and help those in need. By the end of the day a total of 20 pints of blood were donated; a total that could potentially help save approximately 6 people. Look out for our next blood drive on November 28th being held at the Stanley S. Bergen Building in Newark, NJ. September is also National Sickle Cell Disease Awareness month. Not only does knowing your blood type matter for matching donors with recipients, but disclosing your race is just as important in saving lives! The combination of this information ensures that donated blood used for transfusions is as closely matched to its recipients as possible! This is especially important for individuals who suffer from Sickle Cell Disease, as they often receive blood transfusions regularly as part of their treatments. Having blood that matches their own as closely as possible decreases the risk of developing complications. Social Media Shout Outs The entire Student Engagement team would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our followers for joining our social media platforms, and encourage you to continue keeping up with us as the semester progresses. Now that we have officially entered the Fall, we are excited to announce that we will be holding 3 Insta-gram contests complete with prizes! To enter each contest, all you have to do is follow us @ru_engagedson, tag us in the picture you are submitting for the contest, tag three classmates, and use the contest hashtag. The first contest/hashtag will be #HelloFall where you will need to post a fall-themed picture. The second contest/hashtag will be #Pumpkinspice where you will need to post your favorite pumpkin-spice drink or treat. Lastly, we want to see what you re all going to dress up as for Halloween! Post a picture in your costume and use #Halloween. Prizes will include gift cards to your campus bookstore! We can t wait to see your spooktacular posts! Shout out to a follower who is always one of the first people to like our posts @yvettem6! Thanks so much for your support!

October Events! Community Outreach 7th Annual AVON Walk to End Breast Cancer Cheering Station When: October 15th 8:30 am 2:30 pm Where: New York City (The bus will be picking up students at the New Brunswick School of Nursing at 110 Paterson Street and the Newark School of Nursing at 180 University Avenue) Trick or Treat & Mask Decorating When: October 17th: Blackwood Campus 12:15 pm 1:15 pm Jefferson Hall Student Lounge Newark Bergen Campus 2 pm 4 pm SSB Student Lounge October 18th: Newark Ackerson Campus 2 4 pm-ackerson Hall 3rd Floor Atrium October 19th: New Brunswick Campus 12 2 pm - Paterson Street Student Lounge JDRF One Walk When: October 22nd: 7:30 am 11:30 am Where: Camden County Community College, Blackwood Campus

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