BSN Curriculum

Students need a minimum of 180 credits to graduate with a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington. The required credits in the nursing curriculum total 91; thus 89 credits must be earned through general education, nursing prerequisite courses, and elective courses. Students may opt to earn over 180 credits, including NMETH 499: Undergraduate Research/Independent Study, where students pursue independent scholarly inquiry on a specific nursing problem under supervision of a faculty sponsor.

BSN Program Goals (approved in 2008, 1991)

1. Communicate clearly and succinctly in speech and in writing.
2. Promote effective communication between clients from various sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds and representatives of the health care and social service systems.
3. Demonstrate critical thinking, clinical decision making and psychomotor skills necessary for safe and competent practice.
4. Demonstrate cultural sensitivity as shown by thought processes and behavior.
5. Provide nursing care that preserves and enhances client's dignity and perceived goodness of fit with the immediate and expected environments.
6. Integrate methods of research and scholarship in making and prioritizing diagnoses, and in planning, implementing and evaluating care of individuals, groups, and communities.
7. Assess health and incorporate principles and methods of health promotion and health education in nursing care of individuals, groups, and communities.
8. Accept accountability for own expertise and for using that expertise to influence systems of care and health care policy.
9. Demonstrate comfort with requirements for adaptation to changes in care settings.
10. Demonstrate awareness of limitations in knowledge and actively seek learning opportunities to continue competent practice.

Additional Learning Opportunities
All BSN students are invited to apply to the BSN Honors Program in their second quarter of study. Students who have already begun the honors program in Arts and Sciences as a lower division student are invited to apply to the BSN Honors Program their first quarter in the Nursing Program.

There are also many student opportunities for those enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program who wish to enhance their learning through healthcare immersion experiences in a society and/or culture very different from their own.