February 8, 2024

If there’s one thing that Delta College is known for, it’s undoubtedly the nursing program.

It’s hard to find anyone in the area who hasn’t been cared for by a Delta nursing graduate.

Since the college opened in 1961, nursing has been one of its marque programs and that stellar status continues today—thousands of graduates later.

It’s that reputation that brought future nurse Hannah Sundberg to Delta College.

“I just heard such good things about Delta and their professors,” said Sundberg. “They produce very good nurses. They're very critical thinking nurses, which is important when you're dealing with health care.”

How does Delta consistently produce nurses with the analytical, leadership and communication skills to be highly successful?

“I think something special about Delta is the faculty has worked or is currently working in the community as a nurse,” said Jessica Herek, nursing instructor. “We have evidence-based practices happening in Bay City, Saginaw and Midland health care facilities, which we bring back to our students. We can say, ‘this is real life, you're going to see this when you go to clinical, you're going to do these real things with your patients when you have your nursing degree.’”

TECHNOLOGY AND FACILITIES

Another key component of the program is that students learn in Delta’s state-of-the-art health professions lab. It’s a high-tech simulated hospital patient care environment for students to learn and practice nursing skills.

“We have these awesome, diverse mannequins,” said Herek. “They speak, moan, have breath and bowel sounds, even a pulse. They can truly simulate a real patient in a bed.”

“We give students the opportunity to practice with these programmable mannequins who can interact with the students as a patient would. What’s great is that it's okay to make mistakes in this environment. That's where the learning happens.”

Through these hands-on lab experiences students have the knowledge, skills and confidence they need when beginning work in real patient care settings.

PASS RATES

Need more evidence of the quality of Delta’s program? Consider the licensure pass rates. That’s the percentage of first-time NCLEX-RN test takers achieving a passing score. Delta grads’ scores are consistently higher than the national average. Last year, Delta’s pass rate was 98.2%, nationally it was 87.75%.

CAREERS AND EARNING POTENTIAL

According to O*NET data, being a registered nurse is a good paying job with many job opportunities. The median annual salary for registered nurses in the Great Lakes Bay Region is $80,233 with 769 job openings each year.

Want to further your education and earning potential with a bachelor’s degree? Delta has seamless RN to BSN transfer agreements in place with Concordia University, Davenport University, Ferris State University, Franklin University, Saginaw Valley State University, University of Detroit - Mercy, University of Michigan-Flint and University of Phoenix.

LEARN MORE

Check out this nursing program video with interviews with Sundberg, Herek and others in Delta’s program, or visit Delta’s registered nurse webpage.