Worried about the reputation of Liberty U?

Hello, I am currently a junior in high school and I have always wanted to go to Liberty University for my bsn. I know several people who have attended the school and have loved it. When I visited the school, I greatly enjoyed the friendly people, beautiful buildings, and Christ-centered teaching. I quickly fell in love with the school, even while I was aware of the strict rules enforced upon the students. (Honestly, I really don’t mind how strict the rules are.) However, I only began to doubt whether or not I wanted to go there when I found out about the possible difficulty of finding a job as a nurse with an education from Liberty. I have read claims that some employers will immediately reject the applicant once they say that they were educated at Liberty U. They claimed that this especially applies to nurses or any other person from the science/medical related field. (They were claiming that it does not make sense for a person believing in creationism to go into a scientific field or something along those lines) I’m worried about the general reputation of the university to outsiders and whether or not that will affect my ability to find a job in the nursing field. I would greatly appreciate any help or stories of experiences on the matter. Thank you!

Hello Chegirl…I am Dr.Britt, the Dean of the School of Nursing at Liberty University. It is interesting that you are hearing that employers don’t want to hire Liberty grads, because we hear just the opposite. We have a 99% job placement rate and most of our seniors have jobs promised to them by the time they graduate. Our nursing graduates are hired all over the country with no problems. In fact I have heard from many nurse managers because once they hire one of our grads, they are contacting me to see how they can recruit more… What we hear is that they are known for their compassion, excellent work ethic and confident clinical skills. I’d love to correspond further with you. My email address is dbritt@liberty.edu

Wow, thank you so much for the feedback!

My wife was recently treated for a very serous illness at both UVa and Lynchburg medical facilities. She spent her entire working career with doctors/hospitals in Seattle, WA and knows good and bad nurses when she sees them. She would rate the nurses in Lynchburg as better overall than those at UVa. Many of the local Lynchburg nurses are LU grads.

I used to think it would be tough for pre-med students to get into med schools from similar creation teaching places. Then I found real life examples of it happening. Stats, of course, need to be med-school quality, but they are.

My new belief is that professional schools/degrees (nursing too) want to fill the world with people from all niches to reach all niches. They don’t discriminate nearly at the level plain old grad schools might. (Grad schools are looking for someone to follow along with current research, albeit, on a different line - same general idea.)

It’s just my own thoughts, developed from what I’ve seen IRL vs someone’s thoughts of what “might be.” “Might be” is often wrong once one sees the facts out there.

Any individual hiring manager could be biased, of course. Biases happen in life whether it’s right or not. But that manager could be biased toward certain grads as easily as against them.

I encourage any student interested in a science-based career to look at where their instructors themselves were educated. This will help determine the quality of education you will receive. For example, I wouldn’t send my child to a college or even a high school where the faculty got their degrees from unaccredited colleges or for-profit colleges.

If you enjoyed and loved the school - GO FOR IT!

There is a lot going on at LU these days. Most for the better

https://www.liberty.edu/journal/issue/summer-2016/

LU nursing grad

Nemours Children’s Hospital
June 28 at 8:44am ·
We’re so proud of Hematology/Oncology nurse, Julie Laybourne Swee, who was just named Pediatric Nurse of the Year, the top national award from the Society of Pediatric Nurses. Julie’s fellow Nemours nurses nominated her and her patient “Pom-Pom” puts into words why. Please join all of us at Nemours in congratulating Julie on this well-deserved honor!