Campus visits for FIU's online nursing tracks

What FIU says about campus time

FIU's MSN FAQ labels two tracks, Adult-Gerontology Primary Care NP (AGPCNP) and Pediatric Primary Care NP (PNP), as predominantly online: coursework online, plus 1-3 visits on campus that may be required per semester. That sentence is the only on-campus rule FIU publishes for these tracks. There is no named residency, immersion or intensive week.

Two words in it carry weight. "May" means a given semester could have none; "per semester" means the count starts again each term, practicum terms included. FIU's pages list no visit dates and do not say what each visit is for, so watch Canvas and your FIU email, the program's official channels, for your course faculty's announcements.

Clinical hours themselves happen at your approved site with your preceptor, not on campus. A visit is coursework time, and in a practicum semester it competes with clinic days for the same weekdays.

Where you go: MMC and Academic Health Center 3

FIU's nursing college makes its home in the Academic Health Center 3 (AHC 3) building on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus (MMC) in Miami, and the graduate nursing programs are based there. The 2022 preceptor manual lists the Graduate Nursing / Advanced Practice Nursing office on the second floor of AHC 3. Traditional BSN classes also meet at MMC.

The Biscayne Bay Campus (BBC) in North Miami, in the AC II building, is where the Accelerated Option BSN holds classes. Unless an announcement names another location, an online-track NP student coming in for a visit should expect MMC.

FIU's website also lists other locations, such as Downtown at Brickell and FIU at I-75, but its nursing pages tie graduate nursing to MMC, so confirm the room in the announcement rather than assuming a different site.

Fitting campus days into a practicum semester

Primary care rotations, according to FIU's graduate handbook, run on weekdays during business hours, Monday to Friday from nine until five. A campus visit will usually land on one of those days. That is easy to manage when your preceptor knows in advance and awkward when they hear about it the week before.

A routine for each practicum semester

• Put every announced campus date in your calendar the day it posts
• Give your preceptor the dates when you agree your clinical schedule, before the practicum begins
• Build them into the detailed schedule your clinical faculty receive by the first week of clinical seminar
• Book a make-up day for any clinic day a visit displaces; missed clinical hours always have to be made up under FIU's rules
• Keep Typhon entries for the days you do attend inside the 7-day window

Holidays work the same way. When an official holiday wipes out a scheduled clinic day, the handbook has you and your preceptor choose a replacement day, and in hurricane season only official university closures excuse you. Semester dates are on our academic calendar page, and the schedule hand-off is covered in your preceptor folder and first day.

How we plan your clinical schedule around campus days

When we look for a preceptor for an online-track student, the campus calendar is part of the match. We ask for your known visit dates and your practicum semester, look for practices whose weekday schedule can absorb a make-up day, and write the agreed days and times into the request FIU receives, so your clinical faculty see a schedule that already allows for campus.

For students living outside South Florida, we search close to home, note which practices already have an FIU agreement on file, and time the work to the semester before your practicum, when FIU sets rotations up. The contact form is the quickest way to start: your track, your home city and your next practicum term.