As the final course in the journey toward the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree, students complete a capstone that integrates the knowledge and skills developed throughout previous coursework. Over the duration of the capstone course, students create a proposal for change designed to address a specific healthcare-related need in an organization where they currently work or have previously worked, or an issue of local, state, or national importance, subject to instructor approval. The capstone includes a Change Proposal addressing patient/nurse safety, technology use, health literacy, and policy/regulatory/financial constraints, alongside a Nursing Philosophy Statement reflecting on the RN-to-BSN program journey.
A genuine change proposal, not a theoretical exercise
The capstone requires addressing a real healthcare need in an organization the student has actually worked in, or a genuine issue of broader importance — grounding the culminating project in authentic professional context rather than a hypothetical scenario.
Synthesis across the entire degree, plus personal reflection
NUR-490 requires both a Change Proposal integrating quality improvement, technology, and policy knowledge from across the curriculum AND a Nursing Philosophy Statement reflecting on the student's own program journey, combining professional synthesis with genuine personal reflection.
Key topics in NUR490
- Integrating BSN program knowledge and skills
- Developing a real healthcare change proposal
- Patient and nurse safety considerations
- Technology use in the change proposal
- Health literacy and policy constraints
- Nursing philosophy reflection
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Worked example: a change proposal grounded in real professional context
- Hypothetical-scenario approach: Proposing a change to address a generic, textbook healthcare problem
- NUR-490's approach: Proposing a change addressing a genuine need identified in a workplace the student has actually worked in
- Lesson: NUR-490 teaches that grounding the capstone in authentic professional context produces a more credible, practically useful final project than a hypothetical exercise
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Frequently asked questions
A change proposal grounded in genuine organizational context forces students to grapple with the real constraints — policy, financial, technological — that any actual healthcare change must navigate, producing a far more practically useful and credible final project than a hypothetical exercise disconnected from real organizational complexity. NUR-490 requires this authentic grounding because the capstone's purpose is demonstrating genuine readiness to drive real change in professional practice, not academic exercise in isolation from real-world constraints.
The BSN capstone aims to verify both a student's professional readiness to drive real healthcare change AND their genuine personal growth and identity development across the RN-to-BSN journey — these are related but distinct outcomes that a single professional deliverable wouldn't fully capture. Requiring the Nursing Philosophy Statement alongside the Change Proposal ensures the capstone assesses this complete picture: applied professional competency together with genuine reflective growth as a nurse.