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Metropolitan State University (Home)

Nursing RN to BSN

College of Nursing and Health Sciences / Nursing
Undergraduate major / Bachelor of Science

About The Program

The College of Nursing and Health Sciences launched a new innovative curriculum for our Registered Nurse (RN) to BSN program starting in Fall 2023. Our faculty have developed a competency-based curriculum that highlights health equity and holistic care by design, in response to: the needs of predominantly working adult nurses, our desire to address equity, holism and anti-racism, and AACN’s requirement for nursing programs across the country to meet new essentials for baccalaureate nursing preparation. Through an online, part-time progression that supports student work and home/life balance, students will engage in a curriculum that is sharply focused on critical analysis, equipping graduates to address the pressing issues in nursing and healthcare.

If you are a licensed registered nurse (or soon to be) with a cumulative overall GPA of 2.5, you are eligible to join this exciting RN to BSN program. Program eligibility requires maintaining an active unencumbered RN license to practice professional nursing in the United States throughout the duration of the program.

International Students

Beginning Spring 2025, the RN-BSN program will not be admitting international students while we review our policies and procedures. Please check back at a future date for any updates.

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Program Highlights


The RN to BSN program is holistic in its approach, with highlights that include:

  • Program designed to provide flexibility for working adult students
  • Endorsed by the American Holistic Nursing Credentialing Corporation. Graduates waive the post-graduate practice and continuing education hours necessary to be eligible to take the holistic nursing certification exam.
  • Curriculum that equips students to question the pressing issues in nursing and healthcare
  • Courses that address equity, holism and health, anti-racist action, understanding and application of theory, evidence-based practice, community and global health and critical analysis
  • Graduates qualify for public health nursing registration in Minnesota.

RN to BSN Online Cohort Format

Cohorts start every fall, spring, and summer semester in an online format with the nursing major courses completed online asynchronously. NURS 456P, Community Health Practicum will have practicum experiential learning experiences and is completed in semester three of the cohort progression.

  • 31 credits of nursing major coursework
  • Part-time progression, two major courses per semester
  • Five semester progression that includes summer(s)
  • Non-nursing general education and liberal studies courses may be needed to meet the baccalaureate degree requirements for graduation

Practicum Experiential Experiences
You’ll complete 60 hours of experiential learning which will enable you to provide public health approaches to a population in the community. Health promotion and prevention are elements of public health and will allow you to assist marginalized and vulnerable populations. As examples for your experiential learning; you will work with homeless, women and children, senior citizens, and others who may be low income or have limited access to healthcare.

Metro State has regional partnerships with public health departments, schools and community agencies. There is also flexibility to explore other optional experiential learning activities with your faculty’s approval. At the completion of your degree, you will be eligible to apply for the Minnesota Board of Nursing Public Health certification.

Out of State Applicants
If you wish to enroll in our RN to BSN program and live in a state other than Minnesota, please inquire before applying to determine if Metro State is legally authorized to provide the program in your state.

Student outcomes

RN to BSN program students learn to:

  • Demonstrate application of nursing theory and transdisciplinary theories as a basis for professional nursing practice
  • Apply multiple forms of evidence, critical analysis, and reasoning in healthcare decision making
  • Demonstrate knowledge of a broad concept of holism
  • Practice holistic nursing care directed toward wellness and healing
  • Practice professional nursing leadership and advocacy that challenges systemic racism and pervasive inequities and promotes health equity

Ready to continue your nursing studies?


As part of an online or hybrid cohort, students in the RN to BSN program take part in a holistic degree program directed toward healing in the human health experience for diverse and vulnerable populations. A member of the Minnesota State College and University System, Metro State is an urban university that offers convenient, affordable educational programs.

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Nursing RN to BSN program accreditation

The baccalaureate degree in nursing at Metropolitan State University is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, 655 K Street, NW, Suite 750, Washington, D.C. 20001, 202.887.6791.

Advance Your Education

How to enroll

Current students: Declare this program

Once you’re admitted as an undergraduate student and have met any further admission requirements your chosen program may have, you may declare a major or declare an optional minor.

Future students: Apply now

Apply to Metropolitan State: Start the journey toward your Nursing RN to BSN now. Learn about the steps to enroll or, if you have questions about what Metropolitan State can offer you, request information, visit campus or chat with an admissions counselor.

Get started on your Nursing RN to BSN

Program eligibility requirements

To be eligible for acceptance to the RN to BSN major, the following must be completed:

  • Admission to Metropolitan State University
  • Evidence of active unencumbered registered nurse licensure in the United States
  • An official transcript indicating completion of an associate degree or diploma in nursing from an accredited institution
  • A minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 and a grade of at least a C in all previous nursing courses
  • The GPA used for admission assessment is the cumulative GPA calculated from all coursework and evaluation of all transcripts
  • Students must complete an official degree plan with their academic advisor which will include discussion about placement in an RN to BSN cohort

Courses and Requirements

SKIP TO COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Pre-practicum requirements

All students must meet all pre-practicum requirements prior to starting their Practicum in Community Health and maintain such requirements throughout the program. Information must be submitted to the Department of Nursing which may include, but is not limited to the items listed on the pre-practicum requirements page.

Student licensure

Graduates of the Bachelor of Science in nursing program are eligible for registration as a Public Health Nurse in the state of Minnesota.

Requirements (31 total credits)

This course examines the foundations for the identity and practice of professional nursing with emphasis on the values and theoretical perspectives that support practice. Theoretical frameworks from nursing and other disciplines will be introduced with emphasis on holism, equity, anti-racism and social justice. Theories will be critiqued, analyzed, and applied.

Full course description for Theoretical Foundations for Nursing Practice

This course focuses on the role of racism in the creation and perpetuation of poor health outcomes. Emphasis will be placed on analysis, utilizing critical theory, of the manner in which the history of scientific racism is embedded in current health care clinical practice. The biological responses to the experience of racism will be explored. Racism in healthcare research, the role of structural racism in homelessness and its effects on health, and engagement in anti-racist, activist scholarship to achieve health equity are addressed.

Full course description for Racism and Health

This course focuses on evidence-based practice (EBP) in nursing to improve the lives of people, including the components of patient/family preferences and values, clinician experience, and best available scientific evidence. Students will engage in critical analysis of the historical development of nursing research and theory in practice. Ethical issues surrounding the use of human subjects in research and the history of racism embedded in research and EBP are explored. Emphasis is placed on critically evaluating multiple methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, indigenous knowledge systems, participative action research, and applying this evidence into nursing practice. Sources from social sciences, humanities, biomedicine, and social justice are used to explore holism, the human response to illness, and co-creating conditions of health. Competency Statement: Understands evidence-based nursing practice well enough to apply research to nursing care.

Full course description for Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice

This course examines global health issues that influence population health outcomes, including the interaction between domestic and global health. Students study frameworks such as vital statistics, Millennium Development Goals, and human rights principles and apply these frameworks to the definition, prevention, or mitigation of identified global health issues or concerns with particular attention given to the health of infants, children, and women in low and middle income countries. The course concludes with a study of cooperative efforts designed to mitigate or prevent global health problems.

Full course description for Global Health Issues

This course focuses on the origins and trends in community and public health nursing, conceptual models for practice, and contemporary public health problems and issues. Students synthesize knowledge from nursing, public health and the social sciences to provide holistic care with community as client. Emphasis is on primary prevention, health promotion, and risk reduction, as well as prevalent population-based health issues; focusing on racism and inequities in delivery of health care within populations.

Full course description for Community Health Nursing

The clinical experience in this course focuses on application of concepts of community/public health nursing in diverse community settings, emphasizing disease prevention, health promotion, risk reduction, and cultural awareness within a holistic framework, at three levels of practice; system, community and individual/family. Students must register concurrently for NURS 456: Community Health Nursing.

Full course description for Community Health Nursing Practicum

This course focuses on holistic nursing care of clients experiencing transitions related to aging and alterations in health across the lifespan. Cultural and social conceptualizations of health and illness, and their impact on the planning and delivery of nursing care, will be explored. Emphasis will be placed on the role that poverty, racism, and trauma play in health and chronic illness. Ethical issues related to advocacy and the utilization of culturally responsive ethical approaches are addressed.

Full course description for Lifespan Transitions: Aging and Health

This course provides a foundation for consideration of health and healing through the concept of holism. Issues of racism, equity, cultural humility, and cultural appropriation are emphasized. Specific ethnomedicine systems are explored and analyzed. Particular focus is placed on structural factors that influence individual and community health. Students examine holistic self-care from social, cultural, economic, political and historical perspectives. Application to daily life for individuals, families, and communities is explored, and potential for application in health care settings.

Full course description for Holistic Health and Healing

This capstone course, guided by a nursing perspective, is designed to incorporate learning obtained throughout the RN to BSN curriculum, including theories, evidence based practices, care across the lifespan, and principles of anti-racism, holism and global-local-community, to synthesize for health equity activism within healthcare settings. Utilizing Emancipatory Nursing and Social Medicine theoretical frameworks, students will analyze the social, economic, political, and historical influences that underpin health inequities within clinical practice. Particular focus will be on actions within nurses¿ scope of practice to address harm and inequity for patients and families and to promote health equity. Students will analyze select examples of activism and develop a plan for their own clinical health equity focused activist scholarship work. This course is part of a competency-based nursing curriculum leading to the baccalaureate of science degree in nursing.

Full course description for Capstone: Nurses Take Action for Health Equity