Lewis's 16-week NP courses and the management course each practicum pairs with

Two clocks: 8-week sessions and 16-week NP courses

Lewis runs semesters, and each fall and spring semester holds two back-to-back 8-week sessions. The MSN core, along with the leadership and nurse educator specialty courses, is accelerated into those shorter blocks. Nurse practitioner specialization courses break the pattern: the catalog assigns them what it calls the traditional 16-week format.

So an NP student moves from short, stacked core courses to full-semester clinical courses. The six core courses run 8 weeks at a time, starting with NURS 51700 and NURS 55900, then NURS 53300, NURS 53400, NURS 53600 and NURS 73500 in the order your plan sets. The management and practicum courses then take the whole semester.

Lewis's FAQ lists 8-week, 16-week, online and Oak Brook evening formats, and the catalog cautions that not every course runs at every location. Blackboard follows the same split, with 8- and 16-week course templates.

What has to come before the 16-week courses

Before any management course, the catalog wants five core courses behind you (all of the core except NURS 73500) and the three NP foundation courses: NURS 60500 physiology and pathophysiology, with NURS 60400 pharmacotherapeutics and NURS 60700 health assessment taken with it or after it. Practicum semesters open once that foundation is done.

Within each track, the catalog sets an order. Acute care students take NURS 62600 and NURS 62700 after NURS 62400 and NURS 62500. PMHNP students save NURS 63600 and NURS 63700 for last, after NURS 63000 psychopharmacology and the first two psychiatric pairs. AGPCNP students may run NURS 61400 and NURS 61500 in the same term as the adult primary care pair or in a later one.

Two catalog quirks deserve a check before registration. The adult-gerontology practicum, NURS 61800, carries adult primary care prerequisites that acute care students never take, and NURS 61400, a primary care course, names the acute care practicum NURS 62500 as a corequisite. Ask your advisor how each is handled on your track.

Policies that bite harder in a full-semester course

A few graduate policies take on a different shape over 16 weeks. If you miss a full-semester course's opening fortnight and your instructor has not agreed to it, you are withdrawn. A W is available through twelve full weeks, but simply ceasing to attend earns an F rather than a withdrawal.

In Progress is not a grade Lewis gives. A practicum that runs over can only become an Incomplete, which you request while passing, after the withdrawal date and by the course's last day. Fall Incompletes are due by March 1, spring by July 1 and summer by October 15, after which the grade converts to an IF with zero credit. You get one extension, and an Incomplete left open in your final term can delay your graduation date. The grades and time limits guide covers the rest, including the five-year limit.

How we schedule your preceptors term by term

Our placement desk builds your preceptor plan on the same 16-week calendar Lewis uses. We map each practicum to its semester, search your community for a preceptor who fits that course, and prepare every detail the contract portal asks for early enough that review, any new agreement and agency onboarding clear before the full term opens.

When two practicums fall in consecutive semesters, we run the searches in parallel, so the second preceptor is confirmed while you are still logging hours for the first. PMHNP students moving through three psychiatric practicums in sequence, and AGACNP students stepping from NURS 62500 to NURS 62700, get that overlap built into the plan from day one. If a preceptor drops mid-term, we restart the match for that course without waiting for the term to end. Send your track and next term through the contact form.