Questions Southeastern nursing students ask us
Short answers to what Southeastern Louisiana University nursing students ask most, about their own clinical process and about our service: who chooses the preceptor, who approves, where hours can happen, how early to start and what we do. Each answer links to the guide that owns the subject.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Southeastern program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options in your community that fit your Southeastern course.
Who finds the preceptor for a Southeastern NP course?
You choose, working alongside the faculty member who teaches the course. Southeastern's DNP page places the choice of preceptors and facilities with students, and the consortium handbook behind the MSN has you select a practice area fitting the course, talk your candidate over with course faculty and confirm the preceptor is willing. Faculty collaborate all the way through, and the consortium says it keeps a roster of past and present preceptors in south Louisiana it can suggest.
Undergraduate clinicals follow a different model: Southeastern arranges BSN clinical sites within roughly 60 miles of campus. The exact wording from each source is on choosing your preceptor.
What does your placement desk do for me?
We take on the search. For your exact course, we look for a preceptor near your home whose license, certification and patient mix suit it, check the practice against Louisiana's rules and the consortium's preceptor qualifications, find out whether the facility already holds a university agreement and who signs if it does not, and gather the CV and details course faculty will want. Then your placement advisor remains on call all semester and goes looking for a replacement if a preceptor withdraws.
Approval still belongs to course faculty, with the graduate coordinator's review behind it. Our part is handing them a proposal that is complete and suited to the course. How it works lays out each step, and about us explains our approach.
Do I still work through my course faculty if I use your service?
Yes, every time. The consortium handbook routes every preceptor choice through the faculty member teaching the course, and how a preceptor was found changes nothing about that. You bring the candidate, the CV and the practice details to faculty, sign the letter of agreement with them and your preceptor, and keep all course communication on your Southeastern email.
The graduate coordinator reviews each preceptor, and the Graduate Nursing Office holds your file, including the facility agreement and your compliance records. Who does what lists every role and the questions each one answers.
Can my clinical hours be outside Louisiana?
For the MSN and the PMHNP certificate, the answer is no. Southeastern's MSN page puts every clinical hour in Louisiana, the certificate page applies the same rule to practicum work, and Louisiana's board expects every preceptor to hold a Louisiana license. The DNP pages carry no such sentence, but the catalog asks for a Louisiana RN license on most DNP tracks, so plan DNP hours in Louisiana unless the Graduate Nursing Office says differently.
Living near Mississippi or Texas changes where you look, not the rule: a preceptor licensed only across the line cannot count. Louisiana-only clinicals covers the edge cases.
How early should I start looking?
About a semester before each clinical course, and sooner for Family Health I or child and adolescent psychiatry, where preceptors are scarcest. After you find someone, three things still need time: course faculty approval with the coordinator's review, a facility agreement if the university has none on file, which the handbook says can take weeks to months, and the site's own onboarding. Southeastern does not publish a preceptor deadline; your course faculty set it.
If your course opens within weeks and nobody is lined up, read can't find a preceptor today. The academic calendar guide lays out the semester dates to plan against.
Can I count hours at the place I work?
Your employer can supply the preceptor, but clinical hours have to be separate from your job and fall on time you are not being paid for. Time on the clock as an employee never counts toward the course, even in the same building with the same patients, so keep your work schedule and your clinical log clearly apart.
Your own health system can still be the fastest route to a preceptor when the unit, the preceptor and the population fit the course. Clinicals where you work shows how to make that route work.
Which Southeastern programs do you help with?
Every graduate track with precepted hours: the MSN's FNP and PMHNP concentrations, both post-master's NP certificates, the BSN to DNP (FNP, PMHNP or Nurse Executive Leadership), the post-master's DNP with its residency, and the Nursing Education practicums NURS 6440 and NURS 6570.
Southeastern arranges clinical sites for its BSN students, so for them our help means planning ahead for graduate study. The RN to BSN's published curriculum lists no precepted clinical hours. All programs has a guide for each track.
Questions Southeastern students ask
How much does a placement cost?
Each placement is quoted individually, because the course, the specialty, your parish, the time left before the semester and the number of courses covered all change the work involved. Southeastern's tuition, laboratory fees and screening costs are separate. Cost explains each factor, and your placement advisor sets out your quote in writing.
My preceptor quit mid-course. What now?
Tell your course faculty member first, because the replacement needs the same approval and paperwork before new hours count. Then tell your placement advisor, who starts the replacement search straight away. If the change has left you short of hours, behind on clinical hours sets out the options.
Should I try my own search before asking for help?
Many students do, and it works best when you start early, already know a practice that fits the course and have time to wait out a facility agreement. Placement help earns its place when the course needs a scarce population, time is short or your own leads have run dry. Your own search or ours weighs the two side by side.
Does the facility need a contract with Southeastern?
Yes. Before any hours, the Graduate Nursing Office needs an up-to-date contract or letter of agreement linking the university and the facility, which is separate from the letter you sign with your preceptor and course faculty. You check its status in the clinical tracking system. Clinical contracts explains the check and the lead time.
Can you find preceptors for all three of my clinical courses?
Yes. Ask for one course or the whole sequence: NURS 6820 to NURS 6840 for FNP students, or NURS 6910 to NURS 6930 for PMHNP students. Each course has its own population and its own approval, so we plan them together and begin the next search while you are in the current one. The FNP hours guide shows how the hours stack up.
Can a nurse practitioner reach you about precepting?
Yes. Nurse practitioners and physicians asked to precept a Southeastern student can read our guide for preceptors, which covers the courses, Louisiana's license rules, approval and evaluations. If you are open to precepting, choose the preceptor option on the form and describe your specialty and practice location.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Southeastern's own catalog, program pages and consortium handbook, and Louisiana rules. Your course faculty, the graduate coordinator and your advisor have the final word.
Southeastern asks you to choose your preceptor. We find one near you.
Tell us your Southeastern track, where in Louisiana you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find Louisiana-licensed preceptors who fit the course, confirm whether the facility is already under contract with the university, and hand you what your course faculty need to approve it before the semester.
- Pediatric and women's health preceptors for
NURS 6820, adult and older-adult primary care forNURS 6830andNURS 6840 - Psychiatric preceptors for
NURS 6910toNURS 6930, with the child and older-adult focus each course sets - Across Louisiana, from the Northshore to Shreveport
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.