Career help....

kmhbeauty

New member
Is there any CFers out there who are nurses? I know there are certain directions I can take as a nurse that would be ok with CF. Just wondering if you all could help me out with those directions. I am almost 28 years old, I am for the most part healthy. It is a personal goal of mine to get into a career that is respectable. That's mostly why I lean towards the medical field. I live in CA, do any of you have any advice of how I can become a nurse? I have done research and all the schools are very hard to get into, of course. Right now I have another two semesters at the junior college where I am majoring in business and will be able to transfer to a Cal State Fall 2014. After doing the research, the best option I came up with was to get my BA in business and do the nursing pre reqs while working on my BA. I would do only one class at a time at the junior college. I would finish both the BA and pre reqs around the same time and I could go to a local cal state that has a program for BS in nursing if you already have a bachelors. It is an extended learning program so they do not get gov assistance, so there are not as many people trying to get in because the student pays the full amount, 35k program. Its a two year nursing program because its accelerated and its only 15 mins from my house and is accredited because it is through a Cal State Univ. Any advice would help.... I wish I could just win the lotto so I could go to school and accomplish my goals and not have to worry about working while going to school. Wishful thinking....
 

kmhbeauty

New member
One thing that I am confused about is that my community college offers a associates degree in nursing. Can you still become a registered nurse with just an associates degree or does it have to be bachelor's? I was looking at bachelor programs only. Im sure the associates degree program has many people applying to it though.
 
I wrote a long reply to you and then I accidentally clicked the wrong button :-(

Shorter: My fiance is in nursing school. You can do an RN with an associates (ASN) or a bachelor's (BSN) granted you pass the licensure exam. If you do ASN you can do a typically one year ASN to BSN program if you want to do management in nursing (BSN is better for upward mobility, ASN is perfectly fine for being a nurse). You can do a one year LPN program to be a practical nurse. Salaries vary for each set of skills/degree.
May I ask why you want a BS in business and an ASN/BSN in nursing? Why not one or the other?
Also, community colleges for ASN are sometimes a good choice because the amount of money you invest is much smaller and therefor the returns can be greater at first since you wont be strapped with loans. As long as the success rate of the community college is good, it's a perfectly good route to go.

I hope you find this helpful, it is just my opinion from experience and definitely not representative of all experiences and beliefs! You could maybe research various salaries by degree and the options for employment after graduation.
 

kmhbeauty

New member
Thank you for your info. Living in CA, all the schools are very hard to get into. I just found out the local community college accepts 50 people into the program but has around 300 plus people apply. Most people applying have around a 3.7 gpa and above. Right now I only have a 3.0 but I am going to try my best to bring it up. One of the Cal State Univ has a satellite campus in my town that offers a BSN program to those who have their bachelors in any field. My understanding is that it is not too competitive to get in. I currently do not have my bachelors, but I am almost done with my associates in business. My gpa is not going to be good enough to get into any of the associate programs and I don't want to go to a trade school and pay 50k plus. Getting the bachelor's in Business first and then going to that program seemed like a long but safe route. I just don't think I will get into any of the competitive programs. I chose business because I am almost done with the pre reqs for the Cal State Univ business admin program. I just feel if I stay in business, when im done with school, I still will not have a job because I do not have any experience.
 

kmhbeauty

New member
With nursing, its in such demand that experience isn't a huge issue. I just feel like Im going to say to a company " Hey, I have my bachelors in business but most of my experience is waiting tables at a winery and restaurant" lol
 

kmhbeauty

New member
I also see it as the associates nursing program is two years plus an additional 1 year for a bachelors, so 3 years total. I could two bachelors in 4 years and its a little more of a for sure thing since I might have to keep applying for the associates program every year if I get rejected over and over. Lol I keep thinking of more things to say. Hope this makes sense, Im not good at putting my thoughts into words. Im not done with the pre reqs for the associates program so I figured I could work on them little by little while I work on my bachelors in business. Nothing ever goes according to plan though. *sigh*
 
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