career change to nursing - looking for advice

If you haven't found this yet, here's a complete listing of all California schools accredited by the BORN. It includes both ADN and BSN listings.

http://www.rn.ca.gov/nursing/nursing.htm

At a glance, it looks like there's at least a few Bay Area community colleges, and more. You might want to check for any shadowing/mentor programs at those schools.

After looking into half a dozen schools in SoCal, I found that they all have little quirks in their requirements. Just as an example, some schools won't take transfer credits older than five years, but others do.

If you're like me, you probably have a lot of transfer credits. It saved me a year, but with the five year or similar requirements at other colleges, I would have had to take those courses over.

You really need to check into all of the different requirements thoroughly before you make a decision. Every school is different.

In the end, I went with the school closest to where I live. There was an accelerated BSN program within commuting distance, but I decided to go ADN with the local school, since they have a higher NCLEX pass rate.

You might also want to check NCLEX pass rates before you decide:

http://www.rn.ca.gov/passrates/passrates.htm

You also might want to check with local hospitals. Some prefer ADNs because they believe they have more clinical experience, but other hospitals prefer BSNs.

A decision like this can be quite complicated, and largely depends upon your individual circumstances. I hope this helps get you started.

Since you asked for advice:

Stay in your present field and look for opportunities there. The reality of most nursing jobs is that you would have little or no opportunity to spend quality time your patients. On a good day, you get to use the bathroom and maybe eat a 5 minute lunch.

hi. i'm from louisiana, so can't speak for nursing in california, but have been an rn for 26 years and can speak for nursing. 15 years ago i hated it! now...i love nursing. i work in a small er and find nursing very challenging and intellectually stimulating. er offers so much autonomy. md's have finally begun to see nurses as colleagues and respect us more. we are on the front line. we see the patients before the md and often save their lives before the md ever makes it out of the sleep room! patients in er are often ungrateful and obnoxious, but i know when we've done a good job and have finally realized i don't need the patients thanks. the doctors and my coworkers know what it takes to be a great nurse and i appreciate their acknowledgment of "good job" because they know the real work we do. so.....go for it. my daughter has a degree in chemisty. she couldn't get a decent job with that degree, so she's now a registered nurse. she says she feels so much more fulfilled an intelletually challenged. nursing isn't so bad!! there's so much more to do today in nursing then when i started, so......i say yes! i think you'll love it.