CNA New Grad $8 an hour please help!!!!

ArrowRN, BSN, RN · Mar 26, 2014

I'm happy for you! Congratulations! Why switch from engineering to a CNA position? Just curious.

Well back home I was in engineering and electrical field. I literally stumbled across the EMT position while I was looking for work and saw one of my technical college classmates training as an EMT. I had no idea about healthcare. I just applied for EMT school because our country was offering paid training and I was part of our first ever 911 system and they were paying great.At first it was all about money. Turns out I loved it and stayed with it for 4 years. After moving to USA, the state of Florida refused to recognize my 4 years of EMT work experience and I could not become EMT re-certified in USA. They wanted me to retake the whole course and to a new immigrant $2000 US dollars was a lot of money...in my country dollars that was equivalent to $18,000 just to get EMT recertified. I just started over from scratch and slowly worked my way back into my previous field because I had no choice.

I decided for a degree in nursing because its more stable than EMT as far as a long term career, income and other reasons like having a new family.

I'm almost done with nursing school but it's not like for the money. I was making $18/hr in the communications field prior to nursing school and was due for a $2 raise just before I resigned. That career was good but I just found I needed more and wanted to be involved in helping others people rather that fixing telephone equipment, cable tv or getting their computers working. You'd be surprised at how angry people get when their Tv's or phones or internet don't work and I'm like dude there's people out here dying in the world and suffering a lot more than them, but they think its the end of the world.

I think being a CNA or PCT for a while will help me be a better RN. I'd learn a lot of the basics stuff within the facility and once I graduate I can focus on nursing stuff and know how to better treat CNA's when I'm working with them...and of course I need the money to help pay for school as well. :)