To BSN or not to BSN, THAT is the question.

LunaTunaPineapple · May 22, 2016

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to get some advice on which route to take when it comes to getting my BSN. Just a bit of background, I completed all of my pre-nursing courses at a university back in 2012-2015. My science GPA is a 3.7, but my overall GPA is a 3.2 ( My financial situation took a turn for the worse turning my final semester into a doozy, so I went home). Fast forward to 2016, I'm currently in a LPN program and will be graduating in December. The university offers a concurrent program that allows nrg students to go thru the local community college's nrg program, yet graduate with a university degree. I've been mapping out a few program options and find that I can go one of two routes, join the University's concurrent program and get my BSN in two years OR go into a LPN bridge program (about 13 months) and simply do my BSN online. You would think that this would be a no brainer, but I find myself stuck. My goal is to become a travel nurse, I realize i'll need a few years experience if I plan to go forward with traveling. My biggest fear is that I'll take away from valuable time I could be working as an RN ( even though it's only a 9 month difference, I don't know how much weight my LPN exp will hold with an agency). Part of me is panicking because i'm only getting older and I feel like I'm behind since I had close to a year off! The BSN program is face-to-face several days a week and the LPN transition is online with 1 day class time and also clinical rotations as well. Part of me doesn't want to go through 2 years of basically starting from scratch (while possibly dealing with whiners and know-it-alls), while the other part of me thinks it would be stupid to pass up. (All of this is IF I even get in to the program).

So, my question is, Does it even make a difference ? Will splitting the ADN from the BSN take longer? How long are ONLINE BSN programs? Do online BSN programs run semester to semester or do you breeze through at your own pace? What would you do in this situation?

Thanks in advance :)