Moving on

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2007

It's good to plan ahead. Seriously though you need to concentrate on school, pass NCLEX and then all you have to do is move. You contact the state Board of Nursing where you want to go and apply for a nursing license there. Any RN can work in any state in the USA, so there shouldn't be a problem. You can also put in applications online to hospitals in the area you want to work, inquiring about Graduate Nurse programs, but you have to wait until your a month or two from graduation. The hospital may pay your moving expense which would be nice.

It's not a big deal to move. That's the good thing about nursing is the market is reasonably bright and it's a mobile career.

So relax and stay focused on school, there's nothing you need to be doing now.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2007

i made 1000 mile moves a couple of times. it's not that hard. it depends on having some money set aside in case you get stuck for dough and what you're going to do with your personal stuff. when i was younger i could fit all my worldly possessions in my car and go and that included one cat. now, it's not that easy. when you get to a new town the first order of business is finding a place to stay. you can usually get into an apartment within a day or two, but you've got to have the money to put down on a deposit and first months rent. many savvy rental places now do background credit checks, so if you have a credit problem you're going to have trouble renting a place. an alternative is to go to a motel where you can get a weekly or monthly rate, but it will be expensive compared to an apartment unless you go into dodgier parts of town which are cheaper, and quite frankly, might not be safe. once you have a place to live you have to get utilities turned on which often requires a deposit as well. you can worry about changing over your car registration after you've gotten your living arrangements worked out. but, it's important to get your drivers license switched over because that helps to establish your residence in the new state (if you move to another state).

you can find out about apartments in just about all the major cities of the u.s. at apartments.com, the same publication that has free apartment guides on the stands at the entrances to supermarkets. they will give you an idea of the price range for apartments. something that goes on out here a lot because of the high price on real estate is that many homeowners, some of them young people, rent out a room in their homes for a couple hundred dollars a month. you often share the cost of the utilities, which are already turned on, and your room in your domain. it's a cheaper way to go than renting your own apartment.

not that i'm promoting california, here in california, once you are a resident (you have to prove you have lived here for 12 months and you do that by getting your california drivers license or a state id asap as you come into the state) the tuition at all the california community colleges is only $20 a credit hour. that's pretty cheap compared to a lot of other states. the waiting lists to get into nursing schools is long all over the country and california is no exception. right now california is hurting for rns and an rn grad has no problem getting work here. nice weather (for the most part), great produce, swimming pools, movie stars! you learn to deal with the freeways.

http://www.cccco.edu/find/alphabetical.htm - alphabetical list of california community colleges