Single Mom needs advice about school desperately!!

[fayethlove]

I am a single mother of a one year old. I just started a new job at a hospital as a per diem unit secretary in NSICU. I am enrolled to start my BSN(4 or 5 years long)...there is a 1 year long LPN program that I could attend full time starting October in my area. Knowing I could be a nurse in a year and be making way more than I am making now sounds tempting. I would love to be able to do the BSN, but I have a child to support and I would really like to buy a house within in 2 years, actually 1 year!

What would you do if you were in my shoes? I am seriously thinking about getting my LPN first, then work and find a employer that would pay for me to get my ADN or BSN.

Please give me some input! I would greatly appreciate it!

Kira:monkeydance:

[IrishIzCPNP, MSN, RN, APRN, NP]

I tend to tell people to always go RN and skip LPN. In your case I can see why this would make better sense for you. You need to get working, you need to support your child and you can do LPN very fast and get in a better position and then go for your RN. It does make a lot of sense.

Are there any RN diploma programs near you? That might be another option. My school offers a 2 year full time or 3 year part time RN diploma program. If you can find a diploma program that might be a good compromise for you.

[HopeM]

Hi Kira! I think going the LPN route would probably be the fastest route to doing what you want and better finances... many of the programs in my area offer LPN-RN bridge programs so you could do that after you start working... and many (if not all) of the hospitals in my area help with tuition and will work with your school schedule (a lot of them will do that for any hospital employee... not just nurses... you may want to take a look at where you are doing the per diem work to see if they offer it for part time or full time regular employees and see about flipping to that instead of per diem... they may even do it for your LPN school while you work there! Best of luck to you! :) Hope

[mom2cka]

I was originally going to do the LPN to RN to BSN route... until I realized that with the time for the pre-reqs, the $1 more / hour I'd make, and the decrease in LPN jobs in my area, that it really didn't make sense... I'd suggest checking out the employment options carefully before committing to an LPN program - where I am, the jobs continue to disappear and unfortunately, many of those I know who went through the LPN program now regret it... here, at least, because of waiting lists, you could have a BSN done in the time it would take for a LPN - RN (AA) route... and CNAs with experience only make a couple of dollars less than the newer LPNs in nursing homes and the hopsitals are hiring less and less. I too want a house, but know I need to wait until it really makes sense to do it... (not single mom, but married with a 6 year old and one on the way and living in a very small old (Sears built) 2 bdrm house with one closet and leaky (unusable) basement... ugh!) -- so until we can, we put up with it and think about what we'll have in the future... Good luck to you!