Advice for Someone who has English Bachelor's and full-time job, wants to be a Nurse

[Dave234]

Hello,

I am a 33 year old male (almost 34) who has a Bachelor's in English and also a full-time job. I live in the Northern VA area (Falls Church, VA).

I know there are Accelerated Second Degree Bachelor's programs for people who already have a Bachelor's (even if in an unrelated field). I know Marymount offers this. I imagine there are more, too.

1. Do you know if there is a way I can take the Acclerated Second Degree Bachelor's programs on the evenings or on weekends? I can't give up my job as that is my primary source of income.

2. If I can't do that, do you know if I could take the Associates Degree courses on evenings or weekends (I think NOVA - NVCC has this option), and then do an Associates to Bachelor's (RN to BSN?) program on evenings or weekends after that?

Or would option 2 take way too much time? I'm really confused about which way to proceed. If someone can help me, I would appreciate it very much.

[llg, PhD, RN]

You simply have to investigate each school to investigate your options. Programs are changing all the time --and what was true/possible 2 or 3 years ago might not be possible next year. And there may be new options on the drawing board that will not be available for another 6 months. While you may get some good suggestions here to point your towards some of your local schools, there is no substitute for actually talking with each school itself.

One thing that you may need to come to terms with though -- It is unlikely that you will be able to "have it all." It is unlikely that you will be able to go back to school without having to make some significant changes in your lifestyle, schedule, and/or finances. A good, reputable nursing program will require that you get several hundred hours of supervised clinical practice as part of your educational program. (I think the requirement in Virginia is 800 hours, but I am not 100% sure of that number.) That's not counting the classroom coursework or the personal study time.

While you may be able to keep your full time job as you go to school, you might not. If you are never able to do a weekday clinical because of your job, that will severely limit the possibilities for the clinical portion of your nursing program -- maybe limiting it too much. You need to be at least thinking about other possibilities for your schedule and finances for while you are in school. You might get lucky and find a program that perfectly fits your existing life ... but you need to be open to the possibility that the best program for you may require you to make some short term sacrifices in those things.

Good luck to you.