advice please!

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hello everyone!

this is my first post since finding this site. my name is leslie and i am a jr this year at purdue calumet in Indiana. I'm looking forward to having a real job and becoming a nurse.

my question is this..

my fiancée is in the air force. he is stationed in Hawaii (lucky) and when i graduate from Indiana he wants me to move to Oahu for one year. after that year he will have finished his four years and be done. i will graduate in may of 08 and have heard that it takes months to finally take the nclex. so I'm thinking about taking it in Hawaii. any advice?? then once i get there, and pass, and do my nursing for one year, how do i come back to the mainland and begin nursing there. we dont even know what state we will be living in. Andy will probably have job offers in Virgina, dc, California, or we will go home to Indiana. does anyone know how to go from state to state or can you put multiple states on the nclex that you wish to work in?:confused:

all the girls i go school with think I'm crazy for trying this, especially for the first year of nursing and trying to take the test far far far away. but i dont want to be separated from him any longer!

any advice is greatly appreciated!

thank you!

Leslie

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Specializes in ED.

I think it won't matter where in the US you take the NCLEX, it will be administered by the same people and you will be taking the same test no matter where you go here. Now, try not to be moving residence close to the NCLEX date. I would be there at least a few months prior to taking the test. As far as what to do after school, don't make any hard set plans yet, cause they will probably be broken. Just kind of go with the flow.

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I would pick the state where I first plan to practice as the place to take the NCLEX. For reasons I won't go into, I took my boards in one state and immediately moved to another. Twenty-one years later, I have never worked in the state of my original licensure, yet I have to pay them every time I need to have my license validated.

After you get your original licensure, you can apply for endorsement in as many or as few states as you're willing to pay the outrageous fees and complete the mounds of paperwork for.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Catlady has a point. In the long run, it would be cheaper to fly back to your home state and take the NCLEX instead of paying a lifetime "original state validation" fees.

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You might find this site usefu http://www.ncsbn.org/nlc/index.asp

It is about the Nurse Licensure Compact. Unfortunately, not all states have joined. I believe only 23 states have joined. You can work in any of the states that are in the compact under one license, which cuts down on the price of having to apply for a license in each of these states.

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You might find this site usefu http://www.ncsbn.org/nlc/index.asp

It is about the Nurse Licensure Compact. Unfortunately, not all states have joined. I believe only 23 states have joined. You can work in any of the states that are in the compact under one license, which cuts down on the price of having to apply for a license in each of these states.

That's only true if you don't actually change your home address. If you live in NM (for example) and get a NM license, then move to IA (another compact state), you have to give up the NM license and get an IA license. And if your home address is outside the compact, you don't have compact privileges in any of the compact states. This gives the compact rather limited utility for the average nurse. Don't know why it was set up that way, but that's how it is.

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thank you all very much for your advice! i have another year to figure this all out and im gonna need that time! thanks again!!

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Specializes in NA, Stepdown, L&D, Trauma ICU, ER.

When you register for NCLEX, you specify which state you're testing for. Doesn't matter where you take it, the test is administered by the same group. I graduated, live and work in Ohio, but I took my NCLEX in Tampa, FL. The local centers were booked for months and DH and I were taking a vacation anyway. The Tampa center had an opening while we were going to be down, so I did it on vacation. Much nicer than taking it in Ohio at the beginning of April too. Took the test, had a drink on the beach, lunch, more drinks on the beach, dinner, more drinks on the beach...you get the idea :chuckle

Anyway, good luck when the time comes

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