BSN - How long, should I ???

[rory535]

I am interested in going into nursing and I know as a male I would propably face some hurdles. I am interested in doing a BSN and have seen numerous places where it states it is a 4 year course. My question is, are they including the time it takes to do your pre-requisites or is that 4 years after you have completed all your pre-req's.

I do have a job currently and so am looking at doing my pre-req's at night or on weekends. Anyone do their whole BSN part-time?

I work as a volunteer ski patroller every weekend and see quite a bit of trauma, so I feel the ER is where I would like to be and this is how I came to find out that I want to be in the medical field. But I also may have a wrong perception as to what my duties as an ER nurse would be, as a lot of the times, we as ski patrollers are the first responders on the hill and have to do the assesments, applying traction splints etc. and this is what I like.

I also have seen a lot of negativity posted about nursing on numerous message boards(I suppose every proffesion has its complaints), but I am currently in IT which is pretty boring, but the pay is good. I guess I start to think twice when I see the negative postings, as I figure that I will propably only be earning half my salary as a nurse, and on top of people saying how the profesion sucks, definately makes me think if it is worth all the schooling and sacrificing I would have to make. I have also spoken with a nurse friend about my intentions and she thinks I am crazy especially to take such a huge paycut.

Im hoping that all you experienced nurses will have some input and advice for me.

[PhantomRN]

Here is the deal, at least where I went to school. You can do all your nursing and pre-regs in 4 years to get your BSN, as long as you are willing to go full-time and do 15 credits a semester. The first year of the program is all pre-regs, year two we starting nursing courses and took ancillary and nursing classes. Many of the people I went to school with did just that.

If you want to cut down on 5 classes per semester you could take a class or two during the summer and then your load will be lighter during the school year.

Or you can go part time do all your classes up front and then just do the 48 hours, that is what ours was, of nursing core classes. But a word of warning here, the 48 hours of nursing classes MUST be done in order [most are pre-regs to the next class] and at least at my school it took 3 years to complete them.

Just an FYI, the last year is full time 12-15 hours per semester of nursing classes only.

Good luck.

[WashYaHands]

Hi Rory,

I noticed that you're in Denver. If you want to finish a BSN program in 4 years, you have to take a full time course load, which is 12-15 credit hours. In addition to these credit hours, the BSN programs in Colorado require approximately 20 hours per week of clinical for the entire time that you are in school. Just doing clinical is like having a part time job. I've read a few posts on other threads where some BSN programs dont require much clinical experience, but that is not the case in Colorado, at least not where I went to school. In my graduating class, there were several people who worked full time and went to school. It was tough, but it can be done.

Best of Luck to you,

Linda