Change in Path- Cal State LA Direct Entry

[ianoel]

I'm 32 years old, and I have been a social worker for about 7-8 years. I'm a licensed mental health therapist. Recently, I am having a change of heart in my career. Instead of the charging full ahead and starting my prerequisites to become a nurse, I went to volunteer at the local hospital to really see if nursing would be my path. Particularly, I've want to become a FNP. Four months into volunteering, and I'm still on this undecided path.

The nurses around me say "jump in and go for it. Don't worry about the finances." Maybe I'm afraid to take the leap but thinking about how to finance school with a mortgage, and loans from my other degree, may be it's not possible. The other fear is quitting my job and finally going full time in to school. Is it too late to be a nurse as the time ticks by?

Looking for thoughts on people who changed their careers midway through life and the outcome of your decision. Or any thoughts in general would be greatly appreciated.

Background:

I have my masters in counseling but my BA was in liberal arts. Unfortunately, there were no science prerequisites so I would need to do them all over again.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

What??? "don't worry about the finances"..... anyone who says that really DOES need your help (mental health counseling). You can always knock out those pre-reqs at a community college for a lot less money. Be sure to ace those courses because admission to direct entry & accelerated programs usually depends on your cumulative GPA.

[atki]

I can't tell you much about the outcome because I'm currently in the thick of it.

My background is fairly similar to yours though. I have a MSW and worked in the field of social services for about 13 years before I decided to go back to school. Some prereqs I took for the first time, but many I had to redo since I'd been out of school for so long. I treated the whole prereq process as a test for how I felt about going back to school. Ultimately I decided to go forward with the whole process, although I will say that leaving a good job and an established career was a bit terrifying.