F1 to green card or h1B how did u beat retrogression

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So i have a year more of nursing school left. have read a lot of the stories about retrogression and new grads not being able to find a job. i am currently an international student on F1 who is in the ADN program. If you went through this process or know of someone who went through this process can u pls share how u went about it. Does going into any specialty help? And how can i increases my chances of getting hired in a hospital that will petition for me after graduation or better still do you know of any hospitals that will hire? And how did u go about the waiting times without having to go home. If you have any contacts that you can share that would be awesome!!! Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank!!!

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Specializes in CTICU.

I don't know that I "beat the retrogression" but I passed NCLEX in 2007 and got my VT license, then endorsed to PA. I was employed by PA hospital on E3 visa for Australians (similar to H1B requirements). I am a critical care nurse with advanced degrees and specialized experience, and I had a personal contact at the hospital who hired me.

You know you won't be able to get H1B without a bachelor degree and a job requiring a bachelor degree, right?

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So i have a year more of nursing school left. have read a lot of the stories about retrogression and new grads not being able to find a job. i am currently an international student on F1 who is in the ADN program. If you went through this process or know of someone who went through this process can u pls share how u went about it. Does going into any specialty help? And how can i increases my chances of getting hired in a hospital that will petition for me after graduation or better still do you know of any hospitals that will hire? And how did u go about the waiting times without having to go home. If you have any contacts that you can share that would be awesome!!! Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank!!!

Your post sounds too good to be true, and you know what they say about that. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.'' Did you do your homework and make sure that your ADN would be accepted in your home country after graduation? Most likely you will have to return home once you graduat. There might be an option with OPT, and that's something you should really should do a search on past threads. There's a ton of information about it.

Once you apply for a green card then you will be waiting for years in order to receive a visa depending on which country you're from. For a H1b visa you need to get into a specialized field with a minimum of a BA and have several years experience in order for you to qualify. If you want to do specialization in nursing you can go for your MSN as a CRNA, but you may need a minimum of 2 years experience working in CCU, ICU, NICU etc before you're even allowed to apply for the program. Most specializations in nursing require staff nurse experience before allowed to apply for those programs. A general MSN may not be enough for you to apply for H1b, and even that you're not the one applying for it, it's the company that's doing the hiring that will petition you.

At the moment most hospitals aren't willing to waste money to petition a foreigner new grad when they easily could hire a new grad within the area as there are plenty of them that are looking for work. But reality is that most hospitals aren't participating in the new grad program anyway.

Even if someone bypassed what you're asking to do in the past, the past is in the past and times have changed since then. Right now it doesn't look good for anybody wishing to enter the US on a work or permanent visa who doesn't have experience. Regarding contacts, if anybody would share that definately would be awesome as you said, but, good luck with that because people have been asking, and most of their questions regarding contacts go unanswered.

Good luck in your studies and best wishes.

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I don't know that I "beat the retrogression" but I passed NCLEX in 2007 and got my VT license, then endorsed to PA. I was employed by PA hospital on E3 visa for Australians (similar to H1B requirements). I am a critical care nurse with advanced degrees and specialized experience, and I had a personal contact at the hospital who hired me.

You know you won't be able to get H1B without a bachelor degree and a job requiring a bachelor degree, right?

For your CCN what would you need to do in order to obain that certificate? I know for a CRNA you need to have a minimum of 2 years experience as a staff nurse and your BA before you're allowed to apply for the program. For CCN I'm unsure about. Thanks

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Specializes in CTICU.

I had a postgraduate diploma from an Australian university in critical care nursing (one year post grad degree). I also had the required 1750hrs of recent ICU experience and obtained the CCRN certification via examination about a month after I got to the US (more to get a local qualification as US people don't have the postgrad diploma I did and so can't really tell what it means in terms of my expertise).

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