i've been an avid reader of AllNurses for a few years, and wanted to share my California RN success story with you all.
Born and raised in California, I went to the Philippines for nursing school due to financial constraints (wuhoo no student loans!), and graduated in 2012. Applied to take the NCLEx for California in June 2012, the whole process took 2-3 months, but eventually I was in the same boat as my fellow foreign grads - they told me there was a concurrency issue with my classroom and clinical hours for Med-Surg and OB (which honestly I thought was pure bullsnaps). But oh well! How to fix this? Re-take the classes.
I wanted to take the NCLEx right away so I did my research and found out Hawaii was a state where they processed applications quickly. I applied for licensure by examination for Hawaii, got my ATT, passed the NCLEx. I wanted to focus on earning money first back then, because I was young and naive and didn't know you could take out a student loan too pay for tuition. Hey, I'd been in the Philippines where the policy was pay (tuition) now, study after. I worked an office job at a biotech company in the Bay Area for two years when I finally decided I was financially stable enough to try and take the two classes. Went to thr board of registered nurses website snd e-mailed every approved nursing school on their list. Dominican, Evergreen San Jose, Samuel Merritt and Unitek replied to me, if I remember correctly. Every single one of thrm were waitlisted, full of other foreign grads who had decided to work on this problem way before I had.
I came across a thread here that mentioned there was a school in Texas that offered the courses. Perfect. I had a friend who lived in TX, and a relative as well. San Antonio, specifically. I started e-mailing schools in San Antonio (again, went through the Texas Board of Nursing for a list of approved nursing schools) to see if they would be able to accomodate me for two courses. By some miracle, I found a school. Without even thinking, I applied for reciprocity to transfer my Hawaii license to Texas, put in my two weeks at work, drove to the midwest, got my TX RN license, applied for a job, started working in the Medicine ICU at a too hospital in the city, took the classes while working full time, finished after two terms in Feb. 2015. Got my California license May 2015. Now just working until I get a solid two years of ICU experience before heading back to the golden state!
Lots of sacrifices, but everything was worth it, my friends. Just wanted to give y'all a little bit of hope in the midst of this dilemma :-)
