Long-term planning

[CamMc]

Ok, so I get that I'm probably jumping the gun here and trying to get ahead of myself with planing out my entire path, but this is just what I do. I'm not currently a nursing student, but in trying to figure out what path to take to move forward with becoming a nurse, I realized through looking around on here there are multiple paths to get to the same end point. So I'm going to break this down into my background, my end goal(s), and the options I'm currently aware of and would love any advice on a path to take.

Background: I was in nursing school back in 2007/2008, successfully completed my first two semesters of an ADN program and failed by 2 points in my 3rd semester. At that point, I decided not to retake the course I failed and just decided to go on to finish up my associates and transfer to get my Bachelors in Social Work. After about a year working in social services (case manager for a group home for adults with ID), I began working at a school for children with autism, doing applied behavior analysis. After about a year and a half, I went back to get my Masters in Applied Behavior Analysis, with the intent to become a BCBA, I completed the degree, but did not decide to continue on to get the board certification for a number of reasons. Currently, I'm working as an advisor for an online program not really feeling like I'm using either of my degrees, with the exception of my side job where I am a caregiver/respite/habilitation provider for a boy with multiple diagnoses, most of which impact him intellectually, but recently started having more medical issues which has sparked the desire to get back into the health field.

Goals: While trying to not focus too much on my goal of working with children, because my first experience with nursing I feel like that kept me from being successful because I didn't find value in learning about all aspects of nursing, overall I enjoy working with children. I originally wanted to be a school nurse working at a school for children with special needs, but I also find myself really wanting to work in a hospital setting or even working in behavioral health. My other interest in working with behavioral health is my connection to the LGBT community and often children and teens in the LGBT community who are in behavioral health settings aren't getting adequate care, at least from what I hear from people who have been in those settings. I really think that ultimately I want to be a nurse practitioner, I have seen a lot of negative things on this board about the field becoming over-saturated, but I feel like this is where I belong. On a completely different hand, I can also see myself getting into clinical research, that had been my original intention with after I got my BCBA that I would get some hands on experience then go into the research side of behavioral health. I think that ultimately I need to get some experience as a nurse before I can truly decide if I'm better suited for the NP side or research side, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Options: (1) My current plan is to go through the community college's ADN program (it's a 2 year waitlist and then 2 years to complete the program), then from there go onto whatever path I need to get to higher degrees, knowing I will hopefully work for at least a year as an RN before starting that next journey. This route would definitely be the cheapest and allows me 2 years to get just about all my credit card debt paid off before starting school and ultimately having to quit or cut way back with work and also gives me a chance to re-take the pre-reqs. The school doesn't have a time limit on when those were taken, so I'm good to apply, but I need the material more recent in my head. (2) A second option is to do the RN program through the same community college and do the Concurrent Enrollment Program (CEP), with an online BSN at the same time. This would allow me to come out with a BSN and RN, costs a bit more, but is still on the fairly cheap side. I also can potentially get in sooner, the earliest I would be able to start would be next Fall, but that is a year before my anticipated earliest with the RN program. Downsides to this is that it is more expensive (I don't have much financial aid left over from my first two degrees) and for the universities they offer for the BSN portion, I would need to quickly re-take AP 1 and 2 and Micro, before I would feel comfortable taking Patho which is a pre-req for the universities I am most interested in. (3) Third option: get the RN then get a BSN from Capella or WGU where I can go quickly through the program at a fairly inexpensive cost, which would get me a BSN which is typically the minimum needed for any future nursing path. Pros: quick and relatively inexpensive, Cons: seems a bit unnecessary to get a second Bachelors if it can be avoided. (4) Fourth option: I have pretty much ruled this one out, but I could do an PBSN (post-bac bsn) at ASU, this one would ultimately be the quickest, it's 1 year, but it's super expensive and because it's a bachelor's I likely wouldn't qualify for any additional financial aid, plus I've heard that get the ABSN degrees is often not helpful from the clinical side of things in being prepared. The only thing that might help is that since this is my second nursing attempt, I do still have some previous experience in the clinical setting. (5) Fifth option: MEPN program at U of A, while this one logically makes the most sense, as I already have a bachelors and I know I will need at least a Masters if I want to be an NP, there are a few issues. one it is more intensive and expensive, but given that it's a masters I'm more likely to be eligible for student loans. From what I've been told, this particular program is not an MSN so it's essentially getting my RN and then another masters, which doesn't really make sense to me and their website says that it is an MSN. Even though it is a masters, I would still have to go back to some graduate studies to become an NP and like the post-bac, because it is more accelerated it may not provide as intense clinical focus.

I know this is a super long post, but I would really love any opinions on plans of study, at least where to start so that I hopefully don't end up taking more than I need to. If I can skip over a second bachelors that would be great, but if that's my minimum to getting into an NP program and I skip over an MSN then that would make more sense. Thank you all!!

[araew2129, ADN]

Jus a couple thoughts to add:

University of Arizona's DNP program allows you to enter with a BSN.

Northern Arizona University has a MSN-NP program you can enter with an ADN and an unrelated bachelor's degree.

My 2 cents:

The ADN program makes the most sense to me since it is cheapest and allows you time to set yourself up by eliminating debt and retaking courses to strengthen your knowledge base. And with so many options for more advanced nursing degrees which you can work on later, while working as an RN and gaining invaluable experience, I just don't see a great advantage to the ABSN or MEPN.

[MiladyMalarkey, ASN, BSN]

The ADN is probably more feasible financially & would probably leave you in little to no debt.

My advice, just get through a nursing program before making all these grand plans. I know you may be a little older, have more degrees & don't want to waste time & money & sound like a planner. Just be a nurse first, roll with the punches. You've been in a nursing program before, so I'm sure you already know that you have to be flexible with plans & not put cart before the horse. Good luck on whatever path you ultimately choose.

[CamMc]

Thank you both, I definitely appreciate the advice!

@araew2129 I had seen UofA's program because it looks like if I did consider the MEPN there that there's some kind of acceptance agreement as long as you do well in the program, but getting a BSN elsewhere and then going there might end up cheaper in the long run and getting me a more thorough clinical experience. I didn't know NAU had that program, I will definitely look into that, I don't know that I could move out to Flag, so it would have to be offered elsewhere or online; I could potentially see me moving out to Tucson though, so the UofA option may be better.

@MiladyMalarkey definitely a very true point, especially since as much as I'm a planner I can't seem to stick with something for very long. I'm hoping my drive to return to nursing is a good indicator that this is where I will stay, but even within nursing there are several areas of interest, so you are definitely correct I should just get to being a nurse first and then figure it out from there. ?