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I work in the Bay Area and there are definitely people that commute from out-of-state, but the two people that I knew who did it have family/friends that they stay with while working their three 12s to help offset the costs of commuting. One colleague lives in Arizona, but stays with her sister during her work week. Another co-worker lives in SoCal, but he stays in the area at his parents' place during his work week. As others have alluded to, housing is crazy expensive around here and I didn't realize how far people are willing to commute to work until I moved here; some people I've talked to will drive as much as 2+ hours one way from the more "affordable" areas just to work in the Bay Area.

Life is too short to be anything but happy. I was in a similar predicament the past few weeks. I made the transition from med/surg to ICU and thought it was for me. I quickly realized the grass is not always greener and despite people telling me to stick it out, I kept thinking to myself, is that really sustainable in the long run? I agonized over leaving ICU or sticking it out and it dominated my every waking amount to the point that I was losing sleep and couldn't enjoy life outside of work. After several heart to heart conversations, I went into my management yesterday and told them ICU wasn't the right fit for me. They were gracious and understanding. Immediately afterwards, I felt somewhat relieved, but more stressed without the job security. It helped me to be faithfully transparent with management about my concerns and I kept in close contact with nurse recruitment. Today, I found out I have an interview tomorrow, so when there's a will, there's a way. Persevere if you can, but also recognize your limitations and be true to yourself! Good luck!

Actually, just did some searching on this forum (which I should have done first). If anyone has other input, that would be great. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I'm interested in nursing informatics and have always enjoyed bridging the gap between health care and technology, moreover I've always enjoyed working with computers, figuring out how to do things in Cerner or Epic, etc. My concern is how much programming or coding should I know? Is there much of it in nursing informatics? I took an intro to programming class my first year of college prior to choosing nursing and I was terrible at it. It could have been just where I was mentally at the time since it was 10+ years ago, but I really want to make sure I know what this field entails before I commit to grad school, etc. Thanks!

Thanks for posting this OP. I'm currently in the same position right now. I don't think I have social anxiety, but I know I have performance and public speaking anxiety. I enjoy interacting with others and while most people see me as an extrovert, I would definitely say that I'm in still innately an introvert. I've always been a people person and through forcing myself to be involved with many leadership positions, I've been able to quell my anxiety in most situations, but my problem has always been doing tasks or skills in front of people, especially any tactile skill that involved my hands as they would shake and I would be instantly embarrassed. I would get extremely nervous starting an IV with patients, doctors, preceptors, or family members watching. I just switched from med-surg to a high acuity ICU and even thinking about pushing IV meds during code situations makes me nervous. I take propranolol PRN for performance anxiety for a few years now, which has done wonders for me. I don't know if it's my perception that I'm being scrutinized or that I don't want to look like a fool when certain situations arise, but I guess it comes down to me caring about what people think about me (which I shouldn't) or how they will perceive me. I think it most likely stems from me having low self-esteem growing up, which I've since rectified as an adult. When it comes to our careers , I think we're able to rise to the occasion and it's nice to know that we're not alone in the same boat :)

I'm not a new grad, but just got hired into the ICU for their critical care training program. Stanford seems like a great place to work and I'm looking forward to starting there. Wishing you guys all the best!

Not working the holidays this year; put in my two weeks and last day is the 23rd. Then moving to the Bay Area and transitioning to critical care at Stanford. I'll be spending a lot of time with family and friends during this holiday season, as this will be my first time moving far away from all my loved ones to a new city. Here's to the next chapter! Shout out to the nurses working the holidays, make a patient smile :)

Thans zzbxdo. Does anyone know how to get into critical care down there? In Seattle, all the larger hospitals have a Critical Care Consortium, where nurses looking to get into ICU apply to it and once they are hired by the ICU, they attend this consortium that has classes on critical care nursing, in addition to having their preceptor at their workplace too. I see postings for ICU positions, but most of them seem like they're looking for experienced critical care nurses.

Thanks for the input guys. My significant other currently goes to school in Palo Alto, so Stanford would seem like the logical choice. I'm looking at Menlo Park, Redwood City area. Mountain View doesn't seem bad either. However, UCSF really peaks my interest too, especially since I plan to pursue a graduate degree and the UC tuition discount is appealing.

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to relocate from Seattle to SF to be with my significant other. I have 3 years acute care/float pool/ED experience. From my research, the wages in the Bay Area are pretty enticing, but I know housing/cost of living can be ridiculous down there. Overall, I'm just wondering if people feel like their quality of life is good in SF given the high rental market? I don't know too much about the hospitals, but UCSF or Stanford look appealing as I like teaching hospitals. Any ideas on neighborhoods? Or advice/tips in general? I also don't need to live right in the heart of SF, so I'm hoping to save money in the rental market that way, too. Any advice or tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

https://www.breeze.ca.gov/datamart/loginCADCA.do You can register for an account and then search for your application status once your account is made.

Just wanted to update and say I'm officially licensed in Cali as of 1/16. For me, aside from the wait...it was actually a painless, hassle-free process. Here's my timeline: Live Scan while I was visiting California on 10/30/14 Application sent on 11/3/14 School transcripts sent between 11/6 and Thanksgiving (I included transcripts from all the places I took prereqs since my University didn't list the prereqs on my BSN). Check cashed 11/21/14 Pending review status on BreEZe - 12/10/14 I did call once in late December (the 800 number that was posted earlier in this thread) at about 0800 in the morning and got a pleasant receptionist without a long hold time. She told me my app was still a couple weeks away from being reviewed. Checked the BreEZe website again today and license was issued on 1/16! All in all, about a 2.5 months process. I honestly was expecting it to be much longer. Good luck to those still waiting!

Thanks for the great info everyone as I just applied for endorsement as well. I did my live scan on 10/30 while I was visiting California, so I'm hoping for a quicker turnaround than the hard copy fingerprints. I hope they fix the FBI background check issue soon, as I hope my nurssys verification doesn't expire.

Hi everyone! Let me preface this post by saying that in general, I am somewhat of an insatiable person. I'm pretty ambitious and always have to have a goal or some sort of "big picture" to work towards. Luckily, the beauty of nursing is that it's so flexible and the multitude of things that you can do with a nursing degree is fantastic. In recent months though, I find myself constantly wondering what I want to do for the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong, I find my current position of being an acute care float RN to be very rewarding/exciting. I get to float through the various specialties on a day-to-day basis and have learned so much...but even then, I know myself well enough to know that I don't see myself doing bedside nursing for the rest of my career. I haven't even been out of school for that long and I'm already considering going back, as I'm easily seduced by academia. Critical care and CRNA school always lingers at the back of my mind, but I also love public speaking, interacting with people, teaching, looking at P&P, etc. I was student president during undergrad, so then I think that maybe Healthcare Administration would be something worth pursuing as well. The role of a CNS has appealed to me as well. I also love public health and community nursing, so that's something I've looked into as well. I have yet to really shadow and see if the aforementioned positions would be worth pursing. Then, other times, I realize that I should just take the time I have now and just enjoy life a little bit more. I'm passionate about traveling and really value my time outside of work. For instance, I'm on a 5-day stretch of being off right now. That's like mini-vacations without having to use benefit time and it's awesome. Do I really want to give that up? At any rate, not sure what the point of this post is. I think I just want to see if others are in the same boat. Sometimes, I just look forward to the next big thing and then I realize that I need to stop and enjoy life as it is and kind of just let things percolate over time. Thoughts, comments, and words of wisdom appreciated. :)

Hi Everyone! I took the NCLEX on Friday, 7/20. I just wanted to briefly recount my experience for you all because it was unlike any other test I've ever taken. First, let me preface this by saying that I come from a liberal arts background. My first degree was in Ethnic Studies, so pursuing a nursing degree was a huge undertaking for me. I've never been one to excel in the hard sciences and I've always would rather write a paper than take any standardized test. Ironically enough, I started nursing school not liking science - go figure. However, I knew nursing was a good fit for me because I loved the holistic approach when taking care of others and I love interacting with people, especially patients. This was enough of an impetus for me to put my science qualms on the back burner and learn to adapt to a different learning style than my previous degree. So I navigated through the travails of nursing school and did well to succeed in every exam/paper/clinical, etc. The NCLEX was never really on the forefront of my mind until I graduated last month. When I started to review for the NCLEX, that's when I realized the wealth of information that I had learned throughout nursing school and how much information I had to triage through and refresh/remediate. I took about a month to prepare and mostly utilized Kaplan and the study guide that was posted on this forum in another thread. For not being a fan of standardized tests, I always had a habit of double-checking or triple-checking my answers before I handed in my tests in nursing school, but we all know with the NCLEX there is no doing that. I think it's great that there are so many resources on AllNurses and it was encouraging to read through people's previous experiences. The one thing that I want to stress is that everyone's experience is different! While it was good to learn from other students, I think sometimes I would psych myself out by reading the various experiences here. I sometimes have a tendency to be hard on myself (super type-A personality), so when the exam didn't shut off at 75 and kept going, I was down on myself. I can't imagine how I must've looked on video. I was probably sighing every other question and making all sorts of frustrated faces. Moreover, I have a job lined up and all I could think about was me having to tell my employer that I couldn't start when they wanted me to because I didn't pass (I know, not the best mentality). Before the test, I definitely said a prayer in the restroom and even when the exam prompted me for a break at the 2-hour mark, I took it and went to the restroom to collect myself and say another prayer. My test ended up shutting off between 115-120 questions. I lost track because I told myself to just focus on the question and not the number. I left the testing center with my heart in my stomach and feeling like I failed. I immediately drove to a nearby Barnes and Noble to try the PVT with my laptop. I can't tell you how tachycardic and diaphoretic I was. I was absolutely prepared to crawl into the fetal position in the middle of Barnes and Noble when I saw that I got the good pop-up. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was too good to be true and I must have tried it about 10 more times between Friday and now thinking that I would be the one exception to the PVT. I even took a screen shot because I was paranoid that it would change and let me go to the credit card page. At any rate, I paid for the quick results today and I did indeed pass. It's definitely a full-circle moment for me and I cannot be happier right now. Many thanks goes to God, my family, and my friends. For me, the hardest part of the exam was when it hit 75 and then you click next and it keeps on going. I have to admit, it was somewhat heart-wrenching, but the important thing to remember is that if you're still getting questions then you're still in it to win it. Two days, later I'm officially a registered nurse and I starting my job at my dream hospital at the end of this month. I also remembered this quote from Christopher Robin to Pooh Bear when I watched the show as a youngster - it definitely helped relax me throughout the later parts of my exam: "You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." Good luck!!