Move to FL for schooling ?

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Hi...I live in Sacramento CA and have already applied twice for the AS RN program...lottery selection...no luck yet and I'm running out of time, money and options. My sister lives in Florida, 30 min from Orlando and has offered for me to move there and get my RN schooling there...no lottery. I would be in by Fall 2009 working towards my RN degree at either Valencia or Seminole College. Possibly returning to CA later after I get my FL license.

Can anybody offer some advice, input, suggestions or just pros/cons to this idea ?:confused:

Thanks

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What an opportunity! By all means, go for it and don't look back! You can always return to Cali if you want to.:cool:

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Thanks for your input.....do you know much about the two colleges in FL that I mentioned or any pros/cons related to FL ? I'm sure I'll return to CA, as my kids and grandbaby are here...how easy would it be to get my CA license here at that point ?

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No, I'm in Cali and don't know anything about schools in FL. Just remarking on how lucky you are to have such an offer. The school situation in Cali is horrendous.

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I agree with Caliotter3. If you've already tried it twice and haven't got a good news, I'd say go to FL. You already have a sister there who's willing to help you. Take the opportunity and go for it. I don't see why you should wait for CA schools.

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Specializes in NICU, PEDS, M/S, DOU, ICU, REHAB.
Hi...I live in Sacramento CA and have already applied twice for the AS RN program...lottery selection...no luck yet and I'm running out of time, money and options. My sister lives in Florida, 30 min from Orlando and has offered for me to move there and get my RN schooling there...no lottery. I would be in by Fall 2009 working towards my RN degree at either Valencia or Seminole College. Possibly returning to CA later after I get my FL license.

Can anybody offer some advice, input, suggestions or just pros/cons to this idea ?:confused:

Thanks

Hi! I just came back from Orlando after being there for 2 years. Both Seminole and Valencia are really good.

In fact most of the colleges have on-line programs, so you do 90% on line.

Of course not your clinicals!!

Be prepared for Monsoons in the afternoons in the summer.

Traffic on the 4 can be bad, but nothing like the 405.

It is the headless driver state. No one knows how to drive- especially when it's raining.

The job market sucks. Be prepared to make only $14-15 an hour if you are already an LVN, unless you go into homecare or Long Term Care..

Personally, I loved it there!

If you don't end up loving it like I did, yiou can always come back. At least you would have tried!

You will never know if you dont try! I would take your sister up on that!

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I am originally from Florida and moved to Cali a while back.. I applied for RN programs in Cali for about a 1-1/2 years and finally got in. I also applied at the Commuity Colleges back home in Florida.

I would recommened u to go to Florida. Its easier to get in.

Valencia and Seminole Colleges are bothe good. Also FCCJ (which is in Jacksonville) is good also.

But make sure that these colleges are gonna take your pre-req. I took my pre-reqs in Florida and had to re-take some to apply for Cali schools.

If I could go back to Florida for school I would. Good Luck!! You have to do it. You will like Orlando and Miami is not far or Tampa to party.

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The school situation in CA is actually great for the patients, profession and the community because for the most part only the best students get into nursing school now. Many programs are making their decisions based on merit not the luck of the lottery and good students advance while the also-rans get left behind. Bravo. It's about time nursing as its counterparts in physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy and medicine go for the best and brightest.

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Specializes in L&D.

By all means move to Florida. Why wait around when you know you can get into school there. I moved from Reno to Las Vegas for nursing school. Reno was more competitive by far than Vegas and I knew I would get accepted faster in Vegas. I start this spring, and I didn't have to wait at all. It was only 500 miles and not across the country, but when I began my nursing school search I looked at schools everywhere even Alaska. I just wanted to get into school and get going. You can always move once you become an RN. Good luck to you.

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yeah, go and move down to FL, so you can get your degree. Im from FL, the panhandle area, the only thing ive noticed is that schooling there is more expensive than it is here in southern CA. I dont know the reason why. I dont know how much it is up there in sacramento, but as i remember when i still live in FL, it was $70/credit if your a resident and up to 3x more if your out of state. im not sure how much it is now. And i dont know how much is the schooling in the orlando area. but if you can get your degree faster i dont think thatll be an issue, right?

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Thanks to everyone's responses and encouragement. I'm moving to Florida April 2009 to start school...I'm so excited.......:yeah:

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The school situation in CA is actually great for the patients, profession and the community because for the most part only the best students get into nursing school now. Many programs are making their decisions based on merit not the luck of the lottery and good students advance while the also-rans get left behind. Bravo. It's about time nursing as its counterparts in physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy and medicine go for the best and brightest.

I guess I'll take the bait here. Most nursing schools are harder and longer to get into than many law schools, at 1/3 the starting wage. So many of us simply don't have the time to wait. I sure didn't. A revolving door of chasing decent students out of a state so they can get an education in another state only to welcome them back with open arms after they acheive one year related work experience, seems shortsighted and counterproductive to me. See all of the foreign trained nurses in California? Can you guess why?

PT/OT? Masters degrees that make 50K a year. Pharmacy? Walgreens. Medicine? Private practice Docs forced to practice without insurance, and without a large accounts receivable dept to jump through the 900 hoops to get paid for a routine physical. See all the foreign trained Docs? People are not entering these positions anymore with the same enthusiasm in the US because the "elite" factor has narrowed their relevance to the emerging shifts in manpower, and industry structure.

Making Nursing more "elite" will only hurt the patient, profession and community. The patient will be short staffed, the profession will lose scope of practice to tech positions and the community will lose qualified, valuable and productive citizens. Sounds horrible.

I'll take a nurse with heart, over a 4.0 any day.

http://nursingworld.org/ethics/code/protected_nwcoe813.htm#3.4

http://www.rn.ca.gov/regulations/bpc.shtml#2736

just my :twocents:. Sorry if I went on, or got rhetorical. This is a hot topic for me.

By the way, congrats and best of luck in FL, heavnbnd4!!!

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