Non-nursing degree... OPTIONS?

[gizm0]

Hi there everyone,

I will be graduating with a non-nursing bachelor's degree at the end of this semester (BS in health sciences/biology). However, I have decided that I really, really want to be a nurse, hopefully a family nurse practitioner someday. I am wondering how to go about this.

If I wanted to do nursing at my university, I wouldn't be starting until a year from now (if I was accepted) because I don't have their specific pre-nursing chemistry class done, I took a different chem.... At that point, it would be 3 years after that to complete the actual program.

Here's my other options ...

1. Apply to community colleges to become an RN and then later do RN-BSN completion? I'll finish the RN in about 3 years (1 year wait, 2 year program) and then need to still complete the BSN. ****If anyone has ever done this, gone from a non-nursing bachelors degree to the RN program, then done RN-BSN completion, were you able to use your previous bachelor degree's credits to complete the BSN faster?? I've had at least half of those classes already.

2. Apply to accelerated second degree nursing programs. I'll start in about a year or year and a half and be done in 12-16 months after that, period. However, these are very expensive from what I can tell, but I've also learned that you can sometimes move right into the nurse practitioner programs seamlessly, which would be nice! Unfortunately it adds at LEAST 3-4 more non-science classes outside of my degree which complicates things as these classes are very specific to the schools that require them (all are different...) which is annoying.

If anyone was ever in my position or has any advice, I would GREATLY appreciate it!