Nursing: Questions On Getting Started (HELP!)

[MonkeeFuzz]

Hello! I have some questions and hope that I can find some answers here! My sister became interested in nursing when she was a junior in high school. Our grandmother was a CNA at a nursing home and we would visit her regularly there. We would spend alot of time with the elderly patients, just visting and entertaining them. This is where she decided that she wanted to be a nurse and help people. She graduated HS, with good grades, and decided that she wanted to work a couple of years before furthering her education. She knew that she would have to pay for college herself, while also supporting herself, and she wanted to save up some money. Right after HS, she started working for an insurance company, working her way up and making decent money. She got married and had a child. She kind of got caught up in life and never followed her dream. She still has the desire to become a nurse, now she is 31 years old and feels like she doesn't even know where to start and that she's too old to be entering into a field she doesn't really know anything about. She thinks it's too late for her to start over. She still works for the same insurance company and has gotten to a point where she doesn't feel like her job is challenging anymore. I want to try and educate myself on what it takes to become a nurse, so I can encourage and support her. Where exactly does she start? I've been reading online that she should have taken courses like Algebra II, Geometry, Chemistry, and Foreign Language, etc in high school. Is this true? She didn't take any of those, and does what she did in HS really matter now that it was almost 15 years ago? Will she have to take these courses in college? Does she need to take the ACT? Can someone just give me a brief rundown of education requirements to become a RN? I apologize for my ignorance on the matter, but I really just have no idea. I just want to find out so I can be encouraging to her. Thank you so much in advance for any help!

[athena55, BSN, RN]

Hi MonkeeFuzz!

I think your sister must first determine if she wants to apply to an Associates degree program or a BSN program

And NO she is not too old to apply to a nursing program. My goodness when I was a wee pup in a diploma nursing program the oldest student was a Religious Nun in her early 60's. Sister Helen. She had taken a vow of silence but was "allowed" to speak for the two years she would be in nursing school. Cool, huh??

Check out www.petersons.com This is a cool web site where you plug in all the pertinent information and up pops different college/university programs for nursing.

And yeah, most nursing programs nowadays will require you to have a college level math course, sociology, psychology, all those required-type courses plus the nursing courses.

Maybe you or your sister can request information on the nursing programs in your home town to see what they require...

I am not sure what ACT means....

Check out this web site. It might help to answer your questions:

http://education-portal.com/related_pages/q_p/page/2/q_p/requirements_for_nursing_school.html

Good luck to your sister! Hey, remember, age ain't nuthin' but a number

athena