Obstacles to start nursing school

[sugarplumbabies]

I just recently decided that I wanted to go into nursing. I have been working on my degree for Computer Information Science. Within a year from now, I should have it. I currently live in Spain because my husband is in the Navy. We will be here until 2010. As I searched for schools, I am required to attend physically. I can't do that while I live in Spain. I do want to go into the Navy Nursing Corp, and was thinking about the NCP program that they have. A lot of schools have the accelerated program with students who already have a non-nursing degree. Which sounds great and seems I can get a nursing degree within a year or so, but there are prerequisites. And there are quite a bit, enough for a whole year of schooling. So, when I get my degree in May 2008, I will have until mid 2010 to get these prereqs done before I move back to the states. Of courses, depending where I want to go to school, I should follow thier prereqs. Problem we have is that we don't know where we want to go from here. And I can't seem to find schools that offer online courses for the prenursing reqs. Is there anyone who can help me get over these obstacle?

TIA

A girl who wants to be a nurse

[Rianna1]

Hello, I decided about a year ago to pursue nursing. Different schools have different pre-reqs. I am in northern California and the competition is so fierce to get into any nursing program. Here, you basically have to apply everywhere you can in hopes of getting into a program. I have a BA in another field so I have more options as far as where I can apply to. At first I wanted to apply to a local private college that had the one year BSN program so I followed their pre-reqs. Then I had second thoughts about the tuition expense (cost of about 50K), so I also decided to apply to the local community college for their ADN program and there was another class I needed to take. When my name didnt get picked for the community college program (40 spots and 240 applicants and I was number 195), I decided it was better to pursue a Master's degree anyway, so there are more pre-reqs to take. There are some classes that you can take online. These would be the ones that do not require a lab. It would really depend what program you are going to apply to. I have found myself taking many classes that I probably will not end up needing once I finally do get into a program. I'm not sure what the pre-reqs are in other parts of the country, but here the basic ones are: Human Anatomy (with a lab), Human Physiology (with a lab), some type of English course, Microbiology (with a lab). Some programs can require Nutrition, General or Organic or Biochemistry, Statistics.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Hi there...I lived in Spain for three years (Zaragoza AB near Zaragoza, Spain - now long closed). Beautiful country with very friendly people. I presume that you are at Rota. I too am a military wife. I waited until we returned to the states to start my pre-reqs for the simple reason that I had to keep repeating courses and taking new courses and it was so very frustrating. Until you know where you are going to PCS too, I would continue with your present course of action and try to take some general stuff.

I found it useful to have taken a 300-400 level abnormal psychology class, a 300-400 level growth and development course, 100 level biology, 200 and 300 level math classes.

My best tip in the whole world though is to keep the syllabi from ALL the classes that you want to transfer. It saves so much time! I also kept the catalog description of the course. This made it so much easier for the new college in the states to correctly evaluate my credits. It is important that you use the catalog and syllabi from the course YOU took because sometimes these darn schools change the courses.

I am old and have gone to school on and off since 1977 (before computers). I went to school in central IL, Japan, Spain, Alaska, Korea, Las Vegas, Indianapolis and online. This really helped me to not have to repeat so much.

Another option if you don't mind being separated from your spouse: get your degree in computer science, apply now for the nursing program in your area (maybe where you family lives) and then move back to the states by yourself and stay with family. (Not an easy decision to make, especially if kids are involved.)