online degree?

[Medsport, LPN]

Hey guys, I've been an LPN for about a year. I work mostly at a jail and part-time at a nursing home and a factory. I'm thinking of going for the RN as I can barely pay bills now. The pay is'nt bad, its just all the loans and cc I racked up while going thru school the last 2 times (long story-also have accounting degree). Being single with house and car payment does'nt help either.

I think I may be in a catch 22 though. I believe my main employer will reimburse for classes, but not sure if they will cover online ones. Then I will have to cut-back on at least one of the jobs. I have most of the prereqs out of the way already and could go to the local community college again, but really don't want to go thru the clinicals again and waste time driving. But then if I went to a "regular" college maybe I could meet someone to help me out like my ex.

My ex is going thru Excelsior and Indiana State U. She says she likes it as its at your own pace and you never have to step foot in a class. But when you are done with classes, you have to schedule a clinical day at the college and pass all those without practice and then have a doctor follow you around on a weekend and if you mess up once, you fail. I'm not sure about that as I don't do hardly any skills at my job. Its mostly all passing meds, some insulins, some minor triages and occ. somebody codes, but the senior nurses usually take over on those. I did some of my own research and Rue seems interesting, but it looks like they go thru excelsior too. I just wonder if there is any practice for the clinicals. Maybe I just need to call them and ask questions. Enough rambling, what do you guys think? Do these online degrees sound like good ones or is there a better one?

[Medic09, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

If you look in the Students section of this site, there is much discussion of online nursing programs.

Excelsior runs a pre-clinical exam workshop, btw, as an option. It costs extra, but over on FlightWeb I remember some folks saying it was invaluable. I have a local colleague who is one of the smartest people (and smartest paramedics) I know. She failed the clinical exam on some relatively small (for the real world) issue. So, FYI.

Personally, I think if you want to be a really good clinical nurse sooner, it is better to go to a brick-and-mortar school where you can get face-to-face clinical education. That, of course, assumes that they have good clinical instructors. Usually it is a mixed bag, from what I hear.

[Thunderwolf, MSN, RN]

Please check out this forum found under the Students tab:

Distance Learning for Nursing