Post Bac or 4 year BSN

[Megan1020]

Hi everyone!

I am really struggling to make a very important decision and so I have turned here for some insight. I am going in to my 4th year of college this fall. I was originally a Biology major intending to become a Physicians Assisnt but ended up having a realization that getting into PA school would be much harder than I thought and nursing might be what I really want to do anyways. Because this decision has come so late into my college career, I have two options. My first option would be to switch my major to nursing, be a part time student (the way the program is set up it is impossible to be full time since I have completed my core and allied requirements), and graduate in May 2020 (3 years after my original graduation year). OR I could get a degree in liberal arts and do a post Bac nursing program. Of course the post Bac is very appealing because it will save a lot of time and probably because of that save me a lot of money, however I understand accelerated programs tend to be very jam packed with classes and information and difficult to handle. I am wondering just how difficult an 12 month or 24 month post Bac program would be. Would it be worth the stress and the possibility of not doing as well as I would in a more stretched out 4 year BSN program? My fear is that if the post Bac ends up being too difficult then I will be stuck with a liberal arts degree that I have no desire of doing anything with.

[BeachsideRN, ASN]

Accelerated BSNs can be pricey. There is another option, community college ADN. Then since you have the pre-reqs already you can do a quick RN-BSN bridge while working.

[BeachsideRN, ASN]

And why would your degree be in liberal arts and not bio?

[Megan1020]

I don't want to have to take organic chemistry.

[Neywel120]

Take intro to chem, gen chem 1, gen chem 2 (this is really not needed though) and then take intro to organic chem. And you should be fine. I took Orgo my freshman year of college without taking any other sciences prior and I did good.

[verene, MSN]

Taking 3 years seems excessive. Meet with a nursing program adviser (not just a general adviser) to find out if it really would take that long or lot. Look into all you possible degree options (bio, BA, transferring and starting nursing school) to find out what options you have. The pros to this route are the ability to keep financial aid (which basically goes away except loans once you have a degree) and if part-time the ability to hold down a job to gain experience and money on the side. Cons are that is will take 7 years to get 1 degree and you'll have a lot of excess credits which may cause hassles with the registar.

If it makes sense for you to graduate with BA/BS and then go to nursing school there are several options.

Get and ASN degree from community college and then apply to an RN-BSN bridge program if a BSN is needed for your geographic area. This has the advantage of being affordable, quick to start working, and you will likely have income during the bridge year. Cons are that these programs can sometimes be incredibly competitive and depending on geographic area it may not save you much time to working as some places it is very difficult to find work with an ASN. Know you local job market.

If you want to jump straight into a BSN program there are two options.

1) Apply to a traditional 4-year program as a post-bacc/transfer student. Typically you will only have to take nursing core classes which will take about 2 years to complete. Pros are 2 years to BSN and usually affordable cost (if instate-public school), regular paced workload. Cons, the program may accept a very limited number of transfer students per year.

2) Apply for an ABSN program. Typically time to completion is 12-16 months. Cons these programs can be very expensive and intensive time commitments usually preclude working (or other major time commitments) while in school.

I'm in the first quarter of an ABSN program so I will try to speak to the load with my very limited exposure. The program is intensive. My instructors have made a point that it is accelerated not abbreviates. We go through the exact same curriculum as the traditional BSN program, we just do it in 5 terms not 9 terms. At this point I have 12 hours of lecture, 12 hours of clinical, and about 15-20 hours of study time a week. Based on discussions with prior students going through the program this time commitment will increase and 50 hours on school is a pretty normal week. That being said every prior student I've talked to has still managed to have time for self-care and life outside of school, the just emphasized the need to be very intentional about taking it. The work load is high but as to it being too much depends on the person: Are you academically strong? Are you highly organized? Good time management skills? A self-motivated learner? Are you alright with school being your full-time job and then some? Are you major time commitments outside of school limited? If you answered yes, it's quite survivable.