NotYourTypical

Thank you so much for your reply! ?

I became a paramedic at 22- 23. I got into my BSN program at 24. If all goes right, I'll just be turning 27 a few days after the program ends... I still cringe a lot at that... But I'm trying to convince myself that it's not bad and I should be proud of the work I've done as I'm the only person in my family to really go to college.

I can definitely understand your situation. I am in a traditional BSN program and I just finished second semester, which has been labeled by our professors as the hardest semester in the program. Luckily I made it but I was so close to failing it and I can't tell you how many breakdowns I had... I ended up breaking my car key one time... But here's what helped me: I had one teacher that REALLY helped me. I had a problem with organizing my time and so I would do all of this work and still barely have time to finish everything I needed to get done. I obviously didn't have time to really relax and take at least one day off. My teacher sat down with me for hours and helped me organize my planner (after she told me to get one... ) and we came up with a method for me to stick with it... (It involves sticky notes ) The planner I had was an hourly planner and I even drew out a typical school week for myself. As soon as I was able to visually see how much time I really had throughout the week, I was able to plan out things much better and I didn't feel as stressed or as pressed for time. I don't know if this post made much sense, but my point is to look at how you are organizing your time and draw it out if it helps you... It definitely helped me. I believe if you can visually see your school week (school related stuff ONLY), you can maybe see how much time you really have in that week, so it'll better allow you to prioritize based on what's due first and how much time you may need for certain assignments or projects... Hopefully I made sense and was helpful. SIDE NOTE: Also, don't try to finish 10 billion assignments in one day. It helps me to breakdown assignments in 1 -2 hour increments, instead of dealing with one subject for 4 hours straight. This is very important for reading assignments. It was odd to me and I didn't understand it, but I got more done and felt more productive breaking down assignments in realistically doable chunks, instead of using half the day on everything from one class. Good luck.

First a little background story about me. I became a licensed paramedic in 2016. With previous experience being an EMT, I have about 4 years of experience in emergency medicine. Later 2016, I transferred from the community college I was in and got accepted into a university. I spent a year finishing prereqs for the nursing program there and I got into my university's BSN program Fall of 2017. I will be done with my program in December of 2019. YAY! I have many questions because of what my plans are after I finish. But I'll start with this one: What are some ways to go about combining my paramedic licensure and future nurse licensure? I wish I knew more people in my life to speak to about this but I don't know anyone else in my position and I can't seem to just look up information on the web without seeing 10 billion articles and discussion boards about why one side is better than the other. I still want to be a paramedic, but I am not interested in being in road EMS AT ALL. The state where I live and the state that I plan on leaving to immediately after I finish my program have hospitals that hire paramedics in their hospitals. I currently work in a hospital as a paramedic. So, I don't know if I could do both separately or... I don't really want to be a flight nurse. People give me that suggestion ALL the time... But as of right now, I'm not really interested in that either. I was thinking of just being an ER nurse somewhere, but are there other career pathways that I should consider for combining both? I don't want to drop my paramedic license for many reasons... I really want to do both. What are your thoughts?