jen1000

Thanks for all the replies - I do know that my tuition would be reimbursed based on a contract that most of the students at this particular school sign with a healthcare group to work for 2 years at a hospital in that group. I would only have to pay it back if I didn't fulfill that 2 year commitment. I am looking around to see if there is some way I can do something part-time and not have to quit my job, hopefully I'll find something!

I'm due to start an accelerated 1-year BSN program in August but I've recently been having second thoughts. I currently work in IT, have a pretty cushy job and make good $$$, have good benefits. It's kind of a dead-end job though, no room for advancement and it's specialized enough that it would be very difficult to find another job if I moved (which is unlikely), or lost my job (also fairly unlikely, but I guess could happen). I don't love my job, computers aren't my thing, but it's okay. I've been having second thoughts because I'll have to quit my job to go to school, which I always knew but I guess now that it's getting closer I'm getting scared. The way the economy is going makes me really scared to quit right now. Plus I look at posts here about nurses who are burned out, hate their jobs, are very very stressed and not making a whole lot of money on top of all of that. I talked to one girl recently who was a nurse but quit because it was too much, and she's very much of a go-getter type of person, likes to be busy. I'm smart and learn fast and I know I'd be good at nursing, but I don't know if I want to go into a field where I'll be extremely stressed out and making about 40% less than I do now. I'm willing to work some weird hours but I do NOT want nights, so that's another consideration. I will have to work in one of the not-so-great hospitals in the area for two years because of a tuition forgiveness program so that doesn't help, plus there seem to be lots of nursing schools in this area so I don't think there's really too much of a shortage here. Although I know once I got my master's degree the money (and probably pretty much everything about the job) would get better, that's several years down the road. I don't want to go through school and end up hating my job in a few years and regretting giving up my current job, but I do love health care and want to be a part of it. Any advice?

I work in computer support for a school district. I make pretty good money, so some people will think I'm crazy for wanting to leave, but if I'm going to work the rest of my life I want to do something I really like and am interested in. I've always been interested in medical things, but when I was younger didn't think I wanted to do patient care. My bachelors is in Health Info. Management ( I know, no one's ever heard of it), so I've worked with a lot of doctors and nurses in different settings and always liked that. Anyway, it looks like I'll be taking the same pre-reqs as you except I've already taken Dev. Psych and Nutrition. I think the way we mapped it out (I don't have it in front of me so I'm not positive) is Chemistry, Microbiology, and A&P at a comm. college, and the rest at Rockhurst. I'm taking chem and micro first so that if I really can't get the grades or change my mind, I'm only out a few hundred dollars instead of thousands for Rockhurst. I'm already enrolled at JCCC for the fall, I'll apply to Rockhurst in the spring for a summer class. Leslie told me I could wait until around March to apply for the '08 start and not be too late. I think it would be a lot of work for you to cram all of that into three semesters, especially with the science classes. With the B requirement, I wanted to only take one class the semesters that I'm taking those, to make sure I have time to concentrate on them. I haven't taken a chemistry class since high school!

I just looked back at one of your earlier posts and I think I read it wrong - yes, you can take some of the pre-reqs at a community college, that's what I'm doing to save some money, Rockhurst is too $$$ to take more than the 15 hours there. Leslie mapped it out for me and told me which classes they prefer you take at Rockhurst and which ones you can take elsewhere. She was knowledgeable about the different comm. colleges and what they offer.

Maybe so. What classes are you needing? I'm taking chemistry this fall to start with. I needed about 30 hours as well, it's worked out to one or two classes per semester. I guess I could have tried to do it all in one year but it would have been very difficult to even schedule that around my job. Especially since you have to have at least a B in the science classes. I took A&P in college but that was 10 years ago! She counted some that I wasn't expecting, I thought I'd have to take developmental psych. but my human/child development counted for that, even though it wasn't through the pysch. dept.

I'm looking at starting in August 2008 - I need a few of the science courses since mine were too old, and the theology and philosophy courses. I really need to still work full-time the next two years to save enough money to live on while I'm doing the program anyway. Leslie can tell you what transfers - I had a copy of my transcript so I brought it in with me. I would imagine things would transfer from Longview but I couldn't say for sure.

Hi Nicole, I'm not in the program at Research but I'm looking into it as well, I had a meeting with the admissions coordinator about a month ago. It was my understanding that anyone would qualify for the loan forgiveness program through HCA, but you have to work for an HCA hospital for 2 years after graduating in order to have the loan forgiven. I don't know about any partial forgiveness like if you worked for a year, etc. I would guess that they want the full 2 years, no exceptions. I think I saw someone else post one time that if you choose this loan but for some reason don't or are unable to work for an HCA facility, you have to pay 50% of the loan back in the first year after graduation, I'm not sure when the second 50% would be due. When were you looking at starting? Jennifer