NewJA

I am reposting the original post to see if I can get paragraph breaks. Someone suggested that I edit it, but I don't see an edit option for these forums. Thanks all for the feedback. I have decided to post my doubts about a career in nursing. I will present a serious of doubts and drawbacks, let me know what you think. First, I originally was attracted to three things: 1) The potential to actually help people find or maintain real, lasting health. 2) The high job availability & schedule flexibility, short contracts, etc.... 3) The compensation & related factors - traveling opportunities, bonuses, etc... Having learned more about nursing by reading about it, watching nurses, discussing it, living with a nurse, and so on, I have found #1 to be a total illusion. The only chance I would have to do this whatsoever in the capacity that I am talking about would be either as a nurse practitioner (would have its limitations as well), or in some sort of private practice or other private venture. It appears that any other position would be exactly the opposite of what I want in #1. Further, I have found that the stress and various colossal drawbacks of the job (and the nursing school itself for that matter) grossly outweigh the factors of job availability or compensation. To be honest, I believe that the western medical community and entire health care system is an absolute disaster, more conducive to keeping people ill than to true health and healing. The entire system seems primarily designed to manage the mess that people make of their lives through living dangerously (smoking, bad eating habits, sedentary life, etc.....) as well as to deal with emergencies (which I personally could not deal with at all, due to the toxic level of stress that would put in my life). I thought I would bring a different perspective and approach to the field of health care, and teach patients to live healthy, and show them a degree of compassion and patience and caring that is so woefully absent in America's health care system... But then I watched and listened, and realized that this is probably the same fantasy with which other people approach the career. It seems that any such illusions are smashed on or before the first day of work. Having said that, I am having trouble imagining myself in a position where I run my but off dealing with an absurd patient:nurse ratio and working as what appears to amount to what I now think of as a sort of blood pressure slave..... monitoring machines, giving meds, managing pain, and answering patient requests and complaints as well as doing paperwork - all far beyond the limits of how much of this type of stuff any given nurse should be reasonably expected to deal with.... Also, I have also noted that it is extremely obvious that the majority of the education required for the RN, while it SHOULD be extremely important to the job, is in fact totally useless or superfluous. When it comes down to it, the nurses job is comprised almost entirely of the above list of very exhausting and stressful chores..... Which I could learn how to do in a 1 year program..... doesn't require or justify 4 years of schooling - I've even heard that from current R.N.s. Now do the job in the typical 12 hour shifts from either 7 pm too 7 am, or from 7 am to 7 pm.... (I would never do either of those shifts, not for a day, let alone indefinitely) ...well let's just say that before we get too that final issue, I have already long since talked myself out of it. Sure, as a traveling nurse, I could make 40K in 6 months and take the rest of the year off to do whatever I pleased. But could I handle even one week of those 6 months? I consider the quality of my life on a day by day basis - I don't make myself suffer for 6 months at a time while looking forward to my time to do what I need to do for my own happiness and health. However, with all of those obstacles I have focused on, I have to admit that there could be many opportunities where the majority of those challenges would not be present. These may make up only about 3% of all nursing jobs, but with such a ludicrous nursing shortage, it would be inevitable I could get such a great position. Take home care nursing, or administration, or starting a nursing registry, or even working in a doctor's clinic instead of a hospital. Sure, I could do something like that, IF I found such an opportunity before going insane trying to work in a hospital.... ...but even then, in no case is the registered nurse credentialed or legally allowed to be giving the type of holistic health counseling that I would like to provide. So, this suggests private practice as a nurse practitioner..... but that turns out to be quite a bit more schooling in nursing and much more of a long term, dedicated business venture than I am willing to commit to. I live with an R.N., and I have heard her complaining vehemently about that very list I have mentioned, without me feeding any of this stuff to her first... That's saying a lot considering that she seems like a person who never complains about anything, or backs down from any challenge. She has just started in the job about 6 weeks ago, and she is talking about leaving already. She comes home looking so excessively exhausted and stressed that she literally looks like she was lucky to manage to get home at all. It is obvious just from looking at her when she comes in the door that her job is literally dangerous to her health, and too the welfare of her patients, and she is acutely aware of both truths such that she has nightmares about it and dreads going to work at all. I just kind of nodded and sympathized, wondering how she could possibly have made it all the way into the first day on the job without having figured all that out ahead of the time. In fact, I had already figured out and foreseen the exact things she is complaining about, and many more, when I was only 1/2 way finished with my prerequisites. It's sad and pitiful to see her on her days off trying to talk herself into persevering and enduring, with optimism, as I feed her a little obligatory moral support (You'll be alright", or "You'll get a better position"). In fact, the job is crushing her spirit and she needs to get out of it as soon as possible before she destroys herself or burns up 3 years of her life in that suffering. She talks about "preparing for her future" and so on.... What happened to the present?!?!?!?!?! Inevitably I can see that she will stay in nursing. She'll just keep suffering until she winds up in a position that is also terrible, but not nearly as bad as the the job she is at now.... Perhaps years into the future, she will have gotten into a relatively "cushy job", or in some other unforeseen capacity that is low stress..... and she will have given up her former impressions about the meaning of happiness or a good job. I can't imagine doing that to myself. I could see myself eventually doing something useful with nursing..... and it would also be very useful personally in caring for my parents or my own heath... The question is, does that make sense, and could I even endure the clinicals? (That was a rhetorical question...) Indeed, I could work as an NP in my own office - just do medication management. But then, I would just loathe peddling medications to people who could drop them if they'd just live healthy, and I wouldn't care at all for working in an office. To tell the truth, I'm an outdoors person. I have read that over 40% of all RNs leave the career entirely. For a person with health issues or other challenges going in to it, the career seems like a ludicrous choice, unless the person wants to stay on the academic side of things and just become a professor (where they will need 2-3 X as much education with about 1/2 the maximum earning potential..... and then they can take part in the system of instructing all that excessive material that I mentioned earlier to other students on the premise that they are making a good choice, when 40% of them will themselves leave the nursing career because they can not bear it.... Hmmm...... That's a no-brainer... I would feel sort of like a drug dealer if I did that..... Well, that's a wrap. Thanks all for the feedback, some of which really makes me thankful that we have some good people who can handle the nursing job. In response to one of the other posters, indeed, I do think it takes a certain kind of person to do it, and I am not that person.

Indeed, the kind of person even capable of the sincerity and compassion that I would automatically need to bring with me to nursing, as I bring it with me everywhere, would have their spirit stifled, their health compromised, and their mind torn apart in such an environment of cynicism and apathy. In all the nurses I have encountered on the job, I see only a very rare select few who have the compassion and empathy that the job requires, and yet it is those few with whom I sympathize the most - seeing that their coworkers are so aloof and capable of turning off those sentiments so they can get through the day. The cynic who cites someones else's doubts or difficulties as the basis for their own judgment and criticism of others and their own lack of compassion or empathy.... those are the nurses who would deal the final blow for me in the career. Those are the people with whom I could never tolerate working. Ironically, I have found some of these nurses to be just as likely to appear to take great pride in their career, and to have nursing ingrained in their identity, as any other nurse.... a professor from last Fall comes to mind... she was judgmental, cynical, and shockingly ignorant on not only the subject she was teaching, but on holistic health overall, not to mention she was clearly not dedicated to her own educational commitment... and yet she was so well established and popular in the profession locally. I might add that she was an N.P., presumably in an ideal position to help others to become healthy and influence others to live well, and yet she was about 350 pounds... an absolute fraud. Also last year, I observed nurses in action and got a reminder of what I had seen earlier in life when I had occasions to visit a hospital. It was the turning point for me in the nursing career idea.... when I realized I would be surrounded by that in the workplace. Incidentally, the 40+% of nurses who really do not like the career, and who plan to get out of it - whatever their reasons, obviously would not be well represented among the posters at this forum. I unintentionally influenced another person to pursue nursing school, only to then decide myself that it is absolutely NOT suited to my health, needs, passions, or personality... How I regret that influence, as I can see that she is even less suited to it than am I. Maybe some potential student, who is as ill-suited to nursing as I can see that my friend is, will see this thread and ultimately wind up choosing against nursing, and I will have helped someone! Admittedly my own original post smacks of cynicism and doubt.... what I did not mention is that I myself have an ongoing chronic health condition that makes further pursuit of nursing so unrealistic at this time. I need peace, relaxation, and a healthy dedication to my own health - time for these things not only every day, but every month, and every year - a life of things that nursing is so utterly non-conducive to..... need I say more? One of the biggest things I was doing wrong for my own health was the phenomenal stress of preparing for a career in nursing.... I took 44 credits in one year; no more work or effort than would be expected in nursing school or in most nursing jobs, and how I paid the awful price for that self neglect. Since I abandoned nursing, I can have my life back now. If I continue it, I might perish. Thank you very much to the people who gave the sincere and helpful feedback. For all who are sticking with nursing, I would like to remind each person of the profound, deep compassion and empathy, a refresher of which is required every day to see what really matters in such a stressful job, so heavily piled with complexities and rules that have no relevance to patient welfare. As a patient or a visitor, I am immediately reminded of the apparent absence of this understanding in the individual nurse, just as it is absent in the average patient. Healing takes place in the heart/mind of the individual and the social consciousness that influences their own.... not in a hospital.

I'll preface this by saying that I did not write this as a solid pragraph. Having spent some time trying to figure out why it's not keeping my breaks, I'll just have to go and post it as it is changing it. I have decided to post my doubts about a career in nursing. I will present a serious of doubts and drawbacks, and what I am after is some people who may dispel erroneous or self limiting cynicisms. I originally was attracted to three things: 1) The potential to actually help people find or maintain real, lasting health. 2) The high job availability & schedule flexibility, short contracts, etc.... 3) The compensation & related factors - traveling opportunities, bonuses, etc... Having learned more about nursing by reading about it, watching nurses, discussing it, living with a nurse, and so on, I have found #1 to be a total illusion. The only chance I would have to do this whatsoever in the capacity that I am talking about would be either as a nurse practitioner (would have its limitations as well), or in some sort of private practice or other private venture. It appears that any other position would be exactly the opposite of what I want in #1. I have found that the stress and various colossal drawbacks of the job (and the nursing school itself for that matter) grossly outweigh this factors of job availability or compensation. To be honest, I believe that the western medical community and entire health care system is an absolute disaster, more conducive to keeping people ill than to true health and healing. The entire system is designed to manage the mess that people make of their lives through living dangerously (smoking, bad eating habits, sedentary life, etc.....) as well as to deal with emergencies (which I literally could not deal with, due to the toxic level of stress that would put in my life). I thought I woould bring a different perspective and approach to the field of heallth care, and teach patients to live healthy, and show them a degree of compassion and patience and caring that is so woefully absent in America's health care system... But then I watched and listened, and realized that this is probably the same fantasy with which other people approach the career. Any such illusions are smashed on or before the first day of work. Having said that, I am having trouble imagining myself in a position where I run my but off dealing with an absurd patient:nurse ratio and working as what appears to amount to what I now think of as a sort of blood pressure slave..... monitoring machines, giving meds, managing pain, and answering patient requests and complaints as well as doing paperwork - all far beyond the limits of how much of this type of stuff any given nurse should be reasonably expected to deal with.... I have also noted that it is extremely obvious that the majority of the education required for the RN, while it SHOULD be extremely important to the job, is in fact totally useless or superfluous. When it comes down to it, the nurses job is comprised almost entirely of the above list of very exhausting and stressful chores..... Which I could learn how to do in a 1 year program..... doesn't require or justify 4 years of schooling - I've even heard that from R.N.s. Now do that in the typical 12 hour shifts from either 7 pm too 7 am, or from 7 am to 7 pm.... (I would never do either of those shifts, not for a day, let alone indefinitely) ...well let's just say that before we get too that final issue, I have already long since talked myself out of it. Sure, as a travelling nurse, I could make 40K in 6 months and take the rest of the year off to do whatever I pleased. But could I handle even one week of those 6 months? I consider the quality of my life on a day by day basis - I don't make myself suffer for 6 months at a time while looking forward to my time to do what I want. With all those obstacles I have focused on, I have to admit that there could be many opportunities where the majority of those challenges would not be present. These may make up only about 3% of al nursing jobs, but with such a ludicrous shortage, it would be inevitable I could get such a position. Take home care nursing, or administration, or starting a nursing registry, or even working in a doctor's clinic instead of a hospital. Sure, I could do something like that, IF I found such an opportunity before going insane trying to work in a hospital.... but even then, in no case is the registered nurse credentialed or legally allowed to be giving the type of holistic health counseling that I would like to provide. So, this suggests private practice as a nurse practitioner..... but that turns out to be quite a bit more schooling in nursing and much more of a long term, dedicated business venture than I am willing to commit to. I live with an R.N., and I have heard her complaining vehemently about that very shopping list I have mentioned, without me feeding any of this stuff to her first... That's saying a lot considering that she is a person who never complains about anything, or backs down from any challenge. She has just started in the job about 6 weeks ago, and she is talking about leaving already. She comes home looking so excessively exhausted and stressed that she literally looks like she was lucky to make it home at all. Her job is literally dangerous to her health, and too the welfare of her patients, and she is acutely aware of both truths such that she has nightmares about it and dreads going t o work at all. I just kind of nodded and sympathized, wondering how she could possibly have made it all the way into the first day on the job without having figured all that out ahead of the time. In fact, I had already figured out and foreseen the exact things she is complaining about, and many more, when I was only 1/2 way finished with my prerequisites. It's sad and pitiful to see her on her days off trying to talk herself into persevering and enduring, with optimism. In fact, the job is crushing her spirit and she needs to get out of it as soon as possible before she destroys herself or burns up 3 years of her life in that suffering. She talks about preparing for her future and so on.... what happened to the present?!?!?!?!?! Inevitably I can see that she will stay in nursing. She'll just keep suffering until she winds up in a position that is also terrible, but not nearly as bad as the the job she is at now.... Perhaps years into the future, she will have gotten into a relatively cushy job at the VA, or in some other unforeseen capacity that is low stress..... I can't imagine doing that to myself. I could see myself eventually doing something useful with nursing..... and it would also be very useful personally in caring for my parents or my own heath... The question is, does that make sense, and could I even endure the clinicals? ....... that was rhetorical... Indeed, I could work as an NP in my own office - just do medication management. But then, I would just loathe peddling medications to people who could drop them id they'd just live healthy, and wouldn't care at all for working in an office - to tell the truth, I'm an outdoors person. I have read that over 40% of all RNs leave the career entirely. For a person with health issues or other challenges going in to it, the career seems like a ludicrous choice, unless the person wants to stay on the academic side of things and just become a professor (where they will need 2-3X the education with about 1/2 the maximum earning potential..... and then they can take part in the system of instructing all that excessive material that I mentioned earlier.... Hmmm...... That's a no-brainer)

I have decided to post my doubts about a career in nursing. I will present a serious of doubts and drawbacks, and what I am after is some people who may dispel erroneous or self limiting cynicisms. I originally was attracted to three things: 1) The potential to actually help people find or maintain real, lasting health. 2) The high job availability & schedule flexibility, short contracts, etc.... 3) The compensation & related factors - traveling opportunities, bonuses, etc... Having learned more about nursing by reading about it, watching nurses, discussing it, living with a nurse, and so on, I have found #1 to be a total illusion. The only chance I would have to do this whatsoever in the capacity that I am talking about would be either as a nurse practitioner (would have its limitations as well), or in some sort of private practice or other private venture. It appears that any other position would be exactly the opposite of what I want in #1. I have found that the stress and various colossal drawbacks of the job (and the nursing school itself for that matter) grossly outweigh this factors of job availability or compensation. To be honest, I believe that the western medical community and entire health care system is an absolute disaster, more conducive to keeping people ill than to true health and healing. The entire system is designed to manage the mess that people make of their lives through living dangerously (smoking, bad eating habits, sedentary life, etc.....) as well as to deal with emergencies (which I literally could not deal with, due to the toxic level of stress that would put in my life). I thought I woould bring a different perspective and approach to the field of heallth care, and teach patients to live healthy, and show them a degree of compassion and patience and caring that is so woefully absent in America's health care system... But then I watched and listened, and realized that this is probably the same fantasy with which other people approach the career. Any such illusions are smashed on or before the first day of work. Having said that, I am having trouble imagining myself in a position where I run my but off dealing with an absurd patient:nurse ratio and working as what appears to amount to what I now think of as a sort of blood pressure slave..... monitoring machines, giving meds, managing pain, and answering patient requests and complaints as well as doing paperwork - all far beyond the limits of how much of this type of stuff any given nurse should be reasonably expected to deal with.... I have also noted that it is extremely obvious that the majority of the education required for the RN, while it SHOULD be extremely important to the job, is in fact totally useless or superfluous. When it comes down to it, the nurses job is comprised almost entirely of the above list of very exhausting and stressful chores..... Which I could learn how to do in a 1 year program..... doesn't require or justify 4 years of schooling - I've even heard that from R.N.s. Now do that in the typical 12 hour shifts from either 7 pm too 7 am, or from 7 am to 7 pm.... (I would never do either of those shifts, not for a day, let alone indefinitely) ...well let's just say that before we get too that final issue, I have already long since talked myself out of it. Sure, as a travelling nurse, I could make 40K in 6 months and take the rest of the year off to do whatever I pleased. But could I handle even one week of those 6 months? I consider the quality of my life on a day by day basis - I don't make myself suffer for 6 months at a time while looking forward to my time to do what I want. With all those obstacles I have focused on, I have to admit that there could be many opportunities where the majority of those challenges would not be present. These may make up only about 3% of al nursing jobs, but with such a ludicrous shortage, it would be inevitable I could get such a position. Take home care nursing, or administration, or starting a nursing registry, or even working in a doctor's clinic instead of a hospital. Sure, I could do something like that, IF I found such an opportunity before going insane trying to work in a hospital.... but even then, in no case is the registered nurse credentialed or legally allowed to be giving the type of holistic health counseling that I would like to provide. So, this suggests private practice as a nurse practitioner..... but that turns out to be quite a bit more schooling in nursing and much more of a long term, dedicated business venture than I am willing to commit to. I live with an R.N., and I have heard her complaining vehemently about that very shopping list I have mentioned, without me feeding any of this stuff to her first... That's saying a lot considering that she is a person who never complains about anything, or backs down from any challenge. She has just started in the job about 6 weeks ago, and she is talking about leaving already. She comes home looking so excessively exhausted and stressed that she literally looks like she was lucky to make it home at all. Her job is literally dangerous to her health, and too the welfare of her patients, and she is acutely aware of both truths such that she has nightmares about it and dreads going t o work at all. I just kind of nodded and sympathized, wondering how she could possibly have made it all the way into the first day on the job without having figured all that out ahead of the time. In fact, I had already figured out and foreseen the exact things she is complaining about, and many more, when I was only 1/2 way finished with my prerequisites. It's sad and pitiful to see her on her days off trying to talk herself into persevering and enduring, with optimism. In fact, the job is crushing her spirit and she needs to get out of it as soon as possible before she destroys herself or burns up 3 years of her life in that suffering. She talks about preparing for her future and so on.... what happened to the present?!?!?!?!?! Inevitably I can see that she will stay in nursing. She'll just keep suffering until she winds up in a position that is also terrible, but not nearly as bad as the the job she is at now.... Perhaps years into the future, she will have gotten into a relatively cushy job at the VA, or in some other unforeseen capacity that is low stress..... I can't imagine doing that to myself. I could see myself eventually doing something useful with nursing..... and it would also be very useful personally in caring for my parents or my own heath... The question is, does that make sense, and could I even endure the clinicals? ....... that was rhetorical... Indeed, I could work as an NP in my own office - just do medication management. But then, I would just loathe peddling medications to people who could drop them id they'd just live healthy, and wouldn't care at all for working in an office - to tell the truth, I'm an outdoors person. I have read that over 40% of all RNs leave the career entirely. For a person with health issues or other challenges going in to it, the career seems like a ludicrous choice, unless the person wants to stay on the academic side of things and just become a professor (where they will need 2-3X the education with about 1/2 the maximum earning potential..... and then they can take part in the system of instructing all that excessive material that I mentioned earlier.... Hmmm...... That's a no-brainer)

nursemomceo, you are saying that you get an extra 15% above base pay for floating, and this somehow puts you in the high 30's. are you talking about thousands per year, or dollars per hour? i ask, because it seems that base for starting rn in that area would not be as high as 34 or 35 an hour, which is what it would have to be for you to make high 30's per hour. hi 30's per year on the other hand would actually seem way too low.... is the base pay near tampa actually about 35 an hr?

Well, Med school would probably cost you at least 150,000 out of pocket and would take approximately 10-12 years from when you first start school, not to mention the extremely competitive and demanding entry requirements. Your ADN program you say costs you 20 K and they usually take 3 years total, and you pretty much walk in to it compared to med school. So this is the ultimate extreme "apples and oranges" comparison... Anyway, this post is way off topic, so I'll end there.

Some of this information sounds incredibly incongruous with the typical statistics and conditions in nursing around the country. It is hard to believe that there is a place where the abundance of nurses is so high that it takes 9 years to get a day job in a hospital, or you get paid 12-13 dollars per hr below the national average. That is to say, it is hard to believe when the shortages of nurses is so severe in so many other places, and the consequential easy availability of jobs and high pay scale are so starkly contrasting. If anything, I would expect the low pay and the severe unavailability of shifts (implying low job availability in general) to eventually result in a major nursing shortage there for obvious reasons. This info in this thread all doesn't make a lot of sense to me......

The question has been clarified now. I am a top advocate of "never say never", so that is merely an expression used for emphasis in this case. I can not know what I will be able or want to do in 2 or 3 years; I am merely trying to make a logical and educated preparation for my own future based on what I presently know about my life, rather than haphazardly trudging forward without panning or preparing for anything.

I posted this in the Cali forum also, in an attempt to get info about the situation there also, since that is probably where I would work after nursing school. I am wondering what are the commonly available shifts for nurses in Arizona, and in the nation in general. This is crucial to me, because I am starting a bachelor's nursing program in January and I need to know if I can expect to work at hours that will be congruous with my own life. Of course, I am talking about hospitals primarily here, but other considerations are noteworthy also. It seems that I have read (I think I have posted this question here before, last year) that the common shifts for hospitals (and maybe any other places, I do not know) are 7 pm to 7 am and 7 am to 7 pm. Neither of those shifts is even remotely acceptable to me. When I heard that, I just shrugged it off as unfeasible that the hospitals, etc... would limit their own pool of potential employees by only offering such terrible hours and I also could not believe that the nurses themselves would allow such a condition to occur. After all, nurses have enormous and unprecedented bargaining power right now... why would they accept such terrible hours as their only option? Long story short, none of the info I have on it has sounded very conclusive... and it has occurred to me that urgently I need to learn the truth of this matter. I may need to be able to start sometime from 10 am or later, and quit sometime by approximately 2 am. Is it true that most shifts in the nation would require me to work at those hours? What about alternative nursing positions.... home care, non hospital jobs, or anything else? Thank you for your help, J

I am wondering what are the commonly available shifts for nurses in California, and in the nation in general. This is crucial to me, because I am starting a bachelor's nursing program in January and I need to know if I can expect to work at hours that will be congruous with my own life. Of course, i am talking about hospitals primarily here, but other considerations are noteworthy also. It seems that I have heard and read (I have posted this question here before, last year) that the common shifts for hospitals (and maybe any other places, I do not know) are 7 pm to 7 am and 7 am to 7 pm. Neither of those shifts is even remotely acceptable to me. When I heard that, I just shrugged it off as unfeasible that the hospitals, etc... would limit their own pool of potential employees by only offering such terrible hours and I also could not believe that the nurses themselves would allow such a condition to occur. After all, nurses have enormous and unprecedented bargaining power right now... why would they accept such terrible hours as their only option? Long story short, I didn't believe it when I heard it, and none of the info has sounded very all-inclusive... It has occurred to me that urgently I need to learn the truth of this matter. I may need to be able to start sometime from 10 am or later, and quit sometime before approximately 2 am. Is it true that most shifts in the nation would require me to work at those hours? What about alternative nursing positions.... non hospital jobs, or anything else that you can think of? Thank you for your help, J

Thanks for the help! I've pretty much obsessively studied the book for the past week, and I also asked the AZ nursing board about which agency nurses report to for these types of issues, although as indicated previously, I don't believe that I had to provide that at all - it was mostly for my own interest. The assignment is completed.

When you feel like complaining, just think of how much worse things could be, and that should brighten you right up. If the patient is not at risk, then don't complain. If the patient is at risk, then don't gripe, just try to do something about it.

In other words the law is very clear, and not open to deliberate abuse. Good, all the more reason for me to try to live in California... Although that looks highly improbably based on all of my recent research lately which has shown me the extreme unaffordability of any place in that state worth living in.

Globe is a tiny desert mining town, last time I was there (3 yrs ago). Desert = no snow. The "pass" through the mountains into Globe is hardly a pass at all, and they barely qualify as mountains. Might get a couple inches of snow one day per winter, or maybe every few years. And I agree with that last post on community colleges... I think I may have griped about them not considering GPA recently, but that was just nonsense based on frustration. If GPA mattered at CCs, I would never have gotten into one in the first place, and that is how I got my first degree, which lked to my getting into a university. My CC did not even require a H.S. diploma - they gave you a GED after completing 24 credit hrs of the regular college classes. Once I heard of that program, I dropped H.S. immediately and went to college.

Ah hah... Never heard of that. I may look into it, ty.