busylady61

I basically have to take all of the pre-req's. I'm not enrolled in anything right now for the spring semester. And I don't think I can get them all out of the way this summer during my summer vacation (I am a teacher.) But I am at least going to get a head start. In the meantime I have been accepted into the Orlando Tech LPN part time/evening program that starts this August. :w00t: So I am probably going to go the LPN route just because I am impatient and I want to get started *now*! LOL .... Then later I will bridge from LPN to RN, or possibly I will go straight for the BSN transition program at UCF, because I already have a bachelors degree in another subject. But SCC sounds like a great program....

I would be careful with that. What if the school doesn't pass the accreditation process by the time *you* are ready to graduate? This happened in Orlando with Barry University law school. People enrolled and started taking classes for their law degrees. But it took years and years for the school to finally get accredited because they kept failing the accreditation process by a few points. So when the first few classes "graduated," they graduated from an unaccredited law school. This screwed everything up for them and they were not even able to sit for their bar exams. By the time the school was accredited, the state of Florida required those first students to go back and take additional classes, because when they had graduated originally, the school wasn't accredited yet. Meanwhile these students had up to $50,000 in student loans to pay off. It was a huge, huge mess. Like I said -- I would be extremely careful in making this decision. Would you be OK with paying all that money and graduating with a useless degree, and then waiting a few months or even years before the school became accredited? There is always that possibility. Everyone at the school may be telling you that the accreditation is just a formality, but nobody has a crystal ball. Personally I would wait for a school that is already accredited. There are a lot of them out there.

Don't feel bad, I didn't notice the dates on those posts either until I got to the very end and saw the moderator's comments. LOL My eyebrows went up too when I saw someone say you could get a house here for $120,000! :roll :chuckle :smilecoffeecup:

I hope it will work out for you. Someday maybe you will be a preceptor.... and you will be the kind that everyone hopes to have.

Reading some of the posts on this thread has given me strength. I am currently working 50-60 hour weeks as a public school teacher; and am scheduled to start night school for LPN this fall. I have been very apprehensive about the idea of how I would juggle the school work with full time teaching demands. But I see now that others have done it, and so can I. Thanks for all of the great stories that were shared here. You are all such an inspiration. :typing

I passed the NET reading/math sections with flying colors. I bombed the "test taking skills" part. ("frustration" level) Ha! Let's see if the powers that be can figure that one out. .....

I agree... think twice about where you end up buying. The coasts are where a lot of the insurance increases are taking place because the coast takes direct hits during hurricanes. I am in Orlando and not in a flood zone.... my house insurance is $1,100/year....

Good point, Cococure. I used to work in HR/benefits and was directly involved in posting job openings .... I saw from the inside that many times, the job requirements are a wish list. Employers claim they want X years of experience and X degree, and often they settle for far less than that because their fantasy candidate never materializes.... If you really want a certain job, throw your hat into the ring and you might be surprised sometime that you get a callback... Good luck!

Cassiesky, do you know when the program filled up? I would love to go straight for my RN through this program, but it's doubtful I would be able to get through all of the prerequisites in time to apply. I wish they started it more often than once a year in January....

You are smart to be making this decision when you are still so young. Good luck!

Thanks -- you are right! Thanks for the reminder. I am trying to stay focused on that. This is going to be a great year. Just think, by the end of this year, how much more progress we all will have made toward our goals. Plus along the way we will learn more and more about **nursing** and becoming professionals (or pro's in training) in our new field. : ) Happy new year, everyone!

I am relatively new to this, but based on my research, the only way you can get out of the pre-requisites is to go straight to LPN school. All you need to get into LPN school is to pass the NET (nursing entrance exam) test and a couple of other exams maybe. Now if you want to progress from LPN to RN, then yes, you absolutely will need to take pre-requisites and there is no way around it. Hope this helps, good luck!

Ladybella, I am in the same boat. I would love it if I could just afford to quit teaching this May, and go straight to work for a hospital. I haven't really researched this because my sense is, it would be difficult to match my current teaching salary with an administrative type job in a hospital. If you find anything out, please post it here and let us know! : ) In the meantime I am planning on staying in teaching while I go for my LPN at night school. It will be rough balancing night school with full time work (really more than full time work --- we all know that teaching is **not** a 40-hour a week job!!) ... but it's the only way I can figure to do this. Hopefully I will graduate LPN school in January of '09, and quit teaching in May '09. That's two and a half long years off. Oy vey....

:groupwelcome: As a fellow teacher who is pursuing a career change into nursing, may I just say HEAR, HEAR! :yelclap: We teachers are very familiar with 12 hour shifts. Unlike nurses however, we only get paid for 7 or 8 hours of work on a 12 hour shift. And, I am up to here with buying supplies for my classrooms. I don't want to figure out how much I've spent out of my own pocket on copy paper, ink cartridges, pencils, folders, file cabinets, books for the classroom library, literacy supplies, books on tape, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum over the years. The answer would be depressing! :angryfire Someday when I leave teaching, I can probably put all of that stuff on E-bay and make a small fortune. Although nursing surely has its share of challenges, at least nurses are getting paid to deal with their challenges. Personally, I am going to have to block out two or three days of my Christmas vacation to catch up on report cards, grade books and lessons. I don't know of any nurses who catch up on patient charting at home during their vacation time. OK, getting off the soap box now! Happy holidays everyone! :icon_lol: