AmazingJason

I have admired the detached, yet simultaneously compassionate professionalism from nurses I've observed in the handful of instances I've been in a hospital setting. However, I never really considered actually entering the profession until the past several weeks. In my last career, I was an entrepreneur in investments/trading; it was my first love and I had some great times. But after 4 years of volatility, social isolation, and feeling as if I've contributed to nobody but myself, I quit. And I felt like a typical, confused college sophomore again. What really helped was taking a Myer-Briggs personality test (I'm an ISFJ). While it possesses its fair share of critics, I found that it pinpointed my personality well. Now, I understand why I loved my last profession; it went a long way towards fulfilling my I, S and J. The reason I quit was because it didn't do much towards fulfilling my F. Now, I needed to find a profession that would fit my personality type and my life situation. Nursing was the best choice. Despite all of well-documented cons of being a nurse, the duties and the nature of the job itself is a perfect fit for my personality. I spoke to my wife who's in the medical field, and a couple of her friends/acquaintances who are nurses. And the more and more I researched the numerous and differing specialties within nursing, the more and more fascinated and excited I became. Perhaps if I were younger or had a higher GPA, I might have tried to shoot for being a physician in general/family practice, but being a nurse is great option in of itself. I enjoy the notion of taking care and being a guardian of the patient. Even if direct contact is limited because of short staffing and what not, I know that I would do everything in my power to perform and fight for proper care, just because it's in my blood to do so. I'll just sacrifice a couple years of my lifetime to deal with the stress

Thank you for all of your replies. I will be returning back to NYC over the weekend, and hopefully I'll catch the nursing advisor on the 20th in a good mood :) It's been an extremely difficult time as I'm worried about this career change and starting from scratch, entering into a long-distance relationship with my wife, and having no margin for error in the grades for my pre-reqs. Also, the constant negativity on all of the forums concerning horrid working conditions, unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios, lack of staff support and supplies, abusive school instructors/doctors/patients/families, and the high risk of burnout isn't exactly reassuring Sometimes, I feel strong and that I can achieve my goal because I know I'm a bright and determined person, and other times, I feel scared of change and the notion that I may eventually transform into a jaded, burned out and hateful nurse. But alas, I trudge on.

On Tuesday, I attended the Open House at BMCC and acted diligently with anyone and everyone to obtain the precise information to make a decision. Eventually, after several nerve-wracking hours of running around, making a thousand inquiries to a thousand people, and consulting with my SO (significant other) who's working in another state, I decided to accept an on-the-spot admission and processed a transfer application. The next day, I went to Baruch to perform a transcript request and returned to BMCC to verfiy my residency and immunizations. Now, I will be traveling back to my SO, and come back to NYC just before registration starts. Thanks, opt, for the information and the reassurance. I did know about the stipulation where I could perform a one-time removal and replacement of transfer credit. Ultimately, that's why BMCC is the best choice for me (I earned a C in Psych at Baruch). However, I'm still a wreck because I don't know the exact process by which I can utilize this benefit. Opt, do you know how to perform the request and when you have to do it? My transcript is still on the way to BMCC and should be there at the middle or end of next week, and registration is on August 20th. Everyone I've spoken to keeps telling me to speak with the pre-clinical Nursing advisor, but he/she is not returning until August 20th at 11 AM. My current strategy right now is to call Baruch and BMCC several times during next week to verify that my transcript was sent and received, go to BMCC the Friday before August 20th to evaluate my transfer credit, see the Nursing advisor on the 20th at 11 AM, and hopefully, I can register for the Psychology course. Hopefully, everything works out. I still feel incredibly anxious because registration is still up in the air. And afterwards, I'll have zero margin for error in the grades I earn for the pre-clinical courses. My strategy right now is to study my ass off, study when I wake up and before I go to sleep, take essential notes from the book and class, sit in the front of class, attempt to answer every question posed by the professor, consult with the professor periodically on my status in the class, ask if there are any extra-credit assignments I could complete, and do as best I possibly can on tests and papers with the ultimate goal of scoring As on them. It is absolutely imperative that I do well because I cannot return to Baruch (their regulations ban me due to the transfer to a 2 year school) and I will have given up everything I earned there to do this. I feel as if my entire life is on the line right now because I'm not a spring chicken anymore (past my mid-20s), and honestly, I have zero idea what I'm going to do if I can't get into a nursing program here or somewhere else.

I am going to visit admissions offices at several colleges, as well as open houses over the next several days. I'm going to push anyone and everyone I can for the right information and answers because I'm scared that I'm not going to take the next correct step in getting where I want, and that I'm going to waste more time, effort and money in the process. I've made enough mistakes at Baruch; I don't want to make any more. I guess what I'm worried about is that let's say I transfer to a school like BMCC and I do my pre-requisites, but I still have my low GPA and it prevents me from being accepted. Do I just sit there and just wait? I wouldn't have a problem transferring to another school, but does the same thing happen there? I don't want to just keep bouncing around, constantly transferring between schools. I don't know. I'm researching a bevy of schools and trying to figure out the logic behind the admissions processes and so forth, but I increasingly feel alone, lost, confused, and more discouraged with time. I'm going at this on my own, which is why I posted here. I am hoping someone could assist me in whatever way they could in making sense of everything. If nursing is an unrealistic endeavor because of my grades, then so be it.

I've decided that I want to make a career change to nursing. However, I have issues concerning my academic resume that, from research and what I've read in this forum, may be huge barriers from entering the field. I haven't been to school since 2005, and I have 71 credits earned at Baruch College, but with a GPA of 2.345. Baruch is a business school that does not offer nursing, so I would have to transfer to one that does. However, from all I've researched, it seems that my cumulative GPA is a tremendous barrier. Even if I remained at Baruch and raised it into the high 2s so that I could transfer to another CUNY, my GPA would still be too low to qualify for any of the nursing programs at any of the community colleges or Hunter College. At Hunter, it would seem mathematically impossible for me to transfer and then get accepted into the Generic Pathway by the Fall of 2008. At that point, I thought that I would transfer to a CUNY CC, but then I hear about long waiting lists and needing perfect GPAs to even be considered. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? Is it possible and would I have to just completely start over college?