delawhere2006

Thanks, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Hi UH 2018 Cohort, I've been watching this forum, hoping I could jump in with some good news, and I finally can. Today, I got an acceptance letter for the AGPCNP program! I'm a mother of two who was a former English as a Second or Foreign Language Teacher, but I've been back in school doing pre-reqs and Nursing Assistant certification for a while.

I'm a former higher education instructor who is going back to school for nursing. My husband is completed his post-doc in engineering, so I feel like I'm might as well throw in my 2 cents since we've spend so much of our professional lives in academia. From my experience, the only people who care about having multiple degrees from the same schools are the extremely snooty-academic types. The same type of people who exclude candidates from non-ivy league schools or top programs in the country, anyway. In the grand scheme of things, I'd say that just about no one else cares if you get your undergraduate and graduate degrees from the same school. Yet, if you have ambitions of getting a tenured teaching position as nursing faculty at at a top-tier institution, it may be best to spread out more.

I am a former teacher who is both a stay at home mom and student slowly updating credits. I'm now in the pre-health courses which expire within a couple of years for most programs and need to figure out what plan on. I live where community college/and BSN completions are VERY affordable. There are NO legit accelerated options for me in state, so I would have to take 14 months away to study at CSU Pueblo. I have two little ones, so of course this would be a hard choice. However, in shaving off 3 years of nursing school, I think it might be worth it. Another factor is, of course, finance. I would really like to avoid private student loans and only qualify for $12,500 a year through FAFSA for federal aid. Can childcare be added? I qualify for a number of payback programs (rural, under-served care, faculty, etc) both federally and locally, but as a 30-something I've already been burned by student loans in my previous higher education. I hear paybacks can be very bureaucratic and am not sure if it would be worth it. Final factor that is worth mentioning is that my husband is supportive of any of this. Luckily he has a good salary that could cover our household expenses plus my local tuition. However, there's no way we could swing childcare, housing and the out-of-state/but reciprocated tuition in Colorado. I'm hoping that some one has lived this before? What are your thoughts? Advice? Much appreciated! Thank you so much!