andpeggy

Happy to help! Good luck in school!

This a good question; you are wise to look beyond NCLEX pass rates. I went to NHCC, and I can tell you that the completion rate is around 50%. My particular cohort started with 48 people and graduated 19. The program is a flipped classroom, where there is very little lecturing. It is very much a "teach yourself" program. Most clinicals were at North Memorial. I have several friends who went to Century and very much enjoy it. They feel supported by faculty. (I did not.) I think clinicals were mostly in the St Paul area. Hope that's helpful!

Addendum: kudos to you, OP, for reaching out EAP. It sounds like they were less than helpful. I see a therapist weekly and it’s quite helpful in terms of processing and creating strategies to deal. If it’s within your time/money budget, I highly recommend.

I’m in a very similar place as you (new nurse, off orientation for 3 months now), and I have found myself becoming angrier and more negative. I used to be Ms Sunshine/Pollyanna on my unit, but as the realities of the job and lack of support from management become evident, I got pretty dark. I gave into the anger, and that made me feel even worse. So, I’ve employed a few stratetigies to bring myself back from the dark side. (A lot of them involve lowering expectations.) 1) Focus on patients. It sounds so simple, and it takes me reminding myself a lot, but it seems to help. I truly love nursing work, but I was so focused on how the system in which I do the work was beating me down, which made me very angry. That served no one and just made for a miserable day. I can stand up for myself and my patients, ask for help and challenge assignments that might be too much for a new nurse, but at the end of the day, if my patients are safe, alive and feel cared for, I’ve done my job. 2) Ignore unit drama and gossip. This is really hard for me. I like being liked, I like being in the know, but I work with a lot of nurses who are (justifiably) burnt out and complain a lot. I listen when I can, but I don’t join in, and if I need to extract myself, I do so. Again, I focus on the patients. 3) I decided to start training for a half-marathon. I’ve been a runner for a long time, but running has more of a fitness/sanity thing for the last year. I realized that I need something outside of work to focus on, with achievable goals. For me, that’s training. But I think any hobby where you feel energized and successful can be good, especially when we feel so drained and not successful in our work. 4) Make it to lunch. As one of the posters above said, I’ve come to accept that the morning is crazy. It just is. I work 12s and I forget sometimes that it’s a long day and there is plenty of time. (I’ll even say that to myself - “there’s plenty of time.”) If I can make it through the 10 am med pass, assessments, doctors entering new orders, I’m usually OK. My new goal each and every day is just to make it to lunch. 5) Celebrate the wins. Write them down. I had a big catch the other day, and I was super proud of myself for noticing the change in condition. It’s so easy to focus on the things we do wrong or not quickly enough, but I guarantee there are things we are doing right. I hope this is helpful. You are not alone in feeling the way that you feel. I read somewhere that this kind of anger is common in new grads around the 4-6 month mark, and then comes back around at about 2 years. Sending hugs!

I think they had to recalculate everything, but I'm not sure.

Congrats to everyone on their acceptances! FWIW, the same thing happened to me with NHCC. When I received my denial letter on Tuesday, I immediately emailed my advisor, and she reached out to the nursing department. I followed up with them, and was advised that there was a computer glitch, and certain fields (like my GPA) weren't populating. I am so glad that I contacted them! I received my acceptance letter yesterday and will also be going to NHCC.

I'm in the same boat! And I'm leaving on vacation on Thursday - I'll be gone for 10 days! But my pet sitter has full permission to open all of my mail. :) Will they really send out letters on a Sunday? I'm assuming they'll mail them on Monday, July 16th?

Hello! I applied to NHCC with a 12.9 (4.0 and 89.3 on TEAS). Good luck to everyone!

Yes, I guess it is ironic that I continue wearing my supposedly orthopedically-sound shoes even though they cause pain. I guess I just couldn't believe that shoes that were supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread for those that stand and walk all day were actually the cause of my knee pain. Guess I'll go back to my high heels.

Old thread, but I'm glad I found it! I also have Dansko clogs, wear them all the time (I work retail, and am on my feet all day), and have been having medial knee pain lately. I'm also a runner, and for awhile I was worried I had a stress fracture. But then I realized that I didn't have any pain while running! I took a break from the clogs, and discovered that my knee pain went away. I love the way the clogs look, but I've realized I can't wear them too often.

Hello everyone, I realize that this will vary by state (maybe even county within state), but I was wondering if new grads can start as public health nurses? I'm beginning a post-bac nursing program that will allow me to apply for PHN certification. The more I read and the more I see, I think that this is most likely where I'd like to go. Thoughts? I'm in Minnesota, if that helps. Thanks! Lola PS--I did find some entry-level PHN jobs in Alaska via a Google search...including one that was north of Fairbanks! Awesome!

Have you looked for jobs in the Grand Marais area? It's a little south of the Grand Portage reservation. Grand Marais houses the Cook County Hospital/Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, and I think that there is a school up there...here is the URL for the local newspaper, the Cook County News Herald: http://www.cookcountynews-herald.com/ I think that they have job postings in there sometimes. Good luck! I absolutely LOVE that area, and it's my dream to move my nursing career to Grand Marais someday. As for the weather, it's cold and snowy, but it seems that many days in the winter, Grand Marais isn't that much colder than the Twin Cities. I agree that one should invest in some good long underwear, a good down coat and some heavy-duty boots. Layering and fleece will be your friends! Good luck!

DaisyMae, I've re-considered nursing as well, for similar reasons as you stated. (I also came from a corporate background--a very large corporation full of very young, super-ambitious people.) In fact, I came very close to swearing off nursing this week, and going back to the corporate world. What I realized is that the actual work of nursing means more to me than the actual work of of my old corporate life. Because of that, I can put up with all the bad stuff. People suck no matter where you go, or what you do, but if the work means something to you, then it's worth it. (At least, it is in my book.) Ultimately, nursing is way more valuable to me than finding ways to cut margin so that we can make plan. More interesting, too! Caveat: I'm not a nurse yet, just a nursing student and a resident assistant at an assisted living facility. These are just my thoughts, and the thoughts that keep me going when things get tough. Also, as one poster mentioned, people like to complain and moan and vent. They just do. I do, too! This is a safe space for people to do that, hence the abundance of honest and maybe negative posts. :)

Hey esunada! Gosh, sounds like you've been busy. Thank you for your reply up above. Most of all, thank you for your story about law school. It does help to have "permission" not to go forward, you know? Also, no worry about getting political. I think we're of the same bent. :) (BTW, you should read "Where Men Win Glory," the latest book by Jon Krakauer. It's about Pat Tillman, the war on terror...it's amazing. I learned a lot about Afghanistan.) Anyway, I'm still as confused as ever. But I've finally admitted to my parents, my husband and myself that this might not be what I want anymore. That perhaps the sacrifices to achieve this just aren't worth it to me anymore. I don't know yet, but I'll have to decide pretty soon. No worries about the coffee thing--we'll get there! Hope you have a good weekend. :)

Hello everyone, I'm in need of some advice. So, here goes. (I'll try to keep this short!) Hopefully I've posted this in the correct forum. I'm about to start a post-baccalaureate nursing program in January, after first coming up with this idea 6 years ago. At the time, I was a new college graduate, with an ever-so-useful B.A. in Women's Studies, and I was beginning to realize that I hated sitting at a desk for 40 hours a week and that I was already bored to tears with my chosen career in arts administration. (I used to be an actress/singer.) My mom happened to be going through some heavy medical issues at the time (two kidney transplants, and a bi-lateral hip replacement), and I became fascinated with nursing and with hospitals. I had the idea to go back to school to become a nurse, but money and time and my own insecurities and a bad relationship made me stop and start on this idea. I came close to applying to programs several times, and then talked myself out of it several times. At one point about a year ago, I swore off the career change, and told myself that the office world wasn't so bad.. And then I found out that I finally got into a program. I decided to go for it. So, I'm on the cusp of what I thought I've wanted for the last 6 years--I'm about to start a program, and I even left my stinky corporate gig and found a job as a resident aide at an assisted-living facility. The job itself is fine and I've been learning a lot. I've been there 5 weeks now, and I'm actually amazed at how quickly I've picked things up. What I'm really struggling with is the lifestyle change--I used to work the usual 8-5/M-F, and I had lots of time to see my husband, since he also works in an office. In my non-working time in my former life, I used to train for and run marathons. Now, my schedule is all over the map, working days, evenings and weekends, and I'm usually so tired I don't feel like running. (I know it may seem silly to some, but running used to be super important to me, and I hope it still is. I had a lot invested in my identity as "Lola, the crazy runner.") I knew that evenings and weekends and overnight shifts were part and parcel of the nursing working world (not to mention holidays), but I guess I always thought it would be worth it. Worth it to be doing something that you actually enjoyed, rather than watching the clock on your grey cubicle wall every day. Now I don't know. Am I really not sure, or am I just having a hard time to the change? It sounds terrible, but almost every day, I think about returning to the office world and schedule, and chucking nursing school and a nursing career AGAIN. (And maybe teaching yoga part-time.) But I know that deep down, I would be immensely disappointed in myself to not see this through. (Plus, what would I say to all of my friends and family? "Oh, yeah, I decided not to do that, so that I could run." That just sounds stupid.) And so, I beat myself up about my struggling with all of this. I think my poor husband is tired of me crying myself to sleep. So, here's my plea--any advice for how to deal with the erratic schedule and exhaustion? I especially appreciate advice from any second-career nurses out there, who maybe went from the office world to the nursing world. How did you deal with the transition? Do you ever wish you hadn't made the move? Has anyone gone back? Thanks for reading. :) lola