Spent four months in a CNA program that cost me about 400 dollars not including gas and child care. Spent three months working as CNA only to get laid off. Luckily a friend referred me to the local community college where I found out there are many health care degree options. The financial aid office was wonderful! They guided me through the process. Not only are my education and books being covered by Pell Grants, but I because I'm a full time student I qualify for subsidized child care. Which put my son into an amazing 4 star Preschool that I could never in a million years have afforded on my own. I wish I had known about all of that before or I wouldn't have wasted the year or so on CNA. I'm taking Medical Assistant because I really love the field (and in NC we can do so many things like give injections ect) but I know many people taking Radiology, Health Information Technology, Med Lab Tech, Respiratory Therapy, all of these are wonderful choices and many people are doing one of them, getting the prereqs out of the way while they are applying to an RN program. So now I've got a pretty much useless CNA license and a year of my life that I will never get back. I'm posting this because when I got started I heard time and again that many people, esp single moms like me, don't realize how much there is out there to pay for education and transform ones life.
