Guvner

Kingston General is apparently doing this to save money. I remember reading a news article that explained they would be using more RPN's in order to help bring their budget under control and after talking with someone I know who is an RPN student she said they are doing it, but being very quiet about it. Financially it makes perfect sense for the hospital to do this, RPN earn less money and can do depending on the hospital policy most of what an RN can do.

Just got accepted to St.Lawrence College Kingston for the RPN program.

I've noticed the jobs are not as readily available now as they were a year ago, but keep in mind there are a few years of school before the job hunts starts so you never know what the market will be like. Historically its a high demand job. So since my thread was bumped up I figure I would update my situation...why not eh. Well I started the New Year off with losing my job, should have seen it coming, but I didn't so school is clearly the only route for me to go. I did apply to St.Lawrence College's Practical Nursing program in November since I have the courses for it and its easier to get into that than the BScN program, I'm just going to go that route with the option of bridging in the future. So for now I'm just going to live off EI, cross my fingers and hope I get accepted to school and see if I can get financial help with the Second Career program or something similar.

Depending on where you are there is a part time program through Centennial College in Toronto. http://www.centennialcollege.ca/rpnbridginghybrid take a look, it might work for you allowing you to work FT.

Centennial College in TO has a part time/distance RPN to BScN bridge program, but they ask for a high GPA to get in.

I'm kind of in the same boat, and ended up deciding to apply for the RPN course instead knowing that I could bridge later on if I wish. The good thing is that the RPN course is 2 years, less tuition so you can get working in half the time with less debt, work for a year maybe and then bridge if you want, either go back to school or do it part time. My concern with the BScN was it was 4 years to commit to, university tuition costs and its very very competitive to get into whereas I have heard that the RPN courses are not as competitive. Either way I don't think you can go wrong, sure BScN on paper is the way to go, but RPN to RN is a perfectly good route to go.

I had a nice conversation with a friend of a friend on Saturday night, she is a 2nd year RPN student. She really opened my eyes about being an RPN, I had always pushed that idea aside because stubborn me only wanted to go for my full RN or nothing at all, but finding out more about the RPN course it seems that I just might persue it. Only having to commit to 2years and half the tuition cost is much more appealing to me plus I always have the option to bridge to RN should I feel it necessary in the future, not to mention I would only need 1 more pre-req rather than 3 more for BScN. On a side note I did look into the skilled trades and for example to be an electrician apprentice because of stiff competition I would have to go to school for 2years anyways just get some electrical engineering background just so that I could have a better chance of scoring a job

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. This morning I had an interview with Kingston General's volunteer auxillary, it was something I had booked weeks in advance and it was to help me decide if nursing was what I wanted for not. Walking to the hospital seeing all the Queen's students made me uncomfortable, the thought of going to school with these people was not appealing to me, then in the hospital I again felt uncomfortable and out of place. The interview went fine, but I was realizing that this is not something I want to do anymore. Someone mentioned if you are passionate about it you will suceed, well the passion just isn't there for me anymore now that reality has set in. I should mention something else here, ever since I decided to pursue nursing in June 2008 after deciding I needed to get out of my job that was sucking the life out of me life has been very stressfull. We went through so much uncertainty, first I wanted to apply for Sept 2009 but realized that was too early, we decided to move to Toronto so my wife could pursue more career options in a bigger city, tried to sell the house which never sold after 1 year, dumped money into renos to make the house sellable, still never sold, discovered selling the house would leave us with $10,000+ in mortgage penalties. I lived with constant stress and anxiety thinking am I going to get into school? are we moving or are we staying? could I stand living in Toronto? how can we afford it? what if I don't get into school? what will I do? how can we handle this debt while in school? can we handle the mortgage penalty? so many questions. Living like that for me was horrible and I know my wife was not happy with that either since it was all about my ambitions. I really just want to get far away from that kind of living and school will just extend that stress and anxiety for 4 more years. I realize that yes its only 4 years, but that is an eternity when you have to live through that. Now I realize the skilled trades will take some time to get into and it will be a pay cut at first, but the sacrific is far less. I'm still reluctant to walk away completely from nursing since its been my goal for the past 18months, perhaps I'll keep it in my back pocket, but its unlikely I will go that route. I know its sad but I love the idea of not having to do anymore of my pre-req's, chemisty is next up and I hate chemistry, its really hard for me to understand that stuff, to walk away from that would be a relief for me.

Kingston,ON

I completely understand your thinking, at the start I was thinking just the same, 4yrs for a lifetime result, but now that has changed. No longer is nursing the only answer to my career troubles, when nothing else was out there I was willing to go through school, perhaps I was naive in the beginning thinking school was going to be a breeze, but now that the trades are an option and something that interests me the idea of school and nursing in general is not as appealing. Not to mention what I know of nursing is only what I have read so whats to say after school that i will actually enjoy it, on paper I should, but reality can be much different. I have tried to shadow a nurse, but the hospital won't allow it, what I am doing is trying to volunteer at the hostipal to at least get a taste of life in the hospital. Perhaps that will help me make my decision.

Hating school is one part of it, I think my biggest worry is that life as I know it will change significantly so living the life that I have now become used to will be largely gone for 4yrs, it will change to a students life which scares me. If I could keep everything just as it is and the only change was no job and school instead I could make it work, but either I'd have to win the lottery or my wife you have to land a job paying double what she is making now. I've starting doing to career/life coaching and finding my values is one of the exercises assigned to me and as it turns out "freedom" is one of my values and that will be lost while in school and thats even IF i can get into school, I know its very very hard to get into nursing school.

I posted this in general nursing a month or so ago and got no feedback so I thought going more local would help. So my story is that I'm a 29yr old male, married, homeowner, 2 dogs and no kids yet, now for the last 18months or so I've had my heart set of nursing school and had been slowly working on the prereq's to even apply for school, 3 almost down and 3 more to go. I was passionate about it and happy that finally I could pursue a career that I wanted to do and not that boring office job that I needed to pay the bills. My passion for nursing gradually faded and finally about 2 months ago I was presented the opportunity to apply for a skilled trade apprenticeship job, now I never did get a callback on it, but it got me thinking. I like the trades, I like working with my hands and I'm good at it, but never considered a career in it until now. Now this is where you put yourself in my shoes. I still want to be a nurse, the job itself focuses on many of my values mind the shift work, but the road to get there is the concern. My wife and I have a mortgage, a house that we keep dumping money into and a large $30,000 line of credit debt mostly from our home that we are slowly trying to pick away at. Financially for us to afford me in school we would need to take on 2 roomates, we have 1 now and its working great, but another one not sure, and I would have to work a part-time job. That would put us in the green, but tuition would need to be borrowed:cry: adding to our debt. After that comes the fact that I hate school, I'm not an acedemic and that can already been seen in that I hate doing my prereq courses, sure I'm doing great in them (mid 80's), but its a chore for me to do. Reading is something I have little interest in too and the idea of sitting through hours of lectures bores me. The thought of school stresses me out sometimes too. Lastly is the fact that we would like to have kids in a couple years, but we don't want to have to wait 5yrs until we can, I'll be 35 by then and all my friends are having or have kids. Forgot to mention that I likely won't be able to have the time nor the money to keep with my love of mountain biking, that is a big bummer too. In general I'm concerned that life will be hell, money will be a constant stress, no chance for a vacation or newer car or anything thats not a neccessity and unexpected expenses are going to hurt ( 2 dogs means lots of vet bills, $1500 surgery 2 weeks ago), with a part-time job and full time school I don't see there being any freetime and I worry about my marriage in the long run too. Not having the chance to start a family is a concern too and just the overall feeling that life is on hold until school is done it going to be a burden. So when I think of all that the idea of getting into the skilled trades seems like a much more attractive idea, now I realize going into that field will be no easy task, pay cuts and starting at the bottom is a concern, but its doable. My goal is just to have a job that is a challenge and keeps me out of an office environment. So what would you do?

I feel as if I've reached a crossroads with regards to my planned career change and was looking to get some opinions. My situation is this, I'm a 29yr old male, married and for the past 18months I have been working on changing careers from something I absolutely hate to something that I could enjoy, after lots of research I found nursing (last June) and haven't turned back since. There is a lot about the profession that attracts me, the challenge, variety, the chance to help others and make a difference, great job security, etc etc, I certainly understood all the hardships involved in nursing from the the disgusting stuff you have to deal with to the backstabbing co-workers and none of that bothered me as I realized it was a small price to pay for a rewarding job. So I have been working on getting my pre-req courses, I have almost 3 done, but plan to redo one to up my mark, I will admit working full time and having to deal with life in general has made it hard for me to focus 100% on my pre-reqs so it has taken over a year to get just these courses done. Everything was going as planned when just this month I was offered the opportunity to apply for a job that interested me a great deal, its an apprenticeship in a skilled trade and it was at this point that I realized I really enjoy that kind of work too. This got me thinking about a lot of things, but primarily CAN I HANDLE 4 YEARS OF NURSING SCHOOL? do I really want to be in school for 4 hard years? at first I was crazy gunghoe on doing this, school was not a concern as I was passionate about it and nothing was going to stop me. As an academic I was never a strong student in HS, I would much rather do something with my hands or physical than sit in a classroom for a 2hr lecture or spend hours reading a book, by the way I have only ever read one book cover to cover in my life, The Great Gatsby, I just have such a short attention span when it comes to this kind of stuff. Reading stories of how hard nursing school is and how much reading your instructors make you read weekly, plus the high rate of people getting kicked out or failing freaks me out now. Then there is the concern that I need to work minimum 20hrs a week, plus my wife and I need a roomate in our house just so that we can make ends meet, living like that for 4 years is going to be mega stressfull as we will no doubt rack up $1000's in debt. And then on top of this all our friends are having kids now and finally I think I'm ready for kids, but we couldn't until I'm done school. Now I know this job I applied for will very likely amount to nothing with the high amount of applicants (fingers still crossed), but putting that aside I now feel like going into nursing school will no doubt end in failure and that I should instead focus on skilled trades where I can get paid in an apprenticeship and continue on with my life. I posted this here because I wanted to hear from those that are in school now and that perhaps someone else came into school with the same thinking as me.....I feel like I'm rambling on, any opinions would be great. Thanks