rickmoss

Interesting twist here -- I find that the Australian Army and Navy both have a Graduate Nursing Program that takes new graduates into their ranks and gives them a pretty wide range of experience (probably not a lot of aged care or mid-wife experience however). Also, the pay is pretty good. Higher than the some of the hospital grad programs I've checked on. Surprisingly, the age limits are pretty high -- you can be up to 56 years old when you enter the program.

Great advice -- both of you. I'm embarking on a pretty drastic career change here so I want to go into it with as much information as I can assimilate. Thanks!

Thanks -- I was misinformed about the Graduate Program. I won't start classes until March so I don't have any instructors to harangue about this kind of stuff until then. Maybe you can clear up another area where I MIGHT be confused. I'm a recent immigrant to Australia (ten years back) so I'm not that familiar with how things work. I will "eventually" be working in Victoria so my questions are Victoria specific. In Victoria I believe they refer to Registered Nurses as Division One Nurses and Enrolled Nurses as Division Two. I also believe (I've been told) that upon successful graduation of my Bachelor of Nursing Course, I will be able to register with the state as a Division One or Registered Nurse without any further training. However, to find suitable employment in my chosen field -- hopefully ER -- I should voluntarily pursue a Graduate Program for at least a year during which I will be paid -- just not very much. Is that a fairly accurate picture?

Hi, I will be entering my BoN program in Fall of 2011 and I have a question. When I finish -- 3 long years from now -- what jobs would I qualify for? After looking at the job postings for Victoria on the major nursing employment sites. The one recurring theme is EXPERIENCE REQUIRED. The only listings I can find with the keyword "Graduate" is for Graduate Nursing Programs where I pay to work somewhere for at least a year. Will I spend three years in school and clinicals only to find myself unemployable?