mya612

I worked full time as a phlebotomist for 6 years. The last 3 years of that time period I was in nursing school. I also picked up shifts as a CNA on one of the floors in the hospital I worked at. Phlebotomy paid better than CNA, but I didn't want to lose the CNA skills I'd acquired. I also trained as a Paramedic prior to nursing school (this was very early in my health care career when I was deciding between nursing and medicine). The phlebotomy training was before the Medic training and it helped my confidence with IV starts as a Medic trainee, and then further on as a RN. So...to sum up.. I started as an ED Tech doing CNA and Phlebotomy, then became a Medic, then transferred from the ED to the Lab where I worked as a Phlebotomist for 6 years, then I became a Nurse. To answer your question and to echo the sentiments of others - do whichever pays better as a full time and if necessary, do the other part time. If you decide to do CNA part time, make sure you get enough hours to keep your certification current. Sorry for the length of this comment. Good luck!

That's awesome! I graduated from Excelsior in 2017, took NCLEX in 2018, and completed my BSN at WGU this year. Currently travel nursing. Congrats on your graduation from UTA.

Thanks!

Thanks so much! It's reassuring knowing I have so many people rooting for me. Y'all don't know how much it means to me.:)

Thank you! I'm accepting all of the well wishes and prayers I can get. :)

I'm heading to Albany, NY to test at Albany Medical Center right now as we speak. I believe I'm prepared, but I'm going up a little early to take the one - day workshop the school offers. The best advice I can give anyone is read the ENTIRE study guide. You will know what skills they expect you to have, and what skills they won't expect you to have. Then, I suggest getting a copy of Taylor's Clinical Skills textbook with the DVD. I also found the Mosby's Nursing Skills DVD to be extremely helpful. Both can be found on Amazon.

Within 48hrs. It took 7 months to get a CPNE test date, and that's because I took a cancellation date.

I took them at the same time with no issues.

The LifeSpan exams are the hardest. I suggest taking the practice exams that accompany these and studying the rationales. I also suggest a really good NCLEX study guide with a CD so that you can make your own practice tests based on the material outlined in the Excelsior Study Guide for these exams. Regarding the CPNE - all of my paperwork was approved in February and I just got a test date the end of July for the end of September (7 months from application acceptance), and that was because I took a cancellation. If I had waited for them to assign me a date, I would've probably been testing in December (10 months from application acceptance). Good Luck!

Similar to some of the comments from other posters - I used StudyGroup 101 exam study guides for all of my exams and took both practice tests that are offered for the exams. I took 10 exams from February-September of this year and I am currently doing FCCA. I only got one "C" out of all of the exams. The rest were "A's" and "B's". I reviewed the study guides to see what material I already knew, then I took practice exam A to get an idea of what my strengths and weaknesses were. I focused the bulk of my study time on my weaknesses but I also reviewed material I already knew just to make sure I was thoroughly prepared. StudyGroup101 was my go-to resource because of its brevity although I did use the recommended textbooks as a resource. I also used NCLEX study guides to quiz myself on the information paying close attention to the rationales. I really like Saunders Q&A and their regular study guide, although I also have Davis' Illustrated Study Guide and Davis' Q&A. A few days before I was scheduled to take my exam, I took practice exam B to see if there were any areas needing further attention. With both practice exams I paid close attention to the rationales for the answers. I know this post is a little wordy, but I hope it helps!

I just read the email from the school! Yayyy! I'm glad they are keeping the exam only option available to students.

klone, I feel you. I got my MBA in Health Care Management from WGU last year, and believe me, by the time I was finished I was burnt to a crisp! YOU CAN DO IT!!!! If I, the eternal procrastinator, can do it, YOU CAN TOO! Take a couple of days to recharge your batteries. Talk to your student mentor. Revisit the WHY of you enrolling in the program. I promise, you WILL see the light at the end of the tunnel and be so glad that you made it through to the other side.

Me too! Nervous, but excited and ready to be done.:)

EBP - can't leave home without it. How often do I see in these threads regarding ADN vs. BSn that the BSN teaches a person how to use EBP? Or think critically? I knew about EBP before I started nursing school. EBP is not something "coined" by the nursing profession. As a matter of fact, if anyone has ever seen any documentaries discussing contemporary medical issues (such as "The Business of Being Born") they would have heard the term EBP and they would have understood the importance of it in our post-industrialized westernized medical model becaue EBP is something that is NOT often practiced here in the US. If anything, it's health care CONSUMERS that have raised the awareness of the need for Evidence-Based Practice in health care, especially with regards to womens' health. As far as critical thinking is concerned - I believe my years on this planet, being a wife and mother, having held a job since I was 15, and my other education has guarenteed that I think critically - though choosing nursing as a second career now has me re-thinking that.

Requires a 30 month commitment - if you leave the "Cone Academy" early, you could owe the hospital system up to $5000. After you finish the "Academy", you still have to apply for a position for employment with the department you did the "Academy" in. Just an fyi.

You Go!!!!

OP, perhaps people who are obtaining degrees online in other professions are having difficulty finding jobs not because they got their degrees online, but because of what they have their degrees in? I can tell you, as someone with a BS in Business and an MBA in Health Care Management, we are a dime a dozen, whether the degree was obtained online or at a B&M. Many US businesses operate overseas, therefore there is less need for the business degrees than there was in the past, and health care organizations are now wanting MBA-educated candidates to also be licensed. Manufacturing organizations primarily use engineers as their managers, which also reduces the need for the business-educated graduate. Our nation's gross domestic product is driven by the service industry (60% of the GDP), therefore those who are getting degrees that are tied to manufacturing/ production may have a harder time getting a job.

You must have gone to a really great school! Sitting in lectures having (at my age) slides from an overhead projector read to me didn't really give me the impression that I was having a lot of face-to-face contact with specialists, researchers, or clinicians. My education is comprehensive because I chose to be an active learner regardless of the instructor (thank goodness because I have had some horrible instructors in my educational history). Yes...we will agree to disagree on the "value" of face-to-face instruction. I put the word "value" in quotes because although you are saying you are willing to agree to disagree, the post you make still reads a bit smug - giving the impression that you dislike online learning, feel that there is no "value" in online learning, and that those who choose to pursue online degrees are lazy, cheap, unethical, and don't get their degrees from "real" schools (all of the above was surmised from reading your previous posts in this thread). However, we can agree to disagree, gladly!

I have learned quite a bit. I have a firm understanding of what it takes to manage a business enterprise as well as the ins and outs of our health care delivery system, the various health care delivery systems the world over, and the regulations governing them. I share this because you asked, but please understand that it is rude of you to ask me to justify my education and how I acquired it. What have YOU learned?

Oh, and I forgot to add: to imply (or say) that your schools were "real schools" because they were brick and mortar is an insult to anyone who has worked hard through an online or hybrid (online and brick and mortar school) curriculum. I believe the schools I received my degrees from were just as "real" as yours (and the regional accreditations they hold substantiate this). Did it occur to you that they, like myself, may already have college education or a college degree and that is why they are able to complete their requirements so quickly? Having completed my MBA in Health Care Management at WGU with it taking me 3 years, I can assure you that it isn't a diploma mill like you allege. However, because I already have a Bachelor's degree, it's very possible that I could complete a second Bachelor's degree from them within a very short period of time.

Again, that was YOUR experience and this is YOUR opinion...it isn't right nor wrong, it just is. with that being said, the positive experiences and the breadth of knowledge learned in an online environment shouldn't be negated and considered less than the experiences and knowledge acquired in a brick and mortar school.

Oh, and BTW, I know someone who went to a "real" school for their MSN (FNP) and needed me to help them structure their paper for their capstone which passed first review - me with my degree from a "lowly" online school like WGU.

Why are we arguing about different methods of learning? Everyone learns differently, and fortunately we are at a place in time that allows for different methods of learning. To assume that a degree is "second rate" as some posters have alluded to because it's not from a "brick and mortar" school is a bit snobbish. Furthermore, a person shouldn't go by hearsay when determining if a program has any merit or not. I have an MBA in Health Care Management from WGU and I can honestly say that it was an extremely rigorous program. I had case studies that needed to be completed - some as long as 41 pages, all using APA format and rubric, and there were objective assessments (Qualitative and Quantitative Methods stand out as being the most difficult for me because they incorporated Master's-level accounting and statistics but were very self-directed, therefore, you better know your math). I can honestly say that I worked hard for my degree and I learned a lot. It is presumptive to assume things about a program that one has no personal experience of. People that fly through WGU either have a significant amount of free time, are extremely intelligent and very good at writing, or, cheat (that's the worse-case, unethical scenario). Others, like myself, usually need the estimated time for completion to fulfill all of the requirements, which can be rigorous. We are suppose to be a site called "ALL NURSES" but it seems as though we still have those that want to establish a pecking order - ADN is better than LPN, BSN is better than ADN, I went to a "brick and mortar" school while the person over there got their lowly degree "online" so I'm better than them, blah, blah, blah....... To GrnTea: I'm glad you got a lot out of a "real school" where you had "face-to-face" time with peers and faculty. That may be the best learning environment FOR YOU. I however, prefer to not have someone read a PowerPoint presentation to me, or have to deal with classmates that talk all through lecture and then ask questions about material that was covered in the lecture that they missed because THEY WERE TALKING, or an Instructor who doesn't like you because you remind her/him of some person they didn't like when THEY were in school, or having to fit going to class in with work and family obligations. I LIKE learning independently and as long as there are reasonably priced online programs and I have internet access and a computer, then that's how I plan to further MY education. I learn better without all of the distractions and potential hidden agendas of a traditional classroom environment. I hate that this was so long winded, but I think it would behoove us all to respect the various learning styles that are out there and what each learning style has to bring to the table. Thank you.

What do you mean by that? I was clarifying the entrance requirements for the poster I previously quoted. After reading this entire thread, I have a few comments to post of my own: 1. avengingspirit1 and BostonFNP - why can't we all just get along? :) 2. Learning can take place in a variety of venues - brick and mortar, online, traditional, non-traditional - it doesn't matter. We have as many different learning environments as we have learners. No two people will learn information exactly the same way. 3. MunoRN - every state has different licensing requirements. Although there are several states that will not allow licensure by examination of Excelsior graduates, only ONE state will not allow licensure at all and that's California. Excelsior's ADN program has been in existence for a very long time (since the '70s) and the school has been awarded the ACEN (formerly NLNAC) School of Excellence award several times. All of this push for more education, advanced education, traditional education - when will it end? We still pay more for health care than most other post-industrialized countries and have poorer health outcomes - even with all of this focus on education a technology. I'm not knocking anyone's educational background, but I do think it may be time for the US health care delivery system to start evaluating the care we are providing - from Doctors to CNAs. Everything is becoming top-heavy. Doctors want to be specialists, nurses want to be advanced practice nurses. All of this is leading to higher health care costs and unimproved patient outcomes. Nursing should be extremely cautious with establishing fragmentation within the profession. We can achieve much more collectively than by fighting amongst ourselves. Furthermore, the AMA has always had the stance that no one should do what a physician can do - hence the backlash against independent practice of APRNs. So, while everyone is pushing for "higher education and higher credentialing" maybe we should look at the current curriculums in place and see why we are falling behind other post-industrialized countries when it comes to health care costs and patient outcomes.

Yes, you do have to already have a clinical credential (LPN/LVN, Paramedic, Respiratory Therapist, Licensed Midwife) to get into Excelsior's program. A CNA does NOT qualify for their program, nor does a Medical Assistant or Radiologic Technician/ Technologist. In essence, the credential you need to get into the program has to have required you to do some level of clinical assessing and intervention.