UW ABSN vs. BC ADN

kelseykelsey4 · Jan 4, 2015

I say get it over with in one fell swoop. It's easier to find a new grad job with a BSN. Is your husband working full time? If you have a lot of support for your baby I think you should go with ABSN. I did an ABSN program and nursing school sucks either way. Better to just get it over with and be more marketable. I had people in my class with children and they made it work.

tulipsweeti, BSN, RN · Jan 4, 2015

My husband does have a full time job with regular hours so we could make it work between him and my teenage son with our little one. The ABSN program is considerably more expensive but its shorter so it would allow me to get back to work faster.

I have read those in ABSN programs have no life outside of school. Did you feel that way?

kelseykelsey4 · Jan 4, 2015

Yes you can have a life. You need to have balance or you will go crazy. It's not as much free time as you had before but if you schedule your time well it doesn't have to be consumed by school. Also, study SMART not hard. Study the material and then do practice question to make sure you "get it". I had tons of classmates that studied way more in depth and details than I did and lived in the library, and we got the same grades! It's going to be hard but you'll figure it out.

My school had a system were you had a "buddy" in the cohort above you. That was really helpful because they told me what stuff was like and how to study for certain classes, etc.

fujibug · Jan 5, 2015

I am an older student with three children and I did an accelerated program for my nursing degree. I did manage to have some life outside of school. I won't lie--it was intense (and my first degree was in a very competitive field... of course I was younger and unmarried and childless that time!). I didn't have the leisure to surf the internet, be on Facebook, watch Netflix, etc. I saw my kids so much less, especially on weekends. I still did the afternoon after school homework and dinner routine with them, but after that my evenings/nights were homework and I spent most of most weekends doing paperwork for clinicals or papers (I could not BELIEVE how many papers we had to write in nursing school). Any free hours I had between classes on non-clinical days were spent doing school work. I did still make time for special occasions out, an occasional lunch with a friend, that kind of thing. I would not have made it even the roughly 16 months that it took for my BSN if I had not managed to find some breaks for myself here and there.

I did not seriously consider a route other than a bachelor's degree because in most areas now (especially in urban areas on the west coast), the hospitals are phasing out hiring of anything other than BSNs. Some here in the Portland, OR area now say that a BSN is required for external applicants (they are grandfathering in internal applicants for whom it is "preferred"). It's hard enough to get a job as a new grad, I wanted to give myself any advantage that was reasonable. I also knew that I would be burnt out and not want to go back to school right after getting my RN (and then be working, have the kids, maybe occasionally talk to my husband , and then go to school on top of it? I know lots of people do it, but I'd rather do the big pain up front and get it over with).

Good luck!

tulipsweeti, BSN, RN · Jan 6, 2015

@fujibug thank you for sharing your experience. I would love to ask you some follow up questions if you dont mind.

How recently did you graduate? How long did it take you to find a job following school?

I am very drawn to the ABSN but I know how competitive the UW program is - so trying to consider all my options. But I will be leaving a good paying job as the breadwinner of my family to follow my passion to help others - so trying to get back to a salary ASAP is a great perk in addition to UW's amazing training and faculty. I am definitely leaning towards the ABSN!

fujibug · Jan 6, 2015

I graduated in August in a different state and have not yet found a job. The job market for new grads in this area is very tight. Every single person in my cohort got a hospital job pretty much right away (in the state where I went to school), many even in a specialty that they wanted (children's ER, regular ER, etc.). They have all been employed for months. Another cohort just graduated in December and everyone I know from that cohort already has a job (again, some even in specialty areas like critical care). The school that I went to is well known in that area as a good program and the graduates are sought after, but the market is just different, too. I have been applying ever since my license transfer came through here in WA, but have not had even one interview until the new grad program that I applied for (haven't found out yet if I will get a job that way--it's extremely competitive). Of course, I don't know anyone here and that doesn't help. But also, the hospitals here just don't want to hire new grads. And I suppose they must be able to afford that luxury and have enough experienced nurses in the area to draw on or else things would change.

Sorry to be a bit of a downer! But I think that it's important to have a realistic picture. I think that if you search around here on allnurses, you will find many people in urban areas in the west saying the same thing--that the job market is terrible for new grads.

tulipsweeti, BSN, RN · Jan 6, 2015

@fujibug - thank you for the heads up. Where in Washington are you based?

fujibug · Jan 6, 2015

I live in the Portland, OR metro area. A friend from my nursing school back in the other state is planning to move to Seattle and originally thought she might right after graduation, but when she figured out how bad the market is for new grads, she decided to stay in our old state and get at least a year of experience first (or if she can get into one of the new grad programs up in Seattle first, she might move earlier). That's why I doubt it's any better in the Seattle area. I know that it's a problem in California as well. It's all over the internet that this is a problem despite the general perception in the public that there is a huge nursing shortage and it's super easy to get a job as a nurse. I read a report a couple of years ago about how few nurses graduating in the San Francisco Bay area are getting hospital jobs (or even jobs at all).

Which is not to say that you should not go to nursing school if that's what you want! I did anyway and when I first decided to go back to school, I was living in a state where it is hard to break into nursing as a new grad and I was aware of that. Just something to consider as you're figuring out the pros/cons of your current situation versus going back for nursing. I do think that eventually the glut of nurses in some areas will ease because of the demographics of the nursing work force currently and the projected demand. Though of course we can't know the future and I could be wrong about that.