What to do after nursing school?

[jasminesmith45]

Hi,

I am currently a nursing student in Oregon working towards my BSN..... I have about a year and a half left and I'm truly really struggling trying to figure out what to do. I know there is a lot of knowledge to gain after graduation so I don't want to limit myself to a certain patient population. I'd like to be somewhere diverse like general medicine or the ER but i've heard of so many different kinds of hiring processes for new grads. Should I look into a nurse residency program? that seems like a good route to me but are they hard to get into? I also live in a vary small area and would like to move to a bigger city but everyone tells me I should work at the hospital I do my senior practicum at to gain experience? is it really that hard to get a job as a new grad with no previous work experience. I'm more curious about the new grad residency programs, but from what I see online they are pretty competitive. I've been looking at teaching hospital residency programs because I'd like to continue on to get my masters but the statistics don't look promising (nursing school was hard enough to get into). I have a high GPA but not very much work experience and I'm just lookin for a little advice:)