What to do after school?

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I will graduate with my associates as an RN this spring and can't decide what to do afterwards. I have a job offer to work in my home town (of less than 1,000 people) at a hospital that does a little bit of everything, or I could stay here (two hours away from my family) in a town of around 30,000 people and choose to work at one of the two hospitals they have here. I also don't know what floor appeals to me more, even though I enjoy NTU and PCU. I have thought about doing float pool.

My dilemma is this: to accept the job back home I would end up moving back in with my parents and three siblings (which I'm not to excited about) and I don't know how much good work experience I will get there. If I stay here, I start paying rent after I get out of school and work for a much bigger hospital. I have been living here for 1.5 years and still have almost no support network--only one close friend, no boyfriend, and no one to hang out with.

I plan to stay here over the summer, but I need to make this decision by the end of June and plan in the mean time to do some volunteer work (ideas are welcome for this too). My other problem is that I intend to go back and finish by BSN and I need to find an affordable school. All the schools I have an invitation to attend are private colleges and with scholarships it will still cost me 11,000-29,000 to attend 1 year.

I guess a lot of my stress is that people keep pressuring me to know what i want to do, and I don't. My parents want me to move back home (I'm 19 by the way) and my clinical instructor asks me every week, twice a week what I am going to do, even though I keep giving her the same answer. It is causing me a lot of frustration (with myself) and anxiety. If any of you have suggestions or a way that I could look at this differently it would be greatly appreciated.

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Will your parents make you pay rent? If not, I'd take that. You can save money for your BSN program and graduate debt free, work in the small hospital for a year or so, and move on to bigger and better things. As someone who is in a similar position but a few years ahead, save, save, save that money!

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If you're going to be starting a BSN program right after you finish I think it would be a better idea to stay at home. Working full time and going to school will already be stressful enough you don't want to worry about paying a ton of bills on top of that.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Do you HAVE to move back in with your parents if you return home? Why can you not find a place of your own?

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