Where to Study/Where to Work Boston area

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Hi everyone! I'm still considering nursing school after a busy year. We are settled down in Concord. I have a liberal arts BA & a master's in counseling psychology, so I'm hoping many of my pre-reqs will be taken care of. Here are my questions:

Where is the best training in my area?

Is there "status" attached to which nursing school one attends?

Does the school have an impact on the job -- i.e., what are my career choices if I go to a community college v. Northeastern?

Which area hospitals have the best working conditions? I'm interested in psychiatric, L/D or ER nursing.

Finally, how am I going to pay for this? While dh makes a nice living, we are 4 years away from dd's college and have other big expenses! I'm not worried about the long term, just the cash flow while I'm in school.

:uhoh3:

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Hi!

You have a background similar to mine. I went to UMass Boston. Almost all of my prerequisites were done. The only ones I needed to take were Chemistry I&II, A&P I&II, Nutrition, Microbiology, and Human Growth & Development. These were classes that I never took getting my BA, but if you did the school you attend might accept them. Also, I took all of those over the summer in 6 week sessions so they were done quickly.

In my opinion, there is no status attached to your nursing school. Now that I'm working as an RN, nobody knows where I went and nobody asks. I have heard that you get basically the same education at a community college, sometimes better as they focus more on clinicals versus class (at least, that's what I've heard). All I know is that I took out a lot of loans to pay for school, and I still didn't feel prepared for the real world. I don't think paying more money to go to a supposedly "better" school will make any difference. It definitely did help, though, having all my nursing clinicals in Boston hospitals. You get a lot of experience and are able to see the working conditions of the hospitals you go to. Plus, you can the floor nurses their opinions.

I don't work there, but I had my maternity clinical at Brigham & Women's. While it's not my cup of tea, the nurses there loved it and it was a really nice working environment. As for psych and ED, I'm not sure, but again Brigham & Women's has an excellent reputation for how they treat their nurses. There's always McLean's Hospital in Belmont for psych if you want to work in a psych hospital versus a psych floor in a regular hospital. I had my psych clinical there and it was amazing.

About paying for school, you have the option of taking out loans, which I did and am currently paying now. However, if you're willing to do the research I know there are a lot of nursing scholarships out there. You just have to look. Lots of times, nursing students aren't aware of them. I was lazy and unwilling to look around (which I am regretting now).

Good luck!

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Dear Pumpkin:

Thanks so much for your reply -- it's just what I was hoping for. The information about the Brigham and McLean's help as well; what wonderful places to experience. Would you mind taking a quick look at this program and tell me how is compares to UMass Boston? I like it because, among other things, it prepares one for the NCLEX after the first year.

http://www.umassmed.edu/gsn/academic/master/gep/

Where did you take your pre-req and did you take them all at once?!

Finally, I know there are hospitals that reimburse tuition: at what point in training will a hospital make a job promise?

Feel free to Email me privately to continue the conversation!

Babette

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