Working and School

Experience as a CNA helps. If you can work as a CNA part-time, that will help. I would advise you to let your employer know that you are interested in going to nursing school and see what assistance may be available. They may offer some tuition assistance. Nurse colleagues may be willing to teach you a great deal about the medications and treatments the patients are receiving, the patients' diagnoses and their care plans. This real-world exposure may help you assimilate the nursing knowledge and critical thinking skills you will need to become an RN. The job market for new RN grads from an ADN program is tightening. Having your foot in the door as a CNA can make a HUGE difference at hiring time!

Best of luck to you!

I would absolutely recommend working as a CNA (preferably in a hospital). I don't have kids, so I guess i'm not in a comparable situation. However, in my small graduating nursing school class of about 50, all of us who worked as CNA's had jobs by April and we graduated in May. Others are slowly finding jobs.

Definitely work as a CNA! I had a horrible experience with the hospital I worked at in spite of being a CNA there, so I have an additional piece of information for you. Don't just work as a CNA... do it on your dream unit. I got hired for inpatient rehab and I stayed there. Unfortunately, when my dream ICU interview came up, they rejected me because I did not have ICU experience and that was what they were looking for. If I had worked as a CNA in the ICU I am quite sure I would have been hired. All of the people in my graduating class who worked emergency or ICU as CNAs landed emergency/ICU jobs, but no one else did. With the vast amount of new grads out there, employers can be picky and only hire people who have CNA or nursing school experience in the area they are hiring for. Don't get me wrong, land a job first. Apply for anything and everything. Just make sure that you transfer into the department you want to work in as a nurse before you get your RN. It could be the difference in finding employment and not finding employment.

I would highly recommended that you find a job as a CNA at a hospital. I work as a PCT at the local hospital, end of July will be my 9th anniversary. Working as a PCT has really helped me out a lot in both lecture and clinical. During clinical I can normally get my head to tow assessment get my 0900 meds out and bath and change linens (bath and linen change without assistance most time depending on the pt) by 1000 while my other classmates need help and can't complete everything. Also I had a really good friend who started working as a PRN PCT the summer before her 4th semester and she just graduated this May and started got a position as an RN in an internship where she will become a ICU RN within one year. Even if you don't need to work for the money the experience you will get is priceless.