Accepted into Nursing school.....what to Expect?

Hi, Tori. I've noticed you've been posting about the nursing profession. I've looked up some information for you.

Here is a community for nurses and nursing students:

http://allnurses.com/

http://forums.nurse.com/forum.php

http://www.ultimatenurse.com/forum/forum.php?s=8734b3c83c...

And this one is a yahoo group for everything nursing.

http://health.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/AllStudentNurses...

I find that when I go directly to the source I get much better answers!

Tori, regarding the FAFSA, I assume that you have an unsubsidized loan. The interest rate is not low, and it starts from the time you take the loan - NOT when you graduate. If you can pay for the summer on-line classes yourself without borrowing, you'll save a lot of interest that way.

Also, if you can pay off some of the loans with tax refunds, etc, that will help as well.

I recommend that when you are on campus, stay on campus for the day. Become part of study groups - you will need that. You have to study very hard, and studying with the other students will really help.

Good luck!
Dawn

Hi, I didn't do nursing but did an education licensure and 3 endorsements in 2 years, and a masters for 2 years. I started when my son was in kindergarten. It was still rough having to study in evenings and summers were tough taking 2 online classes and taking care of kiddos. I won't lie, it will be extremely hard. A few tips, go to school five days in either the morning or afternoons to space out all the reading you will need to do. It's otherwise overwhelming trying to get the reading done before each class. Use the morning or afternoon to study or spend time with kiddos (consider naps, use evenings then for alternate). Save a ton of $ by taking "transient" coursework through the community college in the summers - you first get class(es) approved through your college, they fill out a form (check w registrar at either, depends on your school at which to fill out). Another tip about $, have you applied to privates? Many don't due to price tag. We heard that privates give out a ton of $ and they do. Our daughter is an entering freshman at a private and also applied at another. She is commuting as the one she went with is local, so that saves $10k/yr. But despite the fact that tuition was a full $24k MORE than the state university, we rec'd $22k in grant/scholarship money and $5500k in loan money. Ended up with the same price, better, hugely smaller university than the state university. Of course, you want to attend a school known for their nursing program, % acceptance into program, % graduates, so that should be the top consideration. Best of luck to you.

The FAFSA scores kinda tell the loan officers what kinda of loans & grants you qualify for... some of my schooling was all loans & out of pocket, some of it was grants & loans, and the last was grants & scholorships. It just depended on when I was in school - and it can change based on you FAFSA score each year & what the goverment sets the poverty rate at.

As for studing - my last main teacher (Medical Billing & Coding Program) told me to expect to study @ the same hours you are in class... meaning if you are in class 20 hours a week, study about 20 hours a week. I though she was nuts Ithink we all did - some of the classes were easy and I didn't have to study much... now when we got into the core classes I did end up following her rules! A&P and Medical Terms were very hard for me - I still struggle with them... I did find myself studing all the time with them - any chance I could get. My flash cards went everwhere with me... they even became my toilet reading - lol.

Being a student is harder when you have kids... I understand you hubby supports you in anything you do, but it is still harder with kids. I should know I have done it as just a wife and also with kids in the house. I have also done it while working 40 hours a week and as a SAHM - honestly I think the time I was a SAHM was harder then when I had kids and also worked 40 hours a week... I did have more quite study time when I worked & less demand at my job when I worked then I do as a SAHM. But I always keep the end result as my focus point when things got hard... it does help!

Good luck & congratz on being accepted into nursing school.

Oh, one last thing - before you put you money into a school... make sure it is a good school. You can look up the graduation rate and the rate of employment of graduated students on-line... make sure you get one that has both high ratings. More so the employment of the graduated... if they have a high rating through the department of labor - that means they are a well respected school in the feild and you should have better luck finding a job, where is if the rating is low - you may have a harder time finding employment since the community has issues with the school.