Why Community College?

When I started looking into this whole nursing thing, I had basically come to the decision that I wanted to move home. I was living out of state at the time, the only one of my family so far away, and especially since the birth of my first niece, it was really bothering me to be so far away.

Things had come to a screeching halt with my research career. Total melt down with my academic advisor, realization that academia really was not going to be a good fit for me (this article explains part of the reason: The Disposable Academic), and realizing that without my grad student stipend and no immediate job prospects where I was living at the time, it was going to be difficult to get by.

Nursing, and more broadly, the all-encompassing "health professions" were something I had considered in the past. I think I may have first considered nursing specifically in early high school, but my family basically told me I should do "better" and I moved on to other things. It is an idea I have revisited several times since then, and especially since starting grad school.

So when I decided that I was definitely going to pursue a career change, and narrowed my decision down to nursing, I started looking into the various training programs: The most efficient way for me to become a nurse at this point would be one of those accelerated BSN programs. I already have a bachelor's in biology, so I could enroll in one, and graduate all snappy like in 18 months, ready to search for my new job as an RN. The problem with that plan goes back to my yearning to be closer to my family; my family lives in a small-ish town, well-removed from any of the big cities where those programs are offered. Also, those programs cost upwards of 50 grand. Yes, I could take out a loan, and hope that whatever hospital hires me afterward would have a partial tuition reimbursement program, but geez... and there's also a lack of confidence issue there. I already chose one career, pursued it pretty doggedly for about a decade, and then admitted to myself it wasn't for me. I don't think that's going to be the case again, but if it is, I don't want to jump into a huge vat of debt right away.

Conveniently, where my family lives, the local community college has a well-respected ASN program.

The shortfalls are:
* it will be 4 years before I'm an RN (prereq's, application period, 2 year program)
* when I'm done I'll only have an associates in nursing
But on the plus side:
* it's cheap (about $2,000 for the 2 year nursing program)
* I can work part time while I'm in the program (not possible in the accelerated programs)
* the graduates are well-recruited by local hospitals from what I've heard
* I can stay local to my family (emotional and financial benefits)
* I'm tip-toeing into my new career field rather than diving, giving me opportunities to alter my course if necessary
* If I complete the ASN and then decide I need the BSN later, I can easily complete one of those online bridge programs (using my future employer's continuing education reimbursements) while working full time

Until I found local full-time work, I was somewhat doubting this decision, but I feel good about it now.

Hurrah! Employed.

Good news: I got the job! I start next Monday. They offered me $15 an hour, FT plus benefits after 3 months, etc, etc. The pay is less than I hoped for but should be liveable in the short term before I start nursing school. And, I'm pretty sure it is getting me the medical experience I need for my application. Plus, their lab is only 2 miles from my house so I should be able to bike to work, through the park!

I am relieved. And excited. And a little nervous. I went out and bought my first set of scrubs today @ Walmart -- hahah! I look pretty good in them if I do say so myself ;-)

After four months of working half time for student-rate pay I'm finally back on track again. Everything is falling into place. Whew.

Interview #2, pathology lab

Today's interview was checking out my practical skills. Pipetting, organization, following verbal directions, etc. I breezed through most of that alright. I did make one small mistake, spreading the bacteria around the first quadrant with the swab rather than the loop (I swear we did this regularly in micro class, maybe for lack of supplies)... and the woman who was checking my skills said she probably just forgot to say it. She told me I had done great at the end. I kept expecting there to be a trick in there somewhere, like a mis-match in labels or something that I was supposed to catch. But there wasn't anything like that. They had me talk to the lab manager afterward. He was already the main guy that I had spoken with during a phone interview for the same position last summer. He told me that the only reason they didn't ask me for a second interview then was because I was still out of state at the time. I really think I am going to get this one. He did say that my "salary requirements" (from my application) were higher than they usually pay new hires, but that maybe he could compromise some since I have an M.S. and most new hires do not. He said they usually pay new hires $15 per hour. From what I have heard, that is about the same as day-shift monitor techs make, so if he's going to come a little higher then there's no reason to complete the cardiac arrhythmia training right now. I do think that phlebotomists make more, which is a little disconcerting since the position I'm applying for *requires* a bachelors degree in science, while a phlebotomist might have only one semester at community college. Community college teaching would have been much better pay, but didn't work out this time. I hope hope hope I can get this job.

When I got home from the interview, which lasted about 2 hours (!), I had lunch, helped my dad with some home repair type stuff for a couple of hours, and then watched some online t.v. and took a nap. Since I've been up again I've been fairly antsy and industrious, getting all sorts of chores done. I think it is nervous energy.

Second interview next Tuesday

I had my interview at the pathology lab this morning, and it went very well. I did say "shitty" once by accident. I don't know where that came from; I never curse. Oops. I had said something like their company has a good reputation in the community, and they asked me about that, and I explained that when my doctor was having me get blood drawn, he told me not to go to the other lab in town because they were *bleep* compared to this company. I must have just been nervous or something. But I felt pretty comfortable talking to the 3 people that interviewed me and they seemed excited about hiring me, and maybe even moreso because I am planning on becoming a nurse.

After I came back home, a couple hours later I got a phone call asking if I could come in next Tuesday for a "hands on" portion of the interview. They told me this morning that this would be the procedure... they want to make sure that, in their words, "you look good on paper, you look good in the interview, but can you use a pipette?" So I'll have to make sure and be in a calm, precise mood that morning, and not have too much coffee!

I feel really good about this possibility. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed for now.

Job Interview = HOPE!

While I was upstairs doing some home repair type stuff this morning, a woman called from the pathology lab I just applied to a few days ago and left a message on my phone about scheduling an interview. I called back and we're going to meet tomorrow morning at nine. It is lab assistant type work, probably less pay than I made right out of college, but at this point sounds like an excellent opportunity. And hopefully would work as "medical experience" for my nursing school application. I won't be working with patients directly, I don't think, but it is a medical lab. So.... crossing my fingers and my toes, and ironing my interview pants (hope they still fit after my recent weight loss), and GOSH wouldn't it be nice to start the new year with a new job?!

Anatomy: Results In, Money Stress

So, the letter grades haven't been posted yet, but our teacher posted our points for the term online, and as it stands, my overall percent for anatomy is 89.3. Gosh, it would be nice if my teacher considered that an A-. I won't know until mid-January what she decides...unless I were to write her a pesky email, which probably wouldn't be a smart move.

I am stressed about money right now. I am single, childless... my part time job, since it's affiliated with the community college I'm going to, is "on break" until the 3rd week of Spring Semester, which means no income for me. In the mean time it's the holidays, and while I don't need to travel anywhere for Xmas, getting a few presents for family, stocking my new kitchen (I've been living for almost 5 months without one), etc adds up. I've got a *very* part time gig lined up to do some babysitting until my school job is back in play, but jeez, money is tight.

I think this is probably an issue for many second-career nurses going back to school. Per the rules of the California community college system, I am not allowed to get any scholarships or federal aid there considering I already have a bachelor's degree. I can petition to have the privilege to take out loans. Which I'm in the process of doing.

I'm going to keep going on my cardiac arrhythmia course (which costs about $120 to get the certificate for), and see if that can get me a monitor tech job. I'm taking phlebotomy this spring semester, so in another 6 months or so I could start applying for phlebotomy jobs, and I won't be taking any classes at that point, presumably for the next year, so I could easily work full time again. Somewhere over the next 6 months, I need to start earning enough money that I can start not only covering my monthly expenses again (instead of further diminishing my dwindling "emergency" fund), but start saving up for needing to cut back on hours again once I'm in the nursing program.

It has been about a week since the blood bank job closed, and I haven't heard anything. So that might mean I am out of luck. Or maybe (hopefully?) they just aren't interviewing until after the holidays. Please, please, please. I also saw that they are advertising for a lab tech type job at the same location, but I'm not sure I'm qualified, even with my extensive biology background. There are certifications that you need. More hoops to jump through.

Maybe people will give me gift cards for groceries, etc this year for Xmas.

Winding down Semester 1

The other night I was doing some calculations. For the ASN program I'm planning to apply for, they give you a certain # of points if you already have a degree, a certain # if you have career or volunteer experience in the health professions, a certain # depending on your score on the TEAS test, etc. And different categories of points based on your grades in pre-nursing science classes. These classes are Microbiology, Human Anatomy and Human Physiology.

I took micro about 10 years ago and got a B at the time. In Anatomy I'm right on the edge of an A/B right now, so that will hopefully be an A-. The way they set it up, if you had a 4.0 overall from these classes you would get 40 points, a 3.5-4.0 35 points, a 3.0-3.5 30 points... something like that. The way it works out, given I got a B in micro, if I get a B in Anatomy, there is really no point in me striving for the A in Phys (in terms of the application!) because I would already be doomed to the 3.0-3.5 bracket. Yes, I may be over thinking this a bit.

I took my last lab oral at the end of last week and got a 33/35. It was on the urogenital system. One of the points I missed was for not recognizing podocytes and slits on a model of the glomerulus of the kidney; I would have recognized them in a different context but oh well; that's still a 94%.

For the final, we are going to have 50 projection slides to look at and identify structures from the cumulative material this semester, and the remaining 100 multiple choice questions are going to be from the last segment of material: digestive, urinary and reproductive systems. I think I have a pretty good chance of bumping it up to the A with that final.

A job I applied for to work at the local blood bank as a donor care specialist closed 2 days go, so I'm hoping they will contact me for an interview next week. It would be full time work, which could be hectic with my schedule next semester, but really the only class I *have* to take next semester is the physiology, so I think it would be doable. Here's hoping.

I'm going to spend this afternoon studying for my anatomy final. I need to review the labs from this section, scan through the book for terms and diseases, work on the cumulative slide section, and review the lecture slides. I am kind of glad that my anatomy lecturer is not going to be my physiology lecturer.

Cause for concern?

I'm in a book club which is very casual and tends to have different groups of people showing up to the meetings once a month. At my meeting today, there was one lifetime nurse and one woman who used to be a nurse but is now a social worker.

It came up through the course of our conversation that I had recently left scientific research and was hoping to pursue nursing instead, and that the research world had really stressed me out, which was part of my reason for leaving.

The social worker woman was pretty...alarmed? that I would consider going to nursing seeking a lower stress job, and told me that 70% of new nurses quit and go on to other careers because of the high stress of the job.

I tried to verify this when I got home. Many articles referred to "poor" retention rates but didn't actually give numbers. In my brief search, the only number I could find was that about 30% *leave* (not the other way around). And it seemed like in a lot of the articles they were talking about newer methods of implementing mentorship programs etc to try to increase the retention rate.

I had imagined doing hospital work for maybe 5 or 6 years and then eventually transitioning out of that arena into a private practice, or school nurse, or something a little more low key. But I don't really know what to expect yet.

Family Reaction, Part 2

In my last post about family reactions I think I dwelt on the negative and didn't emphasize some of the positive feedback I got. For example, from my sister:

"I can totally see you being the best, most caring nurse ever!"

And let's not forget the friends...
From my best college pal:

"You would make a great nurse"

From a grad school classmate:

"i'd say do it!"

Somewhat negative response again from a college classmate that knows me pretty well:

"Nursing is a very rewarding career and I have taught many students who are now in nursing programs. You would be able to help many people and look back on a very satisfying career. However, your analytical mind might get bored with such a program. Not to put nursing down in any way, but you're a woman with a mind for deductive reasoning and analysis, both of which may be limited in the nursing field."

My reaction to that was: don't nurses use deductive reasoning?!

Anyway, in the end, it's just up to me. Pick a direction, move in that direction, if at some point it doesn't seem like the right path anymore, change courses.

Motivation Dip

It's Sunday night. Next week is the last instructional week of the semester and then there will be finals week. This Wednesday I'm scheduled to take my last lab exam, on the urinary and reproductive systems, and the following Wednesday night I'll be taking the final.

I haven't *really* started studying the urinary and reproductive systems yet. I need to put in some time on that tonight. For the last couple lab exams I have been trying a new technique: making myself some self-quizzing power points that go through step by step each structure/function/whatever I need to know. I've gotten really good grades on the last two exams this way but it is kind of tedious. Knowing it's a sure-fire method though, I want to stick with it, and I'd better get started.

So I'm trying to get myself re-motivated to buckle down and study.

I suppose there are the negative motivations:
-If I get a B rather than an A (both realistic options at this point), that might lessen my chances of being accepted into nursing school.
-It would be a bummer to not get the highest grade possible after all the other work I've put into this class this semester.
-Do first jobs in the nursing field ask for transcripts? Would they hire someone with more A's over someone with more B's?

Positive motivations to finish up with a bang this semester:
-picturing myself helping a patient down the road
-I am lucky to be capable of an A, so I should really do my best to get there
-bragging rights
-The more I can incorporate into my memory this semester during Anatomy, the easier Physiology should be next semester, right?
-If I do really well on this next lab exam, that material is only going to show up again on the final, so I might as well learn it well now.

Family Reaction to my career choice

My family has been for the most part pretty supportive around the idea of me transitioning toward a career in the health professions. Right now they're helping me keep a roof over my head until I can find work again, which is very much appreciated.

But there are some things that are nagging at me:

-My mom insists on saying "nursey-nurse" instead of just "nurse" when we are talking about it. I have told her I find this demeaning and disrespectful, and she didn't say she didn't mean it this way; she said "well how about if I'm allowed to say that about student nurses but once they get their license they become 'nurse'"
-My mom makes little comments here and there about it really would be better if your end goal were to become a nurse practitioner or a doctor, instead of "just a nurse". This isn't too surprising, as several years ago when I brought up the idea of being a nurse as a teen, she told me "nurses just wipe butt".
-My dad expresses concern that it will be hard to get a job as a nurse in our specific town, even though in general nursing jobs are easier to come by right now, because our town is a place where lots of people would like to live.


My dad's comment at least is logical and comes from a place of concern, but my mom's comments I really find distasteful and mean. I read somewhere that nurses (along with firemen) are one of the most trusted and respected careers in the U.S. Why does she have such scorn for them? And why can't she keep her mouth shut when this is something I feel good about and want to pursue?

Pre-Nursing Jobs

In talking to my pre-nursing classmates, many of them have part or full time jobs, some in the health professions. Right now I am tutoring biology and english part time. It's not really enough to live off of. Some of the jobs I have been either applying for or preparing to apply for, or some of my classmates are doing are:

-working at a blood bank
-phlebotomy (requires a small amount of schooling and a license)
-cardiac monitor tech
-medical assisting (usually after going through a 4 or 5 month program)
-ward clerk
-home health aide
-admitting clerk
-medical transporter
-certified nurse assistant (requires more schooling/training/testing)

I think getting a job at a hospital, where often 3 twelve hour shifts are considered full-time, might be ideal in working with my 3 day per week student schedule next semester. At this point though, I would be thankful for any full time job. Any pre-nursing or nursing student readers? What did you do to earn money or experience before nursing school?

Reading Material

These are some of the books I read before deciding to pursue nursing as a career. I also talked to people who have been nurses for a long time, some who are just a few years in as second career nurses themselves, and people in nursing school. There are a lot of great resources online as well, but some of these books (especially the autobiographical ones) gave me more information than I could find through google.

So you want to be a nurse? Fell's official know-it-all guide

On Duty: A Nurse's Notes on Life and Death

Nurses, by Michael Brown, R.N.

Nurse: The True Story of Mary Benjamin, R.N.

Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Life, Death and Everything In Between, by Theresa Brown

Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse, by Echo Heron

Condition Critical, by Echo Heron

Anatomy @ my local community college

For the last 16 weeks I have been studying anatomy at my local community college. My lecture teacher has a masters degree in physiology, and seems to "know her stuff" when it comes to the human body. She also works as a physical trainer on the side. She is not the best in terms of organization, or conveying information in a meaningful way, but with a subject like anatomy, I feel like it is really mostly the student's responsibility to jump in there and get to learning. We have an audio tutorial lab that we use. That means we go into this lab space, (there is a punch clock to time stamp our lab notebooks, which tracks how long we spend in the lab), and listen to another professor talking about whichever body system we are learning about for the week for 20 minutes or so. There are also photographs to look at on the computer, and a bunch of plastic models arranged on counters around the room. With a few exceptions we haven't looked at any real human tissue during the class. In the first lab part of the activity was to take a swab of cheek cells and look at them under a microscope. And there were some real (rather than plastic) skulls during the bone lab. But just about everything else has been a plastic model with color-coded parts. I guess it makes it easier to learn at first. Right now in the class I have an 89.5%. I feel like I should be doing better than that, given that I already have a bachelor's degree in biology. I'm hoping to bump that up to a solid A with the remaining lab exam and final.

It is a little odd, I guess, being *this* kind of student again. Before I moved back home and started this nursing track approach, I was a graduate student in marine science. I had finished my master's degree and was beginning work on a PhD. I'll write more about this later. But my day-to-day life as a graduate student at that point was very little coursework. It mostly involved doing research, writing, occasionally being a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course. So to be back in a 200 level course again, taking quizzes, memorizing structures, etc feels just very different.

Most of the other students in my class are women, and most of them are also pre-nursing. There are a few token males, and some students that are planning on trying to get into physician assistant school or other medical tracks. The age range, just by my own visual assessment, is anywhere from 18 years old up to 50-something. One woman in my class is just trying to get her LVN (licensed vocational nurse) degree so that once her kids are out of the house she can become a traveling nurse. Many are working full time and anatomy is the only class they are taking, although my carpool buddy, one of the younger crowd, is a full time student.

The nursing program and pre-nursing courses are very difficult to get into. I am driving about 40 minutes once a week to attend anatomy class at a satellite campus because none of the local ones were adding anyone. Up until a couple years ago, by my understanding, the actual nursing program was selecting students completely based on a lottery system. More recently they have transitioned to a merit-based selection criteria. If you already have some sort of degree, you get points, if you speak a foreign language, you get points, there are various point values depending on your pre-nursing science GPA, and how you do on the TEAS (test of essential academic skills) exam, whether or not you have recent experience in the health professions. I think I have a pretty good chance of getting in. I have been trying very hard to get a job in the health professions to help boost my admissions score.

If you readers have any thoughts on anatomy classes, what your experiences were/are like, leave a comment!

Getting Started

Hi everyone. I'm a 30 year old woman with a background in biology and I recently began pursuing a new career in nursing. As I write this, I'm nearing the end of my first semester of pre-nursing coursework. With nurses being in such high demand right now (and likely into the future), it is a career path that I am hearing about more and more people exploring. I would like to share with you as I learn and grow into this new profession, and hope that you will enjoy my thoughts.