Prereq's

Ok...let's try and play catch up. So I decided that dental hygiene was out and nursing was in. Nursing will provide me with the opportunity to help all different kinds of people in need. Plus there are so many different areas that you can specialize in: pediatrics, L&D, trauma or surgery. But this change in majors also required change in prerequisites. Almost all the prereq's I took for DH - I didn't need for nursing. This is where the frustration began.

Once I really began to focus on nursing I became elated! I was finally focused and excited about what lied ahead for me. And like any other time in my life when I am focused on a task..I AM FOCUSED!!! It consumes me! So I started researching nursing schools in the area to find out which one I'd like to go to. Now we add in more frustration. I knew I wanted to go for m BSN. There would be no associates degree for me, getting a job, and then going for my BSN. I wanted it now. The BSN was the goal!

Let me explain I'm not new to this college thing. In fact I think I had 7 years under by belt before I started up again...1.5 years at MSU (where I didn't live up to my potential) and 6 years at LCC (where I thought I knew what I wanted to). All this and still no degree. I wasn't about ready to put my name on a waiting list and end up waiting 4 semesters to get into one of the local community colleges and only come out with an AD. I mean I've been working so hard on my school since January 2007 (that's when I came out of college retirement) and I'm even a member of the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. It was BSN all the way!!

As my search began I found 3 schools in the Phoenix area that interested me and they all offered a BSN. The only problem...each school had their own set of prereq's!! "Are you freaking kidding me?" was I all could say? I could see this imaginary road that I had paved out in my mind was not going to be traveled without running into some road blocks. HUGE road blocks. What does a person do in this situation? I'll tell you. You make a pros and cons list of all the schools. A list that includes accreditation for each school, the cost per credit hour or block, student-teacher ratio, time to complete, length of waiting list, location, and more importantly the classes left to take in order to apply...and then anything else you can think of. Then once you have your list...you review it...hang it on the wall and throw a dart at it. Where the dart lands is where you put all your efforts! What other choice is there? We can't go and take all the prereq's required for all 3 schools. Once the dart was thrown or the dice were rolled, I put all my eggs in one basket and picked a school...I now knew what I needed to focus on...or did I?