What I Must Do

As I'm about to head home for Christmas, I decided it would be best if I can manage to not look like an idiot in front of my parents when I explain how smart it was to quit law. The first thing I had to do, to that end, was to look into what exactly is needed to apply to nursing school. Specifically, I needed to look at the first step of the process - taking (and doing well in) the prerequisite courses that I never took as an undergraduate.

This didn't seem like a daunting task at first. Medical Schools and Law Schools all have similar requirements. The application requirements for college were pretty standardized as well, but that's not the case here.

Each school has its own idiosyncrasies. Some schools require a course in theology, while others require one in ethics; some require a course on abnormal psychology, while others explain that a course on abnormal psychology will not satisfy their psychology requirement. Some schools don't even require the GRE, while others require it only if your GPA is below a certain mark. I looked at seven schools to get the information I have. Based on it, I'm assuming that the more schools I look at, the more oddities I'll run into regarding prerequisites.

Complaining about this won't help me though, so I went through my information to see what courses a majority of schools did have in common. This is a nice starting point - and some schools don't require any more than the courses in this list. I compiled this (really) preliminary info from a set of schools I'd be interested in attending based on geographic location or reputation.

• Human Anatomy and Physiology (A Year of Each, Including Labs)
• Microbiology
• Nutrition
• Lifespan Development (Also Called Human Development, or Developmental Psychology)
• Organic or Biochemistry
• Ethics

Other common requirements include things such as ~6 Hours of Humanities, 9 Hours of Social Sciences, etc. Nearly every school requires a basic course in statistics, but I'm not listing it since I got that done as an undergraduate.

Note: To be fair, I'm only looking at schools with (at a minimum) an accelerated BSN program (and I'd prefer the ones with accelerated BSN programs that immediately flow into MSN programs). It's possible that these programs are partly responsible for all the differing sets of requirements.

Something not required, but very strongly encouraged, is experience working in health care. I'll try to look into possible volunteer positions when I go home for the holiday. I'm worried that it will be tough for me though, if I need to take these prerequisite courses and find a paying job as well... but I'll see what I can come up with. I'll also talk to admissions officials at a few schools back home, if I'm able to get appointments over the holidays. That should give me all sorts of good information on getting started. Until January though, I'm off~ Happy Holidays.