What I Would Do Differently If I Could Go Back to Day 1 of Nursing School

(upbeat music) - What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Katie Cleaver. Today's episode is going to be all about what I would do if I could start nursing school all over again. There's so many options with becoming a nurse and the different professional goals and where you could end up. So now that I am 15 years, been a nurse for 15 years, if I could go back to before nursing school, which would be almost 20 years ago, what would I change? What would I do differently? And so those of you who are getting ready to start a nursing pathway, maybe your kid is, or someone you love and you're like, I don't know what advice to give this person. I'm so overwhelmed with the options. Let me answer this question of if I were to hop into a time machine and talk to 2004 version of me, what advice would I give myself? So let's start with what I did do. And I'm not throwing shade past me or like how stupid I was for not doing X, Y, and Z, but let's, you know, the future me could learn from this. So what I actually did when I was in high school, I did not know what I wanted to do when I grew up. I hadn't, I had ideas, but wasn't, I was not proactive about like what could, what are different ways that I could earn money and not hate life, right? I don't know. I think I had a romanticized view of professional life and that this, the right thing would just kind of unfold in front of me and I didn't have to put in this like active effort to find something I enjoyed doing and something that earned money and what I could find that overlapped. I still had the, and I guess that was the early 2000s where it was like college still was like a guaranteed job and that kind of thing. Like, oh, everybody goes to college and there's, you know, the internet of course was a thing and, you know, very prevalent, but, you know, YouTube was in Facebook were just coming out. Like these online entrepreneurs were like in their infancy. So that was not like an active option back then. So I wish high school me would have been actively looking at different things that I could do. And I would hope I would have come to nursing. And if I did, I would have worked as a CNA in high school. I had some like high school jobs, I worked as a lifeguard and stuff, but I wish I had gotten into a hospital in some capacity. You know, whether that be, you know, a transporter or something like that where I'm in a hospital getting used to what it looks like to work in a hospital. What I did do was none of that in high school, my high school jobs was being a lifeguard and which was, you know, a little healthcare, I guess. I don't know. And then when I started, I went for a traditional state school. I almost played basketball right out of high school in various colleges and toward different ones. And then ultimately decided I don't wanna play. Let me just focus on school. I decided, yeah, being an elementary education teacher sounds great. I never shadowed an elementary education teacher. I just like guessed, okay. So then I go to a state school, Illinois State, ISU. And I went there and did a semester. I lived on campus and hated the courses that I was taking. And also felt like I was not really ready for that. And I decided, let me pull back here. I don't wanna spend, at that time, $12,000 a semester trying to figure out what I wanna do. I wanna take cost-efficient courses while I figure out what I wanna do. 'Cause oh, now I actually have to figure this out. So I decided to go back to my hometown and go to a community college and take Gen Eds and then see what I liked and then transfer to a four-year school from there. And nursing sounded like a good idea. I liked medical stuff and I liked teaching. Let me put those two together. Maybe I wanna be a nurse. So I decided to go to the community college and take the prerequisites for nursing school. And I started to really like them. And then the next year the basketball, women's basketball coach recruited me. So I played a season there while I did prereqs, loved it, did some summer school. So I got an associate's in applied science at a community college, which I really liked. I really like the fact that it's getting cost-effective education directly from the person who has a PhD in that topic, which I was kind of thrown back when I went to the state school and I had TAs teaching me and who were not like experienced in teaching. And I had a really great experience getting my Gen Eds done at a community college. Anyway, I then decided to go to Iowa, Wesleyan University out in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, which is now closed. But I went there because I could play basketball and do nursing at the same time. Again, sounded like a good idea. I knew it was gonna be busy, but hey, I was gonna do all the hard work and I could do it. I got there and I couldn't even finish a semester. It was waking up at 4.45 to make it to a 5.15 practice and practice for conditioning for two hours before I started my 8 a.m. class, falling asleep during the day and then having a three hour practice from whatever it was, seven to 10 p.m. Like, and then traveling and then trying to coordinate game schedules with clinicals was just, it was impractical. Like, game schedules and clinicals didn't work. And when I'm not going to various games because I'm at clinicals, couldn't really do that. So I ended up quitting basketball after that first semester and then stayed there. Did my, finished my BSNs, took me five years to get my bachelors 'cause when you transfer into a four year program, usually, you gotta do three years. So I transferred in and I did that, graduated from there in 2010. I worked on a cardiac med surge floor, step down kind of thing for two years that I moved and I worked on neuro ICU for four years. Then while I went back and got my master's in nursing education, I went PRN, or wait, I guess it was PRN, but I worked like once a week back at that unit I started on. And then ever since my son was born in 2018, I have been full-time with Fresh RN as a self-employed nurse educator. So that's my, like, career. Let's go back to what I would do if I could start all that over again. CNA and high school, absolutely, would have done that. Early experience, more confidence, foot in the door kind of thing. Then what I would have done instead of going that traditional BSN route, I would have gone to the community college that I actually ended up going to for, that I ended up going to for those prereqs, they have really and still do, have a phenomenal ADN nursing program. So I would have gone to that program, probably graduated, 'cause it was, you know, I'm 18. I don't have anything else going on in my life. Go, you know, balls to the wall, get that done, do summer school, do everything, get that done in a couple years. And then I am working, I'm in the workforce. What would that be three years earlier? So I'm paying, I don't know what tuition would have been back then at that school, but it's a community college in two full years. Maybe it might have taken me two and a half, maybe three, I don't know, 'cause that's a pretty intense program to do that all in two years and past the end clicks. But let's just say, let's say three years, let's say when I'm 21, so I'm getting in the workforce two years earlier. And back then when I started as a nurse, I was making $45,000 a year. So I'm making $45,000 a year, two years earlier. So that's $90,000 more money, right? And then the ADN degree is much more cost effective than the BSN because it is the two years. It's like half the time, you're at a community college. So I don't, I wish I had done them ahead of time, but I spent whatever it was on my BSN, and I went to, you know, went all those steps, right? I went to three different schools. I went to the private, now I did have a basketball scholarship, but it wasn't a full scholarship. And I only had that the first year. I had to pay for two years. And I say I had to pay for it, my parents did. And now as a parent, preparing to like help my children as they enter the professional world, oh my gosh, for them to not take loans out, for me being at this private school, you know, incredible, incredible amount of saving and financial planning. And one of the reasons is my dad took out a lot of loans when he got his bachelors and he did not want his children. It was me and my sister. He did not want us to be paying school student loans when we were 30. So it was very important to them to have this like savings account for our school. Oh my gosh, like what a sacrifice, what a gift. So I'm very humbled and thankful for that. So I know that's not the norm. I know I got an incredible gift. But if I had done that ADN step that I'm entering the workforce two years earlier, and if I'm paying for it all myself, I mean, I know my parents that that could have absolutely afforded that. But I think that's something that I could have taken out loans and that been reasonable, okay? So I'm getting in 90,000 earlier, right? I'm making 45K a year because at that place that I worked in a lot of places, the ADN nurses make the same as the BSN nurses. Then what I would have done, I would have looked at my employer and said, "Hey, do you work with any BSN completion programs that you offer discounts to?" A lot of hospitals will have partnerships with various colleges and will say, "Hey, if you go here is 10% off, 5% off, we'll waive the application fee." There's some sort of benefit by going with one of their partners. Now back in like early 2000s, 2010-ish, that the RN to BSN programs that are all online or not all, but almost all, mostly online, they weren't, we were just starting to do hybrid classes and things back then to provide education online. So that wasn't as fully implemented back then, but still like, I'm 20, like I could go to a BSN completion program in town. And not only could I get a discount by going through certain schools, I could also get tuition reimbursement from that employer. I can't remember, it was like something like three grand or something back then. And you do have to say, "Yes, I will work at this hospital for a certain amount of time after I complete this degree," which I think is a reasonable thing if they're gonna pay for some of your school. But then I would have probably still graduated with a BSN in less than, in five years or less, but would have been in the workforce two years earlier and it would have been a much more cost effective degree. All right guys, I had to pause and just run those scenarios through chat GPT because I really wanted to see what is the actual cost so of those two pathways because what we look at often is how much tuition is, but then we don't also factor in lost income. So if you have a degree that enables you to enter the workforce earlier and therefore earn money, as opposed to I'm just solely paying out money, it really makes a big difference. And if I had gone to the ADN route, I would have lived at home and as much as an 18 year old really, really doesn't love to do that, if I were to lay out the two costs like comparisons as frustrating as it would have been to live at home, the amount that I would have saved and the debt I would not have had to take on, it's astronomical. So back then, let me just show you or I guess walk through it. The ADN program back then was about 6,500 per year. So I probably would have spent around 13 to 15 K on that program ADN wise back then just on tuition, but I would have stayed at home and focused solely on getting that degree done. And then I would have made $45,000 working right away. Then RN to BSN bridge programs from the 2008 period. Tuition rates vary, they look, it looks like, I don't know if this is accurate, but for all intents and purposes, let's say I did a, it says $650 credit hour, assuming a 38 credit program would be 19,000. I don't know, I don't know if that's accurate, that feels too high for me, but we'll just, let's just go with it. Maybe that is accurate, that actually probably is when I think about it. But let's say my employer waves the application fee, 'cause I'm going with this specific school, a 10% tuition discount and tuition reimbursement, that would bring the cost of the degree down to 13,000. Okay, so out of pocket cost of that ADN, 13,000, BSN also 13,000, so roughly $26,000, okay? But keep in mind, I'm working as a nurse, 45K a year, and if I'm living at home at that point, the opportunity cost is actually zero because I can cover the cost of those degrees with part of that income while I'm still living at home, being supported by my lovely parents, and they probably, this ultimately ends up being more cost effective for them too, because they really wanted to cover the degree, that makes more sense, and let's be real, my mom would've loved me to stay home a couple more years, mom must do love that. But let's say, and I ran the cost of what I actually did, I factored in the state school, the year and a half at Parkland, where I did have tuition covered, but I had to pay for, I had to pay, don't let me get it twisted, my parents paid for housing. No, I didn't do anything crazy and fancy, but you have to have basic housing there. And then Iowa Wesleyan's tuition, ooh, I think they underestimated it, it says 20K, I think it was higher back then, I'm not sure. But they estimated the total, when you add all that together, you factor in all the things, about $71,000, okay? I'm also missing three years of working as a nurse, earning 45K a year, assuming no cost of living increase, no raise at all, 45K, okay? 45 times three, $135,000 that I would earn in those three years that I just missed out on. Not only did I not get, I was actively also paying at the same time. So when you compare the total financial impact by like lost income and tuition, ADN to RN to BSN, for me in 2008-ish, would have had a total financial impact of about $26,000. Going that traditional BSN route for me back then, the total financial impact is $206,000. That's because I'm paying more for the degree, three times as much for the degree, and then I'm losing a large amount from not being in the workforce. So the main summary is that the ADN route for me back then would have been almost 180K less expensive, even with a bridge program. Yikes, that's pretty bananas to think about the difference of that. So if you're in decision-making mode and you're like, oh, there are a lot of ways that you could go about this. Maybe the traditional BSN and being on the college campus and doing that kind of thing is really important to you, or you really want to just get the BSN out of the way. And you do have some more financial flexibility. That might make the most sense. You can get it all done at once, one and done situation, and it's not nearly as intense as an ADN program followed by an RN to BSN. That could be very reasonable, but the ADN to plus an RN to BSN bridge phenomenal options here. And now, back then, RN to BSN bridge, you had to go in person, and now you don't. Those courses can be completely online, 'cause you've already done the hard work of all the clinicals and past the NCLEX, we just need to put the cherry on top here. And now the RN to BSN bridge program game totally changed. Like you can do accelerated options. The typical length now is 12 to 16 months. It looks like if you're doing it full-time, you can do part-time, but those accelerated ones, you can get done with it in as fast as nine to 10 months. Tuition ranges are pretty wide. I think the cheapest you're gonna find is about 5K, but I don't know how great those, I don't know. I don't know, I would check into that. But all the way up to 30K. I mean, that's massive. Do we need to do the most expensive one, or can we find an affordable option? And especially with it being online, you can enroll in awesome schools from afar. And there's tuition residency, in-state residency can also make a big difference. So I would really check your in-state options and see what's available. So that's just a great option for people and a very affordable one. And especially if y'all are 18 years old, you don't have kids, you have roommates, you can make your cost of living very low. Like the hustle and grind at that age, if you can like really hone in like your living expenses and not take on debt if you really don't need to and just be really aggressive with that, just speaking as someone coming up to 40s, knowing people who have debt from their early 20s, from degrees they don't even use. And they were, and people who were kind of recklessly are not really putting a lot of thought into what school and how much and is there a better way? You don't want, I don't want you to be 35, 40, paying a monthly payment of 500 bucks to pay off this debt from a degree you took money out for when you were 19 that you don't want to do anymore. So that's kind of my purpose with this episode is I want to prevent those kinds of like mistakes. And I remember being that age and like, oh, I think I know what I want to do. I want to go do it and you just kind of go. And it's like, wait a minute, there's, I need to think about all these other things. So mama nurse here, like really wanting to make sure those of you who are younger and getting into it to make those wise decisions, 'cause those are very much in service to the future you. Okay? And I want you, you know, when you hustle and grind when you're younger and you're really thoughtful, you're setting yourself up to be like, have so much less stress when you're older. And I am older and I don't want any more stress than I need to have. I did also work as a bedside nurse for eight years, eight years, I think before I went back for my masters. I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do after I got done with my BSN and really felt like I had my feet under me as a new graduate nurse. I knew a lot of people going back for their masters. Some going for an NP, actually a lot going for an NP and like, oh, I don't want to be at the bedside forever. I'm just going to get a masters, which I get, I very much get, but with how expensive those degrees are now and how much time they take, it is a big thing to jump into when you don't have very clear direction and purpose. And I'm really glad I didn't because like I would, I wouldn't, I don't know that I would have done the MSN in education and I might have gone back and done like this MSN that was way too expensive that I could still be paying off that I'm not really loved. You know, I just, I'm really glad that I took some time to get really good at being a bedside nurse and understanding how a hospital function. I did charge nurse, I did precepting, I did mentoring. I did shared governance, policy committee, peer review. I did all of that kind of stuff and really really understood the bedside very, very well, not just from a practical clinical standpoint, but from an operational standpoint. So when I did do a competency-based masters, you know, years later, I felt very competent going through a lot of those courses 'cause I had a lot of real life experience to compliment them. So a side note to all of this, I do have a page that is kind of new to the website under what am I learning hub? So if you hit the menu and you see learning hubs, under learning hubs is nursing degrees and programs. And I have all these blog posts to help describe different degree options, different roles, 'cause degrees are different than roles, okay? You get a degree and those can prepare you for different roles, but you don't pick a role and then just get education in that, if that makes sense. So I also have a workbook that will help you kind of work through different nursing schools and planning out the different schools that you could possibly go to and have very clear direction on the major financial decisions and professional decisions ahead of you. So that's at freshiron.com/planer. I will put a link to that in the description of this episode, you know, everybody has a different path and mine led me where I was, you know, meant to go. But I don't think that that means you can't learn from it and pass on those lessons, you know, I'm glad I went this route. But like if I started the whole fresh iron thing back in 2013 and it slowly evolved and evolved and I'm so grateful it turned into something that was able to support me full-time income-wise. But let's say I did want to run this scenario. If I did not have that pathway or decided, didn't make a blog or didn't do any of that, the degree pathway, now that I've learned so much about all the MSN options, DNP options, those different things, the one that I think that I would have loved the most is the CNS, a clinical nurse specialist. I think that if I had gone back and decided to do that, I think I would have really enjoyed that role. Now, one of the things I would have really needed to consider is where I was living and if I could find a role for that, 'cause I was living in an area with a kind of smaller market. But I think that if I would have done a master's or a DNP with a CNS focus, maybe before I had kids, like when I got married, I got married when I was 23 and I had my first kid when I was 29. So in that time, I would have done that. That would have been great. Although I would have been very careful with the debt that I would have had to acquire, because yeah, I had kids and working full-time as a parent was really, really hard. I actually backed off to part-time and we'd made things work because it was just like, it was too much to have babies and work full-time as a nurse for me. And I'm gonna talk about that more in another episode, but it's hard when you have debt and I feel like you have this responsibility to be in two places at once, be with your children and then also wait, I did all this effort and took out all this debt to achieve this goal. I feel like I have to do this and there's a lot, it's hard to find a part-time clinical nurse specialist role. So there's a lot of considerations that really go into it. I'm so glad and thankful for the path that I went on, even though clearly, as we evaluate financial side of it, mine was very inefficient. God bless my parents and I will use that blessing that they gave me to set my children up for success too, which is I think the greatest gift we can give our, the generations that come after us. So everybody, we're all gonna have this imperfect journey and I really want you to not feel this pressure to constantly make every little decision 100% correct 'cause then people tend to delay decision making. Mine certainly was not a straight line and yours does not need to be either. It is worth doing your due diligence to make sure you can make smart choices and save money where you can, but at the same time, try not to obsess or fall into that trap of obsessing over every little step has to be the absolute perfect step. There's a balance between being flippant and reckless and being so frozen by perfectionism that we don't take the first step. I see a lot of aspiring nurses even seasoned ones get stuck in analysis paralysis and delay making big decisions because we're afraid of messing it up, but sometimes the best thing you can do is just start. As I've mentioned before, I really recommend figuring out the role you want first and then going working backwards to figure out what degree would be best and what's the most cost effective way to get there. Not the sexiest way, not the most glamorous way, but what makes the most sense to get there? And if you do want to do this the glamorous way, just make sure you know you're paying a premium for that. And if that's worth it to you, great. Like if that's fine with you, wonderful. I just want to make sure that, you know, you're considering all of your options. You can focus on small manageable steps to go from where you are now to being enrolled in a quality program. And I also don't want you to think that you have to fall into this trap of getting into a dream nursing school, whether that's for an undergraduate or graduate degree or land the perfect job or it's not at all worth it. It's not true. There's plenty of excellent affordable programs that can help you reach your goals. And often with a lot less stress and debt. Now there are wonderful prestigious schools that do great, great work. And I'm very grateful that they exist, but they're not always feasible for a lot of us to attend simply because of the price range. And you know, you have to pay a lot to have these prestigious programs. And but there's still great affordable options. And I've said this before, I've never had a patient ask me how many times I took the NCLEX. So honestly, when I reflect, I don't think I ever had a patient ask me where I went to school. (laughing) You know, that might be a source of pride for some people and that's great to be able to share. Yeah, I graduated from this amazing program. Wonderful. But being able to say that in a moment, like I don't, if you got a great education at a more affordable place, more power to you, man. Like that's a wonderful. So if you want some help figuring out options, mapping out things, I do have that new free workbook that you can get over at freshiron.com/planner. Also link in the description, helps you kind of work through the nursing degree options, practical tips for choosing the right ones. And when you sign up for it, I will send you a series of emails to walk through different options and even some financial tips too. I will put a link to it again in this description of the video. Or I'm sorry, the podcast episode. So thank you guys so much for hanging out with me. Looking forward to more and more episodes of the Fresh Iron Podcast. So thanks nurses and stay fresh. ♪ Make me a fool ♪ ♪ Make me a fool ♪ ♪ You're like a fire starter ♪ ♪ You're making me hot ♪ ♪ Got to be a fool ♪ ♪ Keep my cool ♪ ♪ I'm a funny and easy lady ♪ ♪ You're making me sweat ♪ ♪ Baby you ♪ ♪ Make me a fool ♪ ♪ You're like a fire starter ♪ ♪ You're making me hot ♪ ♪ Hot ♪