I would like to say that having a website for nurses regardless of stage of knowledge is a wonderful idea, Kudos!  My name is Ronda and I am a 37 yo divorced mother of three in Eastern Kentucky.  I am not a nurse yet, but have plans to go further now than I had planned to previously.  I have a fairly long back story so I will try to shorten it for you all.  I started taking my pre-req's the year after I moved to Kentucky from Ohio.  I was kicking them out right and left with a very good GPA.  I decided it was time to apply for the (2 yr RN) Nursing program offered at my school.  I was more than overjoyed to receive the acceptance letter in the mail.  I felt so honored to be accepted, not wait listed.  So, I make it through, not one--not two--no, not even three semesters of the four that they have designated for completion, I completed all four semesters.  There is a problem, three of the four semesters were completed successfully.  The fourth one was not.  With this horrible event, I lost my confidence in myself even though I had scored better than most in the class I did not pass.  My only option was to wait out of nursing class until the third semester class coming up behind me could catch up and I could join them.  That turned out to be a wasted seven months of waiting time plus the four months of the semester I repeated because I fell short of passing again by three tenths of a point.  I was not without troubles.  I had a TIA right in class, had my water shut off for non-payment, and a notice on my electric bill, not to mention that I had no financial aid plus worked at the local Wal-Mart.  OMG!  The self-doubt and disappointment was more than any person could take, so I set out to find a solution to the problem.  I found out that the new evening cohort of RN class that our school had started was going into their fourth semester and that my nursing director would allow me to join them to repeat one more time if I took the newly implemented HESI test and scored an 850, minimum.  I took the test after practicing endlessly at home and scored an 839.  Geez, what is a girl to do?  "I should have graduated with my original class" is all I could keep thinking.  Because my nursing director said that I only had three options open to me: start from scratch at this same school, start from scratch at another school, or take the HESI test for the LPN program to gain "advance standing" with an 850 and then go on from there to get my LPN license.  After getting my LPN license my nursing director would let me "bridge" into the RN program to finish my BIG Associates degree.  Sadly enough I have enough credits to have an Associates of Arts and an Associates of Science.  Why does it have to be like that?  Why should it be so hard to complete one semester after all the others I have not only completed, but completed with good grades?  I know that I am not stupid, but you couldn't prove it now.  I just keep thinking of all the students of the class I was originally in that graduated that were not the sharpest tools in the shed.  How did they do it?  How should I do it?  What could I possibly do differently?  I know working at Wal-Mart did not help my cause, so I quit the job thinking I would make it through and be working as a nurse.  That was not what happened obviously.  I am stuck with going for the LPN, financially,  which was not what I wanted in the first place.  I am frustrated that I can not repeat that one lone semester again, instead I am looking at another year or so on top of what I already have put into it but without financial aid. Does anyone know a way around this path of obtaining an RN?  I have searched everywhere on the internet with no luck.            

Hi Ronda,

I completely hear and understand your fustrations. I went for my LPN first. My husband and I found out the 3rd week of school I was pregnant with our second child. This was good and bad. We had been trying for 2 years and had just decided to stop trying. Then during Christmas break my husband lost hs job and of courseI was not working, etc. He searched, found a new one in Little Falls, MN (we lived apox 120 milesfrom there), started building a house there, an I continued on with school and taking care of our little boy (3) and was alone alot since he was there most of the week. Then approx 10 before finals (and my due date) I was at clinicals and receievd  a phone call. It was my husband, the owner of the company had sold the business over the w/e and Mike was w/o a job again, the house we were living in was already sold (and I was not going to back out on them) and we had to let the contractor know that we could no longer go through with the new house, he wasunderstanding and we lost very little money. All the people around me could not believe I was not totally freaking out. What was I suppose to do...I HAD to finish clinicals and I HAD to have this baby. Well on Friday, May 7th, (no school that day) my water broke at 4 am and we had our little girl at 8:53  am. (I was studying for finals the whole time). I went home that Sunday, went to school Monday, took finals and yes missed it by 1 point. My total accumulative points were short one to pass my last class. (I was not the only one) We tried to fight it...we had an instuctor who never graded consistently and there were times on a test I had gotten questions right, proved it, and still never received the points. So I was not going to give up....we moved in with relatives, my husband continued to search for a job, our new baby turned out to be colicky, and I had enrolled in Moorehead, MN to retake the class I missed with acouple other of my classmates. We all passed with A's. Took boards, passed, my husband took a job with Bobcat, we bought a house in Oakes, ND, I took a LPN job at the clinic and switched to the LTC facility here and have been there since 2004. I currently am enrolled in an online RN program through the Uni of SD, Vermillion. The Good Samaritan Society has a program where they py 2/3 of the cost and you pay 1/3, If you continue to work for them the site you work you pay back 1/3 in the hours you work ($1 for every hour) and the other 1/3 is a gift no matter what,

So your employer may be an option for funding......you can do it. You will. You are strong ad determned. Good luck. Deena