Becoming a nurse

I am about to order scrubs for my nursing school clinicals which start in about a month.  And for the past three semesters I have been taking heavy science classes in preparation for nursing school.  Therefore I am slowly creeping toward becoming a nurse.  Of course I cannot officially call myself a nurse until I pass the NCLEX (national licensing test) which is a very challenging adaptive computerized test.  But on the inside, I wonder when I will feel like I am a nurse.

So far I have been doing well in Anatomy and Physiology classes (I love learning about the amazing human body) and I thoroughly enjoyed Microbiology.  Therefore I already know a lot more than mainstream America and yet I am not even a Novice when it comes to health care workers…  🙂    I think that once we start our clinical rotations and we are wearing the scrubs and being called nurse for a while, then the transition will start to complete itself internally.

I also feel that over the past year and for the next 2 years, I will learn more (and retain more) information than I have in the previous 10 years.  There is simply a huge volume of material for nursing school – especially with drugs changing every year, and technology advancing at a rapid pace…  Honestly I wonder how they will pack everything into two years  :-O    I also plan to enroll in a BSN program starting in 2016.  So that will make things more interesting – being in two programs simultaneously.

The only obstacle so far is money.  Due to having graduated with my B.A. from UVa, I am ineligible for federal financial aid for the two year program.  Therefore I will have to work at least two days / week to get through nursing school.  I wonder if I should start a crowd funding site for myself?  Let me know your thoughts if you want.

Thanks for reading!