Being a planner has its pros and cons. It is great because it helps you acknowledge and set your goals, as well as help you to map out a way to get to that destination. The con is that not everyone else is like that and so my impatience starts to take over. Currently, I am in the process of planning out my next couple of semester of college. I had gone to the campus last week of the community college I will be attending this coming semester because I was informed it was a walk-in day for advising. Awesome, I’m there! I figured if I go to a walk-in day, I could talk to someone much faster then having to schedule an appointment. Come to find out, once I got to the school, the advising day was not taking place because the advisor who was suppose to be there that day was unable to come in. Boy was I irritated. So I ended up scheduling an appointment and now I have to wait 2 weeks for that appointment to take place. 2 weeks for this planning mind of mine is torture. I want to know the answers to my questions now!
I started back to college full time the fall of 2010. I quit my full time job, found a part time job and started attending school full time. I decided to go for my nursing degree and attend College of Western Idaho (a community college) to obtain my pre-requisites in order to apply into the program. When I first started thinking about finishing my degree in college, I thought small and said to myself that I would just get my A.A. degree. Then once I was in school a little longer, and realized I was capable and smart enough to have a bigger dream, I decided that I might as well go for my Bachelors degree. For a year and a half I worked towards that goal. The closer I got to the nursing program, the more I realized what a competitive degree it is to get right now. Apparently everyone decided the same degree goal as me. This helped push my hand to make in change in schools. I did all my research on Universities and in January of 2012 I transferred over to Northwest Nazarene University. They had an excellent reputation for being a great school, an having an exceptional nursing program. The nursing program an any college only accepts 40 student per year. The advantage to NNU was that no as many students are currently applying to there program due to the fact that it is a private Christian college and is much more expensive. Making this decision was tough because I knew I would have a little bit of a struggle financially. But to me, knowing that I would receive the best education from a school that was highly looked upon in the medical field was worth it. In the spring of 2012 I took just two classes to finish of the prerequisites required to apply into the Nursing program at NNU. I applied, did the background checks, and took the standardized TEAS test. In June, I received my letter from NNU that would tell me there decision about me being accepted into there program. Unfortunately, I was not one of the 40 that they accepted. I knew my odds of getting in were slim, but I still had some hope. I was bummed when I received my denial. But I quickly recovered and started thinking about other programs and what my options were. I knew for sure I wanted to be in the medical field, but the thought of having to wait another year before even applying again into the program was kind of painful. A part of me likes school and learning but I also don’t want to be in school the rest of my life. Someone mentioned I should look into being a Physicians Assistant. My initial reactions were heck no. I would have to get my Masters Degree and well, that’s just not possible. I definitely don’t have the brains for that!!! But I continued to look into it further, checked out different schools and examined what the next several years in would look like. After all my research I determined going the P.A. route was actually a pretty cool idea, and was able to build up my confidence enough to think I could actually do it. The one bad thing about living in Idaho is that there are not many colleges to choose from. I found only one college near me that offers a Physician Assistant program and that was Idaho State University. They are actually based out of Pocatello, Idaho which is quite a ways from where I live, but they recently opened up a sister campus in Meridian, the town I live. In order to apply to the P.A. program you have to have a bachelors degree, doesn’t matter what the degree is in. So I noticed that ISU had a Medical Laboratory Science Bachelors degree and it peeked my interest. I have actually really enjoyed biology and chemistry and working in the Lab has been something I have thought about. I figured if I go for that degree I can still graduate with a B.A. in 2015 and won’t be set back any additional years. So my class choices shifted and I will starting on this new degree path this fall semester. I also decided I might as well get my A.A. degree at CWI while I’m there and am hoping I can obtain that by the end of the year. And so this is why I am in need of talking to advising at the school. I want to make sure I have planned to take the right courses in order to obtain that goal. School starts in 27 days and I am anxious to have my schedule solidified and be able to start looking into getting textbooks. My appointment is not for another 2 weeks and so I will have to sit and learn to be patient. Wish me luck.
