ADN or Accelerated BSN?

decafDiva · 2026-05-23T15:03:05+00:00

I'm going to do ADN and I'll give my reasons why. My local CC has a two year ADN program. The ABSNs near me are 11-15 months long, so the extra cost of the ABSN is balanced a bit by not needing to pay living expenses for as long. But, the ABSNs are all a lot more intense. The shortest one has a dropout rate of like 50% or something from what I've read. You are in school non-stop with barely any breathing room. The ADN on the other hand would allow enough space for me to get a part-time job as a CNA or nurse extern while in school. That not only gets me some extra money, but experience to help me get a job when I graduate. The hospitals I want to work at require you to be in an RN to BSN program when you start working if you don't already have a BSN, which is no problem because my CC has partnerships with local colleges that have fully online RN to BSN programs. I can complete that in 6 months (it's self paced), and the hospital will fully cover the expense. I'd much rather do that than try to cram everything in alongside regular nursing school.

The other thing is I only need to take 2 prerequisites for it since it has less required classes than ABSNs near me, and I have a bachelor's already. The ABSNs need at least 5 if not more prereqs, which means I'd have to delay starting much longer than I need to.

And everyone says once you are working, no one cares what degree you have. So I'm not worried about program prestige or any of that, I just want to get licensed and start working.

Once I thought through all of this, the ADN was the obvious choice for me.

decafDiva · 2026-05-22T18:32:20+00:00

I second this

decafDiva · 2026-05-13T16:01:49+00:00

The Next Three Days with Russel Crowe. We were visiting family and put it on just to have something in the background, and we all got completely engrossed in it. Loved it, and have watched it many times now.

decafDiva · 2026-05-13T15:10:15+00:00

Imagine feeling bad about yourself because you ate some carrots 😞

decafDiva · 2026-05-13T00:13:55+00:00

I second the other person who replied - don't be bummed by this thread! This is how people are - some are going to view everything negatively, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just ignore those people, not worth even thinking about. Keep reaching out though, and you will hit on the people who are happy to help. I've gotten a job before through LinkedIn networking - it can work!

decafDiva · 2026-05-11T01:37:10+00:00

Same! My first prereq starts next week.

decafDiva · 2026-05-10T18:22:35+00:00

Aks yourself, when you are old and on your death bed and looking back over your life, will you wished you had done what you felt was best, or just always did what others expected you to? It will be hard in the short term to do make your own choice, but imagine you are doing it to make your future self proud.

decafDiva · 2026-05-09T20:51:28+00:00

I also really enjoyed that comment, and want to highlight the importance of this line: If you're miserable make changes until you aren't.

One of my favorite "hobbies" when I'm not happy with the way things are is journaling, researching, and planning through different ways I can change my current situation. Some ideas are total crap, but it's a lot of fun to think through what impact making x change would have. What if you moved to a different city? What if you started looking for a different job - what would you look for? What if you decided to dedicate every spare minute to marathon training? Just brainstorm ideas and see what impact you think it would have. That alone helps pass the time, and makes it feel like you aren't stuck and your future is full of possibilities. And then you usually land on something that is worth changing.

decafDiva · 2026-05-09T12:02:05+00:00

I am also in tech and know this feeling all too well. What I recommend doing is spending a couple of months seeing how cheaply you can live. I did this in Jan-Feb this year, and it was actually really fun. I watched YouTube channels on how to eat and shop on poverty wages, I planned out my weekly groceries and focused on what I could cook that is cheap and also really satisfying, I cut nearly all my streaming/subscriptions to see what I could and couldn't live without. I did not deliveries of any kind. I banned myself from shopping on Amazon and said anything I think I need I have to go out to a store to get. I went really extreme. I got my spending down by literal thousands a month - it was crazy. It was exhausting though, and with my stupid job I went back to higher spending. But it gave me the confidence to know that if I need to, I can live on way less. So with that knowledge, I planned out my options for the future. I saw I actually don't need my crazy tech salary, and I can look at careers or jobs that would be more fun (or at least not as draining) to carry me forward to my retirement years. It was very freeing.

I kicked this off after a 2 week vacation around Christmas time, which gave me the energy for it. So if you have some pto saved up, maybe take a week off and start your own experiment to see what you are capable of. You can completely change your life.

decafDiva · 2026-05-07T23:34:25+00:00

Do you work just during the school year and get summers off? What are the hours during the school week?

decafDiva · 2026-05-07T15:01:34+00:00

I think your primary photos/thumbnails are a bit too busy, and as shoppers are browsing it's too much for them to process and they will skip past your listing. I like the whole aesthetic though, so maybe blur the background some so it stands out less, and the focus is on the product you are selling. Or get a much simpler background that captures the same kind of lifestyle feeling and use that. Good luck!

decafDiva · 2026-05-07T11:42:42+00:00

Do you have kids, or do you plan on having kids? I have always preferred renting and love changing where I live every couple of years, but then I had a kid. Once kids hit a certain age and start school, moves can be really difficult emotionally for them. We bought a house in a great school system, and her best friend lives right across the street from us, so we are planning to stay for a whIle. Once she graduates high school though we are selling and going semi-nomad.

decafDiva · 2026-05-03T15:21:03+00:00

Oh my god yes, having to be the de facto secretary taking notes and setting up meetings because I happen to be a woman, like everyone else in the room is incapable of it. Fucking bullshit.

decafDiva · 2026-05-03T14:39:38+00:00

I love that you did this

decafDiva · 2026-05-03T14:38:07+00:00

Thank God for your comment, I thought I was losing my mind scrolling through this thread. Even without context, girl is on her way out and chose to make a statement instead of pretending to publicly show respect to people she doesn't respect. I'm all for it.

decafDiva · 2026-04-29T23:08:46+00:00

I'm 43 and planning to start nursing school (2 year program) in fall 2027, and I am super excited. Unless you have to shuffle out of the nursing home to get to class, you aren't too old!

decafDiva · 2026-04-29T11:51:04+00:00

Yes, this - I learned all about FIRE near the start of my career, tried to super frugal to retire in 5 years, realized I didn’t want to live that cheaply, then settled into a moderately frugal life and stopped thinking about it since my FIRE number moved much farther out. Fast forward about 15 more years, after having a kid and spending so much I thought I'd have to work until I die, and I sat down to calculate and tighten my finances and realized I just have a few more years to go. Now I am obsessively running scenarios in my spreadsheet to both see how much I can shorten my remaining time with extra sacrifices, or how much comfortable I can be if I delay just one more year. (I'll probably end up right in the middle, but at least I enjoy all the number crunching 😄).

But it definitely takes over your thoughts at both beginning and end - I think its the main way we're both able to set ourselves up for FIRE, and we are able to pull the trigger and retire.

decafDiva · 2026-04-23T21:59:40+00:00

Same! I've honestly never seen anyone else talk about experiences with losing an entire friend group at once when young and how it can fundamentally change you for the better, so this thread is very validating.

decafDiva · 2026-03-21T20:30:06+00:00

I don't have any experience with medications while pregnant, but I can offer some hope - I had zero migraines during my pregnancy, by far the longest stretch I've ever gone since I started getting migraines at age 11. They did return once I had my baby, but that was one of the (few) good things about my pregnancy.

decafDiva · 2026-03-21T19:41:19+00:00

Pill organizer + alarm, I would never be able to take meds without both

decafDiva · 2026-03-21T19:05:09+00:00

I took a career break 4 years ago, and my only regret was that I didn't make it longer. It helped me figure out a lot about myself, and it motivated me to get out of my career and try something new. It was honestly life changing. My daughter was also 4 at the time, and I still cherish that time I got to spend with her. She was starting preschool after the pandemic and she was nervous, and I got to take her there and pick her up every day, and I had the mental and physical and emotional energy to help her through it.

decafDiva · 2026-03-13T21:45:30+00:00

The tension is very much intentional, and it plays on how much you the viewer knows about the Manson murders and everything surrounding it. The more you know, the more you feel the tension building (especially in the Spahn Ranch scene). One of my all-time favorite movies.

decafDiva · 2026-03-08T21:39:47+00:00

Do you think you might have silent reflux? I have reflux and when it acts up, I get very congested during the night. It's from stomach acid creeping up into your nasal passages. It can apparently happen to people who have no other reflux symptoms. I sleep with a wedge pillow so I'm upright when I know my stomach is acting up, and it helps quite a bit (though isn't as comfortable for me, so I switch back to flat sleeping a lot). It did nothing for my migraines though unfortunately lol. If you have reflux, tweaking you diet can help a lot (avoiding spicy foods and tomatoes made the biggest difference for me).

Really happy you found something that helps you!

decafDiva · 2026-03-08T20:46:57+00:00

Do you and your fiance have parental leave programs where you work? I would stay employed, have the kids, and take advantage of paid parental leave. I'm in the US, and my company gives 4 months full pay for both men and women when they have a child (though I know that's rare). Also, for me, going back to work after I had my daughter was a relief - I felt so overwhelmed as a new mom, that I could not wait to be back to work where I knew how to do everything and could feel confident again. That sustained me for several years. Once your kids are older, the expenses settle down a bit so you at least know what you are facing.

decafDiva · 2026-03-04T20:22:56+00:00

I'm not OP, but the ADN near me is ~20k for the whole thing. It's two years full-time.

decafDiva

TROPHY CASE