The Queen Of The World's daughter graduated yesterday, getting her nursing degree. I find this especially impressive considering that she did this while raising 3 young kids, helping her husband in his quest to make Chief Petty Officer*, and still ended up with very nearly a 4.0 GPA.
That's quite a lot of hard work, and TQOTW and I couldn't be more proud of her.
* It's really amazing how much the wives of the Chiefs-to-be do. I guess it's training for how to keep the family support system running smoothly when sea duty deployments happen.
4 comments:
Congratulations, my daughter starts nursing school in the fall.
Military wives have always been able to make or break a serving member's career. The NCO Wive's Club or the Officer's Wives Club on any base also has the ability to create or destroy.
Your daughter is one of the good ones.
Congratulations to you and yours on this fine achievement.
Give my best wishes to the young lady. That's quite an accomplishment!
Whole-hearted congrats to her! We need the help.
Pass-on tips for the NCLEX exam and beyond:
1) She should take a practice test. Found on CR-ROM or online from the test prep book companies. It gets you used to the format, and identifies strong and weak areas.
2) Study the weak areas. Time spent on strong areas is wasted, but low marks can be brought up, and she'll ace her boards.
3) Find out how licensure will be granted in her state, i.e., here in Califrutopia, the initial license isn't for two years, it's for two birthdays, plus a month, so your license always expires the last day of the month, the month after your birthday (e.g. Dec 31 if you were born in November).
Which means if you take your boards the day before your birthday, your initial license is good for 13 months (two birthdays plus a month); if you take it the day after your birthday, it's good for 25 months (two birthdays plus a month). And for the same price to the state board, in each case.
So if her birthday is the determining factor, and it's coming within 3 months of graduation, she should study until then, and take the boards right after her birthday. If her state does it that way. So she should ask.
4) She probably has ACLS, and definitely has CPR, already. If she's going to work with kids she should get PALS. (It's ACLS for pediatric patients.) And MAB/CPI (dealing with violent/combative patients/visitors). And an EKG interpretation cert as well, as necessary.
If she walks into an HR office with CPR, ACLS, PALS, and MAB/CPI cards already in her hand, she can be hired immediately, and ahead of anyone not that prepared.
5) She probably plans on working the Navy hospital system, which is fine. But after a couple of years, once she knows her job, she should sign up with a registry, and pick up one freelance shift a week, forever.
The going rate for one extra shift and one extra set of clean scrubs per week is $500, out the door. That's an extra $26K in a shoebox every Dec. 31, on top of her base salary for her full-time gig.
Which is a new car, a down payment on a house, kids' college money, a helluva vacation fund, or a whopper of a Christmas shopping spree.
And over a twenty to forty year career, that's $500k-$1M for retirement, double or triple that if saved/invested prudently.
Like I wish someone had pointed out to me as a new grad.
Bonus: She'll have contacts, networking, fall-back references and jobs, and be a better nurse at all facilities she works in, because she'll see how other people skin their cats. Which makes you more valuable at annual reviews, and much more promotable, if that's what she wants.
Best wishes.
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