Jumping through the hoops.

Welp, just paid $48 bucks to take a pee at the doctors office...that's one more item off the todo list. Next is FASFA and scholarship applications. 

I'm getting really excited for our next chapter, this one has been great and we've learned a lot about ourselves and each other. For instance, Alicia and I both thought we would flourish living off the grid raising animals, growing food and fending for ourselves. We have learned that while we love all these things, we love/need community even more. Glad we learned this lesson before we bought some land in the middle of nowhere. 

All that to say I'm excited for the new community of people we will flow into in Denver. 

Just a little over 3 months til classes start and I'm way stoked to start. I don't exactly know what to expect, and I kind of like that. Gives me that sense of an adventure!

I'm in!

So, after much waiting and anticipation, I recieved news from CU Denver that they want me to join the program this summer! Woot woot! It feels like just getting all the ducks in a row for and accepted to a nursing program is half the battle of becoming a nurse. Feels good to have that all under my belt, and I'm feelin really pumped start the next phase!

With all my prereqs out of the way I'm excited to have a break from classes until June. My dad and I are coming close to finishing up this whole house remodel we've been working on for the last 15 months! That should leave us a little time to get out of Dodge for a couple weeks. We're looking into volunteering as mission builders at a YWAM base. What ever we end up doing, it will be refreshing to take a little journey. I've been feelin the travel itch for a while now. 

Jesus is coming!

It's almost Christmas, the time when we remember the birth of the savior. This year my wife and I have been reading bits of the story of the birth of Jesus and the prophecies preceding him over the last few weeks. I've been trying to put myself in the sandals of those 2000 years ago patiently waiting for their savior. Man, I can only imagine the excitement they must have felt when the news of his birth spread! I want to celebrate Christmas with that same kind of anticipation and excitement! 

Merry Christmas! Let's dance til we get holes in our socks! Our savior has come!

Finals!

Statistics and pathophysiology finals are tomorrow and then I'm DONE! At least for this year...since it is common for different schools to have slightly different prerequisite classes, depending on which school I am accepted to I may or may not have to take a couple more prerequisites.  

It's been nearly 3 weeks since interview day at CU Denver and I am very eager to know if I will be accepted or not. As of tomorrow I will have all my prerequisites done for CU, so if they accept me I'll have this spring off before jumping into nursing school in June. If I'm not accepted I will need to do a chemistry and history course this spring to complete the prerequisites for UNC in Greeley. Not the end of the world, but if would be nice to have a little break before nursing school starts. 

Pathophysiology has been a great course. It's one of those classes that is only a prerequisite for some schools, but I am glad I'm taking it reguardless. CU for instance does not require it as a prerequisite, but it is one of the first classes you take in their program, so I feel I will be well prepared for it and will not feel so swamped during the first couple semesters. 

It's a nice chilly December Sunday today, great for studying. I better get back to it!

Interview Day!

So yesterday was the big day. I planned ahead and got there about a half an hour early, but to my surprise there was already a line of people about 80 deep waiting to check in! Can you say eager beavers? All in all the 5 hours flew by, I met some great people and I had a great time. It was a very informative day and the interview portion was even kind of fun. I can now relax knowing that I have done my best to show who I am. It's now out of my control and I am at peace that The Lord will show me the next step when the time comes. "Rejoice in The Lord always, and again I say rejoice." Philippians 4:4

Serious anticipation...

So I'm still not quite caught up to real life on the blog, but this post should bring it up to speed. I left off last post having applied to UCD and waiting to hear back. I have since received an email invite to their interview day. I am very curious as to what this day is going to look like. I have gathered that they split the applicants into 2 sections, a morning and an afternoon session. They said there would be presentations, interviews with faculty, and opportunities to interact with potential future classmates. I'm hoping it's more of a get to know each other and see if this is a good fit kind of interview, and not a lets eliminate a ton of people interview. With something like 135  spots to fill, I can't imagine how they would have time to interview many more 150 people in one day.

Well anyway, the interview day is only a couple days a away now, so not much longer and some of my curiosity will be satisfied. Though I do imagine there will be yet another waiting period while the results of the interview day are tallied.

In reality, I am just stoked to have made it this far, and trust that God will guide me through all this since it was his idea in the first place :)

Oh and on a side note, I met a guy this evening at a wedding who finished his BSN at  UW (University of Wyoming) last spring. He chose to skip to Wyoming to avoid some of the nursing school bottleneck here in Colorado, and it was a great experience for him. He said he was getting job offers before he had even graduated. I have also heard that Colorado residents get a good deal on tuition there. 

Just thought I'd throw that out there while it was still fresh on my mind. 

The journey to Nursing school so far.

For the past year I have been knocking out various prerequisite courses so that I can apply to a nursing program. If you are not familiar with the process of getting into nursing school I will not bore you with all the details right here, but feel free to contact me if you're looking for some wisdom on all the options. I have chosen to pursue a BSN (bachelors of science in nursing). I chose this route because I had a few semesters of miscellaneous college credit and applying towards a bachelors makes the most sense at this point.

I considered applying to some out of state universities, but came to the conclusion that an in state school makes the most sense financially and for my family. I live in Colorado and there are a number of excellent schools here including Regis, UNC, CU Denver and others. After extensive research looking into prerequisite classes and other aspects of the many nursing programs, I decided to focus on UNC and CU Denver. 

Over the past year and a half I have been taking my remaining prerequisite courses at Front Range Community College in Longmont. I have taken A&P I and II, microbiology, pathophysiology, nutrition, stats, human growth and development and intro to soc. all at Front Range. I did my various other prerequisite classes at a few different universities a while back. 

Sooo, here I am at the critical time of applying to schools. I applied to CU Denver (UCD) about 2 months ago and will apply to UNC in a few weeks. Both schools are competitive entry as opposed to wait list entry programs. Seems like the wait list is a  thing of the past. UNC bases admission strictly on GPA. They have something like 70 spots per year, so the top 70 GPAs are accepted and that's that. UNC looks like a great program and I would be excited to go there, but UCD is my top choice.

This brings me back to UCD. They look at GPA, a personal essay and an interview to make their decision on admission. I hope this post isn't too long... Oh well. So As I said, I applied a few months back and have been eagerly waiting to see what happens.