Online College Nursing Degree, B.S. Biology Wants Nursing Degree

Q: I was wondering if anyone had any experience in using their B.S. degree in Biology to become a nurse? I got my B.S. in 1988 and have been working in various biology fields as well as teaching high school. I would now like to look into a nursing program but don't have the time to start from scratch. Does anyone have any advice on what I could do and/or suggest any particular schools?

A:If one has a natural science Bachelors, such as this individual, then they have studied math through at least the calculus level (and/or taken Calculus based physics). I'm sure that will satisfy the math requirement hands down. As for chemistry, I would be genuinely surprised that ORGANIC chemistry is required, as opposed to inorganic/freshman/general chemistry. Organich chemistry is used to weed folks out who want to go to med school, and I didn't recall seeing many nursing students in my course. And, as others have stated, seek out a "Nursing as a Second Degree" oriented program. More likely to fit your current

situation than a generic program. Yep. That's how it worked for me. The only two pre-requisites I had to take were a human anatomy class (for some reason they didn't like either my Comparative Vertabrate Anatomy or Plant Anatomy classes) and "Introduction to Psychology." I had plenty of educational psychology classes (I had a teaching license before I went into nursing), but none of them said *INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY* so they weren't good enough. I CLEP'ed that one for $30 instead of taking the class. Gotta love those bureaucrats -- although they did cut me some slack by accepting my semester of student teaching in lieu of the "Public Speaking" pre-requisite.