Sorry, I’m in Canada, but generally this would be the same.

NO, you cannot become a nurse (RN or LPN) without ANY clinical practical hands on experience. Any program offering that is not legal and not legit.

You CAN complete your *theoretical* studies/courses online at some schools, and you CAN earn a BScN if you are ALREADY a diploma (2 year) RN.

All practicums and clinical courses must be done on site at the school or other placement.

In some cases, an RN may take theory courses and get certification in a speciality area (i.e. mental health) without ever stepping foot in a classroom. But this only applies to theory courses without labs.

Good luck!

Some people have the impression that online degrees all come from diploma mills. And some do. But anyone who makes a blanket statement like the business owner you quoted hasn’t bothered to inform himself.

Many respected brick-and-mortar institutions now offer online degrees. I’m doing my master’s online at Penn State. My diploma/transcript won’t note the fact that I never set foot on the campus because it’s not relevant. I’m meeting Penn State standards on my coursework, and that’s what my degree will show. So your business owner wouldn’t even know I earned an online degree unless I volunteered the information.

CUNY (City Univ. of NY) offers an online BA. Someone here referred to U of Maryland’s program. Boston College, Notre Dame, Indiana State, Northeastern and Northwestern, and many more also have accredited online programs. (See for about 100 more.) These “name” universities aren’t risking their reputations by churning out “quick and easy degrees”. Any employer worth working for has the critical thinking skills to know that.

I work for a large university (yes, one that offers an online degree in addition to its face-to-face programs). We recently interviewed and hired someone with a distance master’s degree from a respected institution for a tutoring center coordinator position. While the job has nothing to do with our online degree program, we felt her online experience was a plus: her experience will be useful as the university continues to evolve in the 21st century, not only with e-learning, but other e-services as well.

About that business owner, all I can say is that when you talk to employers, remember you’re not the only one interviewing. You are showing them if you’re worth hiring; they’re showing you if they’re worth working for.

Getting a fake degree will only hurt you in the long run. The vast majority of employers will run a background check and find out quickly.

You sound like you are young enough, start taking one class at a time and you’ll get there!

Other unaccredited schools to avoid are: Almeda, Kennedy Western University (subject of a Senate investigation on diploma mills), Warren National University, Rochville, Pacific Western, University of Northern Washington, etc. For a long list, visit:

I think that any employer who doesn’t recognize the name of the institution would google it these days, since it’s so easy to get a fake degree. And then you’re not only not getting a job, you’re blacklisted for lying on your resume. **** it up and take out a loan like the rest of us did.

You are mistaken, there is absolutely no way to get your RN without tons of clinical experience in a hospital. The online courses that are advertised are only part of the deal – they also have to do their rotations and have them signed off for their hours just like regular nursing schools!

Employers couldn’t care less about degrees from ANY source. They care about what you KNOW. HOW you learned makes little difference. Many employers would rather find a good PERSON and do the training in house.

Please do NOT throw your money away at University of Phoenix. For-profit schools are definitely not the way to go. U of Phoenix does say they help you find clinical experiences near where you live, but they offer you very little support in this area, and they offer you very little support as a student in general. So why pay them twice as much (or more!) per course when you can go to a locally based school, get the support as a student that you are PAYING the school to give you, and let them arrange your clinical experiences for you for far less money?

Local colleges and universities will offer at least some portion of the courses for your degree online – at least many of your non-nursing courses (English, Math, History, Psych, etc.) can probably be completed that way.

You can choose one of three routes here in the US to become an RN. The first is a hospital-offered “diploma” program which is about 2-3 years, and honestly they are going the way of the dinosaur and you would be hard pressed to find one of these programs.

The second option is to obtain an Associate’s Degree from a community college or a university that makes an Associate’s Degree program available to their nursing students. An ADN is formally a 2-year nursing program, but you must complete pre-requisite courses in biology, chemistry, anatomy & physiology (all with labs) and perhaps a few more courses before you can apply to the school’s nursing program. So technically it might take you 3 years. It’s also recommended you complete as many of those non-nursing courses as you can prior to starting the nursing core, because it will be very demanding. Once you start the nursing core, the courses are sequenced and it will take two years to complete. You have both classroom (theory), skills labs (to practice hands-on with other students, mannequins, computer simulations, etc.), and then you will have at least one day per week of clinical rotations. They usually start you off in a long-term care facility like a nursing home and you function at the level of a nursing assistant, doing basic patient cares and assessments, etc. The following semesters they bring you into hospitals and rotate you through acute med/surg, psychiatry/behavioral health, maternal/newborn, pediatrics, and perhaps a few other observational experiences in places like the OR.

The third option is the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), which is offered by universities. You get admitted to the school as a freshman, during your freshman and sophomore years you complete many general education courses along with those science courses that are pre-reqs, then you apply to the nursing program during your sophomore year and start the nursing core during your junior year.

The difference in the courses that you get with the BSN is you take more general ed and electives, and as far as the nursing courses you get more in-depth nursing theory such as history, care models, research, etc., they teach more about leadership and management, and you get a semester long course in Public Health which the ADN students do not get, which makes you eligible to be certified as a Public Health Nurse, if that interests you.

You can always complete the ADN and later take a BSN completion program which commonly ARE found online, offered by local not-for-profit schools in your area. The bonus of taking your ADN first is that you might get to work a year sooner, find an employer who will pay tuition reimbursement and they can pay for your BSN completion.

IMO, I wouldn’t waste my time going for the LPN (licensed practical nurse) first and then going for the RN, but some people do like to have that bit of work experience first and having some money in their pocket while in school. But being an LPN first is not required, nor will it necessarily make you a better RN, because in most job settings, the LPN and RN functions are very different than you might think. You might have the advantage in some basic patient care skills, but you won’t have any advantage in terms of the broader picture of the RN profession.

Good luck to you!

No, I was lucky – I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and am happy with my field. I have a close friend, however, that was faced with a decision like yours. He was 24 and had a degree in Electrical Engineering, but was not happy with his job choices. His Dad had sort of pushed him into obtaining the Electrical Engineering degree, but now he wanted to be a veterinarian – he had always been fond of animals and their ailments. Our home town needed a Vet, so he bit the bullet, got a full time job in his college town (at a grocery store), talked to his councilors, planned his shift in studies, and completed his new field of study. He has stated to me that he is happy that he made the change even though it was a lot of effort to extend his time at the university. Now our city has a good vet. I always tease him about putting some electronic gadgets inside the animals to monitor their progress – he just laughs and tells me to get busy designing their artificial limbs. On a more serious note, if you are going to spend the rest of your working life in a field, take the steps necessary to make it one you are interested in – you will harvest a lot more satisfaction in your job that way. Good luck – I know how agonizing a decision it was for my friend.

My problem was different. After graduating from college I couldn’t find a job related to my degree. I have worked as an English teacher as a salesman and as a shop clerk.
Thankfully now I work as a software developer, which is what I’ve studied.
However just after school I did go for the wrong field of work studying Tourism and Hotel Management. When I realised I was in the wrong field, and that my best marks were in the Computing unit, I gave up everything and started from scratch a degree in Computing…

Do you want to be a clinical psychologist? If you do, then you really will need to take non-online classes because there is a professional practice requirement where you would intern at a counseling firm.