<p>socaldad, ShawD still likes Canada and probably still wants to live there. But, the problem was the field of study. She’s intelligent (definitely high IQ) but not academically oriented. In Canada, you specialize early (she was admitted in the Faculty of Science to study biology and could have switched a little, say to chemistry, biochem, or maybe psychology or statistics, but not a lot). With several lab courses, she realized she didn’t want to spend four years in a lab. As she said to me, “I like science but I love people and I don’t want to spend four years not doing that.” She’s very social and has an effervescent personality and kids love her. Anyway, she shadowed a nurse at a Boston hospital (pediatric cardiac ICU unit) and loved it. As a career, it really plays to her strengths (understanding science, working with and helping people). In a way, the faster specialization was helpful to her as she came to the realization about what she didn’t want to do early on. And, she met someone at freshman registration who was studying nursing and ShawD said to herself, “Maybe I should be doing that.” Her HS didn’t really help her think of “off the mainstream track” careers/courses of study and I frankly didn’t know you could do a BS in nursing. I thought that was something you did after a bachelors. </p>
<p>Here’s the rub. There’s no way to transfer from the Faculty of Science to the Faculty of Nursing directly at her school and only one of her courses would transfer. So, she has to reapply as a freshman and there is no guarantee of admission. So, she was going to apply to nursing schools, but only in Canada. I suggested that she also look in Massachusetts. I figured that all the privates were past deadline but not the publics. It turns out that one of the local privates, with a very good reputation and which puts nurses in the Harvard hospitals for training, will consider her for winter 2012 if she can get the material in fast enough, which she is trying to do. There are some real advantages to that program (can turn it into a Nurse Practitioner MSN in a compressed period) so that is high on her list if it happens. If not, she’ll be comparing Canadian schools and MA schools for the fall.</p>