If you get a degree in nursing, then which university you attend really will not impact your career much, if at all. If you get a degree in anthropology, that will result in a very different career. Animal science is very different again. Psychology is very different again.
I do by the way have a close relative with a degree (or two) in nursing, and a close relative with a degree in animal science. They both work in health care related fields. Their patients are very, very different.
California has very, very good public universities. ALL of the various Universities of California are very good. I do not know as much about the CSU’s, but my understanding is that they are very good also. You really can do very well with a degree from any one of many, many public universities in California. I also wonder about nearby schools such as Arizona State or the various WICHE / WUE schools.
Okay, this is useful and is more specific information that we can think about.
Let’s start with veterinary sciences. I have a daughter who just got her DVM this past May, and is working as a veterinarian. Getting to this point is a very long and very tough and very expensive path. The required pre-vet classes are tough (and are the same as the required premed classes). At one point she said that organic chemistry was “the most difficult B- that I ever had in my life”. A few years later she told me that on average the courses in her DVM program were just as tough. Being a DVM does not pay well enough to pay off your student debt unless you can get a significant amount of help from parents along the way and avoid taking most of the cost as debt. Most of the people in her DVM program had taken a gap between getting their bachelor’s degree and applying to DVM programs, so it is normal for a newly graduating DVM to be in their late 20’s or even early 30’s, and there were a few students who graduated along with her who were quite a bit older than this.
Before applying to DVM programs, after getting her bachelor’s degree in animal sciences, my daughter worked as a veterinary technician. To her this was an interesting and rewarding job. However, it does not pay well at all. You also need to answer to the veterinarians, and she did see them mess up on rare occasion.
Whether a vet tech or a veterinarian this is a tough job. You will see quite a few animals die. Some die because they got to the vet too late. Animals are not all that good at explaining to their humans friends what is wrong, and some pet owners are either busy doing other things or have trouble affording veterinary care. You will be bitten. My daughter needed a series of rabies injections just to start her DVM program (the required COVID shots were pretty minor in comparison). You will be pooped on. My daughter relatively frequently gets to use the long gloves that go right up to the shoulder – you will be that far into your job in veterinary medicine (if you deal with large animals). She has had some emergencies where she has been outside helping animals well past midnight. She has come home with a sore arm from the effort of pulling a 60-80 pound baby out of its mother – they apparently do not always come out easily. There are even yuckier things I could mention but won’t.
My daughter loves it.
I also know someone quite well who is a nurse. This is a job that you can do with a bachelor’s degree. She also loves it. You get to help a lot of people, and she has helped an enormous number of people over the years.
If you apply would they reject you, or would you possibly be required to repeat some classes? Have you talked to admissions at some CSUs and if so what do they say? Could you afford an extra quarter/semester or extra year if this is needed?
Do you know if there are WUE schools that you can consider? I thought that Washington State had nursing but I am not sure how that would match up to your CC classes. Again this might be worth a call to admissions.
