Here are the facts: I'm twenty three, I live in Atlanta, GA, I went to Georgia State University to pursue a degree in several vague liberal arts degrees, failed miserably due to lack of motivation, and am now starting over.
This is a new era for me. I've blogged before about just random daily happenings that seemed interesting to me, but mostly I wrote to salvage my mental state. Writing is cathartic, and keeps me interested in a particular topic. This blog is dedicated to my new path in life: RT school.
I think that this happens to a lot of people. They go to college, because that's the thing to do, and realize a little to late in the game that this is not exactly where they want to be. I didn't drop out of
GSU because of a lack of intelligence, but rather a severe lack of prospects and drive. These days, exiting college with a liberal arts degree means just about one thing for a young lady: administrative assistant. I've done the office work before, and I'd rather scratch my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than work in an office for the rest of my life. I had no intentions of going to grad school either, mostly because my GPA had suffered, as well an
aversion to the snotty liberal arts professors that I encountered on a daily basis.
I have changed my major more than Courtney Love changes her moods (or drugs). I have to admit that I am easily influenced by a lot of ideas, and majors, but the brunt of the blame goes to lack of preparation before I went to University. I just had no clue what I wanted to do in life.
When I finally screamed "ENOUGH" after the last semester of Philosophy (which will do that to you), I started researching other options for a career outside of the traditional University. I researched, researched, and researched some more until I had a short list of medical careers that interested me:
Radiologic tech, Dental
Hygienist, Ultrasound, Nursing, and Respiratory Therapy. I picked medicine because I spent a good amount of time in High School in Health Occupations (a technical elective that emphasized
health care careers), and also participated in a Health Occupations of America conference in Augusta, Ga. Why I did not consider a career in medicine when I got out of High School baffles the shit out of me.
So, back to the list. My task at hand was to minimize the list to three, and then of those three do some shadowing and make a decision. After looking over the job listings for all of them, I ruled out Dental
Hygienist. It seems that in Atlanta the job market is slim due to an over abundance of
Hygienists, and it's hard to get health insurance from a doctor if you are only working part time. Next to go was
Radiologic Tech, because the schools close to Atlanta are very very competitive, and my grades are less than stellar.
So my final three were Ultrasound, Nursing and Respiratory Therapy. The very popular Ultrasound (I think it's because of the 60k salary) is highly saturated here in Atlanta. There are at least 4 schools I can name right off the top of my head, all within the perimeter of the city. I was interested in the program, but was not interested in paying 30k for a "private" school that goes by the name of Sanford Brown (from what I understand they are crooks that are not concerned with education, but rather profit). My list of three, was narrowed to two.
I spent hours, upon hours of looking through blogs and forums on the two careers. I noticed a lot of burn out between both, and decided to go shadow both, and see which job was most stressful. I wish I had some fun stories to tell about my shadowing, but there really wasn't much too it. On the day I did respiratory, I spend 90% of the time
neb jockeying around the ICU, but I did get to see the
NICU, and was pretty enamoured by that department. I hung out with my aunt for a day, who is a LPN for a family medicine doctor (which also happens to be my physician as well). It was a pretty simple day, a few blood pressures here, a lot of charting there, and good gossip on the
hottie new doctor in the next pod over. However, the nurses let me know that they had a "
cush" nursing job, and a lot of new nursing grads have to start at the bottom of the totem pole, or as they called it "night shifts at the hospital". One very graphic story of a nurse sealed my fate on being a RN. She recalled a night shift in an ER a very long time ago which involved a very intoxicated college student. The nutshell version is that he threw up on her, and also soiled the bed with a massive amount of...
erm... poo.
After I was done with my shadowing, I went to sit in
Piedmont park to clear my mind of jargon, and really focus on a decision. I made a pro/con list, and found that they were about even. I wouldn't say that I had an epiphany, but I did remember a specific memory that made up my mind. I was in fourth grade at the time, and had a bad bout of bronchitis. I couldn't stop coughing up
phlegm, but the weird thing is that I would sneak looks at what I coughed up in the tissue. Yes, that's right. I
played with my boogers. I remember wanting to put the snot under a microscope and look to see what was in it. I was interested in what color it was, the consistancy, and whether I could flick it at the back of Brandon Gipson's head and it would stick.
I am now enrolled in a smallish technical school right outside the perimeter of Atlanta. In a month and a half I will start on a few prerequisites for the program (A&P 1,2, Microbiology, and Physics). Some of my University credit did transfer (English 1101,1102, Precalc, Psychology 1101, and Chem 1211/L). I'll be in school this spring and summer for the prerequisites, and then hopefully I'll know by early September if I'm admitted into the program (I have my fingers crossed!!). The program is a year long, and will start next March. I'm very excited, and so happy that I have a clear path that leads to a goal in life.
I really am starting this blog to help me along on my journey. I hope that it connects me to other Respiratory Therapists, and keeps me modivated towards achieving my goal.
