If you are a nurse who graduated from nursing school outside of the United States and you now desire to work in the United States or Canada then you are required to successfully pass the NCLEX exam in order to be licensed to work within the U.S. or Canada. However statistics show that nurses who obtain their degree outside of the United States have a extremely low passing rate when it comes to the NCLEX exam. Both the NCLEX-RN and the NCLEX-PN but particularly for the NCLEX-RN exam. According to the NCSBN, statistics show that in 2015 only 34% of international nurses who tested for the NCLEX-RN exam actually passed their exam. There are a combination of reasons why this may be the case.

For one your education may not be in alignment or the same as the education of nursing schools within the United States. Also the health care in the country you obtained your degree may not also correspond to the type of nursing care that is received within the United States.   Another reason may be ...

Are you a foreign graduate nurse and you're not sure what the process looks like to becoming a registered nurse? Or maybe you're in the process of researching about nursing and you want to know how exactly to get started. Inside this article, I will walk you through six steps to becoming a registered nurse.  

#1- Research different nursing programs

Whether you're going to go through school online or on campus, you want to first take the time to look up different schools BEFORE you take your nursing prerequisites. This is important because many schools have different requirements to become accepted. For example, some schools require that you pass the TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills) exam prior to applying. Others require you pass the HESI Entrance Exam which is another entrance exam. And then there are some that don't have any of those requirements at all. It's up to you if you want to take the route of getting your LPN license first and then become a Registered Nurse or if yo...