Thanks once again MG. You are sooooooo very very helpful. I really appreiciate you answering all my millions of questions.

Thanks for the tip re registering as an EN. I might see about that (in a couple of years, lol!!). I would love to be able to work while doing my degree - i think i would feel a lot more confident in myself if I was able to practice some basic nursing stuff other than just on clinicals. And if I would get to do an extra placement, then even better!
I checked the NSW nurses board website and it says you have to do the EN course (nursing cert IV at tafe or a traineeship through NSW Health and TAFE) to be an EN in nsw, but I suppose if I am able to register as an EN in SA after doing 2nd year of the degree then I could swap that over to NSW because it says that you can have it recognised in any state. The section about courses for EN/RN on the SA nurses board site is being updated and theres no info there currenlty. I hope they let me enrol as an EN in SA even though I dont live there.

again, thank you so much!