Eugene Said:

Help!! Career switch into nursing?

We Answered:

You need your BSN and RN license before you can move on to a masters. My daughter has exactly the degree that you have (BA in Sociology) when she went back to school for nursing. She had to take a year of prerequisites in order to apply for the nursing program and then it took another 2.7 years to complete the BSN degree.

It was worth it - she is making $100,000 a year as an E.R. nurse. Good luck.

Cathy Said:

I'm going to school for Nursing is it a good idea?

We Answered:

If you're turned off by doing the "dirty work" of nursing, then you might want to consider changing career paths. While RNs have different job functions than CNAs, it is inevitable that you will still be performing some of those activities of daily living that are commonly thought of as a CNA's job even when you're an RN. Not all hospitals have enough CNAs to provide those kinds of cares. Nobody really likes cleaning up after bowel movements or vomit, but you do get used to it the more you do it.

It takes a special kind of person to be a nurse - you need to be a "people" person, be patient and kind and empathetic and non-judgemental in order to really connect with your patients and do your job well. If that isn't you, that's another reason to maybe choose another career.

If you still want to be a nurse, nursing school as a whole is very challenging and demanding. I didn't feel the clinicals themselves were hard at all - but the paperwork you have to do both in preparation for those clinical experiences and afterwards can be very time consuming (but not necessarily "hard").

You will get out of nursing school what you put in. You have to study a lot. You have papers to write that take a lot of time and research. The tests progressively get harder as you learn more. But it's totally do-able. Even for a "non-traditional" student who is older and is trying to juggle a family and possibly work, too. Oh, and it's virtually impossible to work full-time while in school. It's too hard. Try to cut to part time, and apply for financial aid and get some loans to help pad your income to get you through. I had to rack up over $40k in student loans to avoid working so I could make it through school. The debt is huge, but it was totally worth it, and working as an RN, I can pay that off pretty quickly.

Good luck to you, you'll get through if you're persistent enough!