Some Advice on Schooling

ben123 · Mar 12, 2007

Hi! My name is Kayleen. I am a senior in high school and I have had my heart set on nursing since a very young age. I have applied to liberal arts colleges and 4 year bsn schools. I get different advice from different people. Some say you should get a broad based background at a liberal arts college and then go into nursing that way if you ever change your mind you have the BS/BA behind you. Then, others say that if you know you want to be a nurse then you should go to the nursing school, get your bachelors in nursing there, then move on to get msn etc in just a year and be at the top in just 5 years. Any advice? Im looking to talk to both nurses who went both routes so any insiders opinion is greatly appreciated!! thanks!

Hello. RN here. I would go to a community college and get your RN there. My education cost about $3000 for 3 years of school including books. At my job I make like $200 less a month than an RN with a BSN. My job also offers $10,000 to continue my education a year. It is great. Best of luck.

Ben

TazziRN, RN · Mar 12, 2007

I'm with Ben. Not looking to start a fight, so please don't flame me, but another route to consider would be the ADN route. And at many places there is absolutely no difference in pay between an ADN and BSN.

Freedom42 · Mar 12, 2007

I, too, had my heart set on one career from a very young age. I worked in that field for 25 years. When the time came for a change, I was glad that I had a strong liberal arts education to fall back on. It's cleared a lot of paths for me because I'd already taken so many courses.

If money is not a concern, I'd urge you to get the best education you can now. It will enrich your life. An education is not meant to be solely the equivalent of a pay check. You might find by exploring academia that there are other subjects you love equally or even more. Or you might find that nursing isn't for you after all. It's a lot easier to make changes when you're 20 then when you're 40 and have a family, a mortgage, etc. A well-rounded education gives you a lot of options.

My advice: Go to a university with a great BSN program and a great liberal arts program. It's a lot easier to transfer out of a BSN program then it is to transfer into one, and you can move around without changing schools. Follow the path that offers the most choices before you settle on your final course. It's too bad that there's so much pressure on teenagers to choose careers when they really haven't had a chance to explore.