Considering just taking boards and be a LPN...does that make me a failure?

Nurses LPN/LVN

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I graduated from Chicago public schools practical nursing program in june 2012. I've been studying to take boards for my LPN but I'm also looking for a job as a CNA so that I'll be able to pay for it w/o depending on my mom. I also attend North Park university. I sort of feel like I should just stick with the lpn and work to save up for it, but then part of me is worried about what everybody else will say if I just drop out of college. All of my teachers and counselors at my school, employees at my mom's job (she's a CNA) were expecting me to go on for my RN, I even at one point expressed an interest in premedicine. I just don't want to look like a failure or a quitter but I don't believe that I want the responsibility of a RN . Most of the students that graduated from the program are going on to get a RN and even become Nurse Practioners (did i spell that right lol), even my cousin is going to get her RN. Is it wrong for me to be focused on other peoples' opinion of what I should do and comparing what I want to do with someone else's expectations and dreams?

Specializes in School Nursing.
This is true. I do feel really burnt out with school.

Then get your license and go to work and live life for a little while. You're young, you don't have a lot of bills or responsibilities. Start building your future, save a little bit of money and re-evaluate in a year or two, or three, or ten. The world is at your feet- go experience it! :)

Then get your license and go to work and live life for a little while. You're young, you don't have a lot of bills or responsibilities. Start building your future, save a little bit of money and re-evaluate in a year or two, or three, or ten. The world is at your feet- go experience it! :)

Thank you so much for this :) everybody that I talk to about it always says "RN make more money, they can specialize" but if making more money was the objective everybody would be trying to be a doctor or president lol.

We are hardly losers and you shouldn't be made to feel that way, especially by your own family. Your mom is a CNA so you've already surpassed her if she's looking to compete about it.

This is true, but I don't know if it's about competing. My mom was disappointed when I got pregnant in college because she thought I wouldn't finish....even though she got pregnant when she was 16 and the highest education she ever attained was a GED. Still, now that I have 2 bachelor's degrees and may even go on, she's still not very impressed! I don't think she'd express any approval if I were the president of the USA though, but that's another story.

I think most people just always want "better" for their children, and in the meantime, they put high expectations on them without even realizing the side effects. It's like what their children achieve or don't achieve is a reflection on them. Then, some people (like my mom) are just crazy!

It's not so much my mom competing with me but putting me in a competition with my other cousins because they're going on for a RN.

Specializes in FMF CORPSMAN USN, TRUAMA, CCRN.

{...Money which includes my student loans and the fact that I have to work and most RN programs around here mske it difficult to do both.

... I wanted to make sure I liked nursing before I spent more money and time to realize it wasn't for me. I even spent a year working my previous job and a nursing job on weekends before I quit to do nursing full time. I also really have learned a lot about what kind of nurse I want to be as far as specialties and whether I want to stop at my RN or go on and get my NP. Taking these two years has given me a lot of insight into a lot of knowledge about me and where I want to be as a nurse...!}

** Anyone considering studying for sitting the LPN boards or simply staying an LPN, there is nothing wrong with your thinking. LPN is a noble profession, and one that the industry would play hell doing without. They have tried several times to phase LPN's out and failed miserably, as the RN's were left with so much of the hands-on nursing task, they were unable to keep up with their other duties and the hospitals were reluctant to spend the monies to hire additional RN's to ease the burden. I truly believe with the changes coming to health care that LPN's will be in demand as much as they ever were, if not more.

Scrubwearer also made some excellent points in her post about wanting to insure she actually liked being a nurse before she committed a lot of time and money to it, and that makes perfect sense. If you were going to make a large investment such as a house or even an automobile, you would check it out first; make certain it didn't have any flaws or at least flaws you can't deal with. Next, if you can work part time it gives you a chance to see if you actually like what you are doing. It would really suck, if you gave up a nice job to go into nursing only to find out you genuinely hated it, but that now you're stuck with it. Working as an Nurse part time, on weekends gives you the opportunity to get your feet wet and actually see if nursing is for you or not, you may get in there and hate every minute of it, working part time, you can quit and go back to your real job. Where-as, if you had already taken a full-time job and given up everything else you'd be stuck until you could find another job. Her third point was excellent, working as an LPN for a while, gives you the opportunity to learn about yourself. You may find that working as an LPN, you enjoy the closeness of the one on one contact that comes from your hands-on role as an LPN. You may find after a couple of years in various specialty units that you either enjoy your current role or you may want to use it as a stepping-stone to advance your career. Your role as an LPN can only enhance your capabilities as an RN. If you choose to move on to RN school, having been an LPN will aide in your studies tremendously, and make clinicals oh so much easier. Being an LPN is never a waste of time, and anyone who tells you differently is simply jealous of your skills and bedside manner, which they obviously lack, or they wouldn't have told you that in the first place.

It's ultimately your life and nobody else's.

ditto. We each mature as we live our own lives and not someone else's.

I regret far less, making my own mistakes, but dearly regret the mistakes I allow other's to make for me!!

I have just decided to go back to school to become an LPN, and already have been told that I will want to go on to become an RN soon. I really don't know if I will or not. I think that being an LPN is a very respectable job. It just depends on the individual. I personally can live just fine on twenty dollars per hour, so the extra money is not a big deal to me. LPN doesn't always have to be a stepping stone. You still make a difference, and that's what it's all about.

Thank you all! :-)

Specializes in FMF CORPSMAN USN, TRUAMA, CCRN.

sharonp30, Congratulations on your decision to go back to school, and for making up your OWN mind that being an LPN was for you. I think there are many Nurses out there that feel the pressure of others to go to RN school and when they do, they find it a bit too much sometimes, what with work and school or taking care of their family what have you. Nurses sometimes do a great disservice to other nurses when they push them to go for their RN as they just aren't prepared in any number of ways, be it financially, mentally, family wise, etc, but the nurse feels backed into a corner because it seems as if everyone else is moving on with school but him or her. Being an LPN, is an honorable profession and let me tell you, in my own career, I have worked with many very fine LPN's. There are many LPN's that I have had the honor of working alongside of that I would prefer over that of some of the RN's I've been stuck with, a couple of them have been Master's prepared. Believe me, Sharon, education does not make the Nurse, that is only a very small part of it. I've had a Master's prepared nurse literally spinning around in circles in the doorway of a coding patient's room, and I had to pick her up by her elbows and set her to the side so others could enter the room and code the patient. Study hard and pay attention to your clinicals, that is where you will learn the most actual nursing. You will do fine. And thanks for joining the finest group of people in the world, it's hard work, but if you love what you do, you'll never work a day for the rest of your life.

You are young and have your whole life ahead of you. Take the LPN boards, do a little work, do a little school, get all those pre-equisites out of the way, then think about where you want to go from there. There's a whole wide world out there, go for it!! Sounds like your Mom is behind you 100% and so proud of you. And I know how it gets--cousins sometimes have a little competition thing.....it's OK, you got this, be mindful that you don't have to decide this second what you want to become in the future. Now the time is right to take those boards bridge when and if you want to, and explore all the options. Best of luck!!

I have been a LPN for close to ten years. I am currently the wound care coordinator at a long term care facility. I am certified with National Alliance of Wound Care and I am Board certified by the American Board of Wound Management. I was told by several people through the years that I should be a R.N or I am frequently asked am I a RN. I enjoy being a LPN. I would say take your NCLEX-PN get your LPN then continue your education and be come a better RN. I believe the BEST RN'S have been LPN's and Cna's first. They have strong clinical skills and they understand the theory behind nursing. I unfortunately have to go back to bridge for my RN only because I need the two initials behind my name to go even further in my field. But I will say that I know some phenomenal LPN's and I have learned tons from them. So I say ALL of that to say this: FOLLOW YOU HEART AND FIRST THOUGHT.:laugh::yes:

Specializes in FMF CORPSMAN USN, TRUAMA, CCRN.

Very well said misscutiecute. Anyone who doesn't think they can learn from someone else, simply because they might have what is considered a lesser license or not quite the same education, isn't as smart as they think they are. In fact, they have quite a lot to learn, if you ask me. Good luck in your future endeavors, what ever they may be.

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