I think that I may be the oldest male nursing student when I enter this fall

Judging by the appearance of some of the RN's I've come across, you can apparently work until you are dead.

LOL-What better place to be dead, than in a hospital?

I took an early retirement at age 48, slacked around the country and the world for a couple of years, and am now ready to get back into the fray. The question I wrestled with was whether to return to my previous technical career in aviation, which made enormously more financial sense, or just do something entirely different. I volunteered in a local very urban emergency room last year, and I no longer had a decision to wrestle with. The answer was clear.

I applied to several flavors of nursing program (ASN, Accelerated BSN, and Direct-Entry MSN), and am butting up against decision deadlines. If anyone has some good rationale why one option is clearly better than another, I'm all ears. Regardless, 2-3 years from now the schooling part should be behind me. It's good to know that there are others in similar circumstances!

My OPINION...the one that will allow you to challenge the NCLEX in the shortest amount of time...assuming it is affordable to you...My OPINION...very little of what we do as RN's is learned in nursing school; it's learned OTJ, therefore my opinion that you get it over with as quick as possible.

I think you and I are thinking alike on this issue, and I believe that delaying the MS(N) is wise because of the evolution of career and thought. I originally thought about pursuing CRNA (motivated by the paycheck), then I thought about an MSN/NP program (motivated by ideology), but now I am completing an MS in a non-nursing quasi-clinical field which compliments my health-care experience and renders a paycheck that competes with CRNA compensation without the liability.