Help with deciding becoming a nurse or occupational therapist!

Congrats on making a career switch decision - with your background and experience, I am sure you will be successful this time.

I am sure you are already weighing the "pluses & minuses" of both your choices - here are the ones that come to mind.

I believe that entry into practice for therapists (PT, PT, ST, etc) is at the graduate level. With a bachelor's degree, you will qualify for licensing as an Assistant (OTA, PTA). There may be salary considerations with this. Nursing is more physically demanding and stressful but jobs are more plentiful. The job market for therapists is much more limited than that for nurses because there are just fewer positions. OT's work with very specific populations, and you may tire of this after a while and want more variety. On the other hand, Therapists can go into independent practice fairly easily in most states.

Just a thought - have you looked into Art Therapy as a career? It may be a good career for you.

Hello,

You may want to check around to see how the OT profession is looking in this economy. For the vast majority of potential nursing students that I talk to, I do NOT recommend that you choose nursing because of perceived salary or security benefits! (They are not quite what the media portrays!) But from your post, I have a sense that you've already begun to look at the things that I like to see a future nurse consider.

I would advise you to consider if your short term goals require a BSN, or if an Asoociate's degree would work just as nicely for you. The BSN may end up costing you more than it would be worth, given what you seem to be indicating your interests and your "driving force" in all of this may be!

I wish you all the best as you pursue your interest in nursing; email me if you had other Q's.

MsLori RN, BSN

Wow, you and I have similar backgrounds. I "always" wanted to do "art." I got my BA in art as well. When I tried getting a job w/ that degree in the "real world" I had no luck! I then took a year to figure out what I wanted to do.....and came up with nursing. I researched the best/fastest way to get to where I wanted to be....so I chose a private LVN program, with the intention of going for my RN (which I still plan to do). However, living in CA as a LVN has been a real eye opener for me.....it's hard to find a job and there are not as many doors open for a LVN in various fields. Maybe I should have researched it more?

Anyways, throughout the last year of being in and out of work, my mind has wandered....should I just go for my masters in psych? counseling? art therapy? (I see/saw art therapy as a way to combine my two interests....art+helping people one on one in a therapeutic environment). However, there are no art therapy programs close to me and moving is not an option at this point. Sooooo, I've finally decided to stick with nursing and go for my BSN/RN.....figuring I need to finish what I started and not get sucked into the "what ifs" simply b/c I'm struggling to find work.

Once I get my BSN, maybe I'll go back for my masters down the line.....in psych? not sure yet. I think at least having a BSN/RN will open more doors for me. I also decided to go for the BSN b/c the Community Colleges here in CA where I live all have a waiting list for their ADN/RN programs....so I'm going to go through Indiana State University's online program, and they'll accept a lot of my classes from my former BA, so it shouldn't take me AS long. Art therapy MIGHT be a good thing to pursue Keep us posted!

For what it's worth, over the (many) years, the OTs I've known have been a lot happier being OTs than the nurses I've known have been happy being nurses ...

Just do your research. Its so hard choosing a career sometimes and you just dont want to look back and say I wish I would have chose that career or this career. I wanted to get away from the competitive nursing programs and changed my major to speech therapy only to find out that those graduate programs are just as competitive as nursing schools. Good luck on whatever you choose!

Most OTs seem to be happy. Some nurses are but nursing seems to have more burn out and overwork then OT