A little anxiety applying for Nursing school as an older male

[Magnicious]

First off I want to say I'm so happy there's a section for male nurses on here! It's nice to know there's a community like this.

So, went to school for IT in my younger years, didn't finish and wasted away most of my twenties but at 26 I joined the Air Force Reserves because I wanted to go to school and have some type of help paying for it. I have a really great job in IT but I've had a really higher calling to nursing. During my tech school I had to do a detail in which I assisted nurses for the day with minor tasks throughout the day. And I've really wanted to go to school for Nursing. I finished my pre-reqs Anatomy & Physiology I, II, and Microbiology all with A's. I know finding a job is hard and I don't mind continuing in the IT field until I can find adequate employment sometime in the future after finishing my degree. However, my dream is to become an officer.

However, I've told my family & friends my plans to go to nursing school and I'm met with being told I'm too old to go. I'm not a woman, nursing is for females nobody wants to be serviced by a male, etc. So much so that I've began to wonder if it makes sense at my age to go back to school and go into a way different field. I am still very serious about wanting to go but other people's comments are always making me question my decision. I'm just wondering, did any of you have to deal with any of these issues and if so how did you deal with them?

[NinjaKiwi]

As the "Old Man" (and eventually the only man) in my nursing class at 35, I can tell you to be prepared for the younger ones to look to you for leadership. There are certain advantges (in my never to be humble opinion) about being a man in a mostly (still) women's profession, but you'll find that out soon enough. I was a very experienced Medic, Paramedic and LPN thanks to Uncle Sam's generosity in making sure I was highly trained and experienced. I decided to finish my nursing degree on my Vietnam GI Bill, before the "blanks" in Congress voted them away. Even though just that happened (Congress allowed me just one semester), it was the best decision I made. Be prepared for the ususal silliness when some people find out you are a "male nurse"- although my license just lists me as "RN". I had many of my elderly male relatives look at me sideways when I told them of my degree, but then would usually say something like "well, that's OK, you were an Army medic before that!"

Just my $.02

Ski

[JuneSmith]

go for it, don't listen to the naysayers if its what you want to do,do it. More and more men are coming into nursing I am so glad to see this when I trained over 30 yrs ago there was 5 men but there was always more men in psychiatric nursing then in normal nursing.

[SailorFrog]

I'm 50. I am just getting back into this business after a 3 year hiatus

I'm retired Navy. I spent years as an Firefighter/EMT. I spent a couple years working as an MA. Taught EMT's and MA's both.

Now, I'm in nursing school.

The only grief I have ever gotten was from old school RN's who thought I should be somewhere else. That was from both men and woman.

Don't let anyone dictate to you who you are or who you want to be.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

[HealingThoughts]

Wow I'm so glad I found this thread. After my third layoff in 6-years, I made the decision to back to school for Nursing. My main career was in technical support. So I'm not worried about the pressure. I used to walk cranky 80-yo's through setting up their computer for the first time on a daily basis! I'm 43 but already have a BA - with luck I'll make into a local second degree BSN program. Two good friends have finished that program already, both being my age! I'm nervous and my family thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis. But I'm going for it anyway! The one bit of advice I got was to get certified as a CNA or Medical Assistant while working on my pre-reqs. That way some practical work experience can be gained. That's the plan at least. I'm really nervous, but excited to try something new.

[RN_na_pogi_pa]

I was 33 when started Nursing school. I'm about to start my first job as an RN. I also have a background in IT and is planning to apply for an MSN-Informatics program soon.

[ePerfect]

My favorite nurse to work with is an elderly gentleman. He's former military and after that he worked for GM. When GM crashed a few years ago he took up nursing. He's in his 70s now and been nursing for at least 10 years. He's great! It's never to late (and there's never a wrong gender) to become a nurse :)

[Andrew1403, ASN, BSN, RN]

Don't be nervous to apply at your age. I am 29 as well and have been an Rn for over a year, which took me two years before that to finish school and now I am working full time and got accepted into a Rn-bsn program. From what I saw in nursing school is a age range from mid 20's-late 30's, a few early 40's, with one or two mid 50's that were the outliers on age spectrum. Everyone was real friendly and worked, learned, and helped each other regardless of age. One male in our class was 54 and we called him the grey wolf and he was an awesome friendly guy.

You should have no problem at your your age in nursing school. You will be right in the middle of the age spectrum and really who cares! This is from a two year rn college program point of view. It maybe slightly younger in age at 4yr bsn school because there maybe alot of first time college studdnts there.

Good luck! Getting in the program is tough! Successfully navigating the program by graduating is even harder. Take thinks slow and plan time management , and don't procrastinate, study smart, put other life things on hold. Nursing school is a FULL TIME commitment/job in itself.

[OldNavySS]

OK, it is wonderful to see this thread on here. I was career military and retired over 10 years ago. Now that we have all the children out of the house I'm ready for my final career change. I was going to enter a 2nd degree BSN program when I first retired but needed to continue working with 3 children still at home. I'm currently in management at a nuclear engineering facility but am completing my prereqs (nobody at work knows I’m doing this) and applying for the night-school program next spring. As my schedule now looks, I'll be graduating with my ADN and getting my RN at 55 years old. I could really use some information to know that I'm not being stupid by pursuing this dream (that’s what I’m hearing a lot). Because I have wanted to do this for so long I find it easy to come up with reasons why it is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, I also hear a lot of “valid” reasons it may be silly, mostly financial. I will be about 7 years from retirement when I start a new career path. Advice and assistance from all of you wise and experienced folks would be greatly appreciated.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

I'm 40 and I'm about to graduate from RN school. I started down the path to get here about 6 or 7 years ago and I'm not the youngest guy in my class. I'm probably 2nd oldest... in a class of about 40, only about 6 of us are male. Guess what? I have good friendships with most of the people in the class and it doesn't really matter all that much that I'm male. What's probably more interesting is that apparently about 1/2 of the nurses on the floor that I'm on right now are guys and the nurses do seem to get along pretty well.

I would have to say that being in your 30's is a great age to get into nursing. If you're younger than dead... you're young enough to be a nurse!

However, I should caution you: if you become a zombie nurse, your employer will likely try to exploit you because you won't need breaks and healthcare consists of semi-annual fumigations. So what if therapeutic communication is challenging and you move slowly... your employer will still attempt to reap some PR points by employing the undead.

Sorry... just had to lighten up the mood here! Once you've decided you want to be a nurse and you've done your research about how to get there, and you've knocked your prerequisites out of the way, start applying as soon as you're qualified. Just make sure that you've also got all the other graduation requirements completed because once you're in the program pipeline, you won't have much time for much else unless you make the time for it! That means if you're a class or three short of meeting those graduation requirements, be sure you can do them over the Summer before you're done with the program or you won't actually graduate with your class and won't be able to take the NCLEX until you're actually a graduate, which would be horrible if you completed the program and had to wait a semester to actually graduate...

Oh, and be thankful you're not a med student. Their path to financial independence and security is a lot longer than ours is...

[HealingThoughts]

Well I did it.. at least I got started. I went to an informational meeting tonight. After talking to the counselor, I went home and sent in my application for the "Pre-nursing" program. That's basically the program this school has to get all the pre-reqs out of the way! I got a ton of information from the adviser tonight, that I'm still trying to digest. Also, it looks like I'll be far from the oldest student in my classes. She proudly informed that their oldest student is 60 and quite a few students are over 30. Still nervous and excited though. This is probably the most exciting thing I've ever done with my life.

[Nurseworks, ASN, RN]

I am in the second semester of my ADN at the age of 45. I retired from a 22 year job as a LEO and became a CNA, started working at a hospital and haven't looked back. Go for it!!!

[tenjuna, MSN]

Just graduated today, and I am 43. The only other guy in the program was 45, and a lot of the males I saw working during clinicals were older as well. You will be in good company sir.