Advices for a nursing major?

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I am a student at a community college taking prerequisites for nursing school. I used to plan on majoring in Occupational Therapy but due to factors such as cost and length of schooling. In the long run, I plan to advance in the field of nursing by becoming an Advance Practice Nurse or Nurse Practitioner (since schooling takes as long as an OT and is very diversified.) I plan to do this after a couple of years in bedside nursing. However, people around me tell me that nursing is overly saturated and new grads can't find jobs. Is this true? I've been always interested in becoming a nurse because of the many applications you can do with it. Although therapy is less stressful, I don't think it's something I want to do... any advices from nurses (APN or non-APN) out there? Your opinions are highly appreciated. thanks a lot!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

It seems to be a very strange situation at the moment. In many areas of the country, new grads are having a terrible time landing their first jobs. Hospitals in major metro areas are only hiring BSN grads in very limited numbers via formal residency programs. There has been an rapid expansion of nursing programs that are churning out more graduates than ever before.

On the other hand, in my neck of the woods, hospitals are beginning to having more difficulty filling vacancies with experienced nurses. Some specialties are once again classified as "hard to fill", which means that recruiting bonuses are once again showing up. The market for APNs does not appear to be living up to the optimistic projections associated with the ACA - maybe this is due to the political uncertainly associated with extreme bi-partisanship & threats to "abolish Obamacare".

Basically, it's a toss-up. By the time you are a new grad, the outlook could be very much improved . . . or not. You'll have to decide how much "risk budget" you are willing to wager on the outcome.

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Everyone kept saying how hard it is to get a job as a new-grad. I got a job in less than a month after nclex which was the case for almost all of my classmates and we are all "only" ADN grads.

You just can't expect to land that coveted peds/ICU/ER position and will more than likely be working night shift. Like any job you put in your time.

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