Attention Gaylord Focker...

Nurses Men

Published

Ok, I got your attention now and it's not a slam as I'm 32 and considering a career change into nursing.

Did anyone else switch careers into nursing? I'm considering it because I've just hated the work I've done the past 5 years or so and with all of the good paying jobs in high tech and manufacturing leaving, I'm looking for something where I feel like I can contribute something positive while earning a nice income at the same time. Do you feel being a guy in the profession is more of an advantage or a disadvantage? Having been discriminated against being a white male in the workforce before, I'd think it would be nice to be on the other end of the spectrum for once.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one. I'm 31 yrs old, married with a 5 yr old daughter. My family had to sacrafice a pretty good lifestyle to allow me to make a career change at this point in my life. I've been in sales for the past 10 years and made over 6 figures doing it. However, I always felt that my profession was meaningless and empty. I returned to college and doing very well. It was scary at first, but it's just like riding a bike. The biggest challenge I'm faced with is managing my time between work, life and school.

Good luck and God Bless!

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I like ur analogy to riding a bike....might feel a "little shaky" when you first get back on....but it's unlikely you'll "fall".

I'm not married (have partner of 18 yrs), but we have no kids. There are 2-3 married guys with kids in my class (eg: young kids, from few months to 3 yrs old), and they do seem to talk about that....the fact that it's harder for their wives, with them in school full-time.....different from when they worked full-time. With school, your "school day" isn't over when ur out of class/clinical. There's usually time sensitive home-work/stuff to complete, and it takes away from home life. The good thing is, that the time in nursing school is pretty short-lived....and after that's over, we'll have ALOT more options available to us, in terms of schedule flexibility, and overall unlimited duration of employability....which is NOT true in the business working world.

And similar to you, I had a nice 6-figure salary before entering nschool full-time, but I've never really looked back. Not THAT easy making it on 1-income in central/western NJ where we live. Property taxes alone (hold onto your hat) are $8k a year for us. Now we live in a real nice (ok, SUPER-nice) $600k townhouse, but that's not outrageous in this State, which is home to about highest salary levels in country, due to this being Pharmacapital of USA.

Take care...and chat again soon!

PS---my Accel BSN Program will cost me $28k alone in student loans!

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I can certainly empathize with you. I too live in NJ and worked for Zenaca. My wife has been terriffic with me wanting to do this. I used to work over 60-70 hrs a week and travel a lot. She's hoping that this will allow me to slow down to 40 hrs a week. She doesn't know that I'm really debating MSN-NP or Med school after this. Doctors are expected to work at least 80 hrs a week during residency.

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