Back to school??

Hey, it's what floats your boat and where you see yourself years down the road. I think it also depends if you have your ADN or BSN. If you have the former, you might have to go back if you want more doors open for you.

Why would you want to get your MSN unless it is required for your career?

There is nothing wrong with being a nurse, earning money, gaining skills and taking care of patients.

I agree it does seem like more nurses than ever are going back to school to get their MSN in something these days. If you are happy on the floor you should not feel pressured to change or go to school, perhaps it is not for you, or perhaps sometime down the road you will decide you want your MSN.

I graduated with my BSN 5 years ago and I've gone back and forth over the past 5 years about whether or not I'm going to go back to school. As I was nearing graduation, I felt very done with school after having been in school consistently for 17 years. Immediately after I graduated, I had a panic of "I don't want to be a grown-up" and starting planning all the graduate degrees I could get and going back to school in 2009. Well, it's now almost 2013 and I haven't so much as thought about the GREs or that undergraduate stats class I would need. I know that I do not want to be a nurse practitioner so if I went back to school, I would probably take a CNS track and would ultimately want to teach.

But, to answer your question, OP, no I don't think it's bad that you don't want to go back. There are plenty of nursing jobs out there that you don't need a masters degree for and if you're happy doing what you're doing, I see no reason to change that. Another factor that hinders me is that I still have about $47k to pay in undergraduate loans and I own a house so taking on more debt just doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do now.

I feel like before you know it an MSN is going to be required for bedside. OUr hospital cut out all ADN nurses, we no longer hire them. the ones with their ADN now are grandfathered in though, with the option to go back to school for BSN with the hospital paying for a large portion of their schooling. However they have to decide within 5 years.

Now the hospital is really pushing all BSN to go for MSN. I hear it all the time, from everyone. "DO you want your MSN?" "When will you be going for your MSN?" "Have you looked at graduate schools yet?"

I think in the far far future an MSN is going to be required...i wouldn't be surprised. Of course that won't happen anytime soon, but in the far future i wouldn't be surprised if thats what happened.