BS in Biology... helpful or useless?

[cdmccarthy]

Hello all! I received my BS in Biology about 4 years ago and after watching my mom spend 30+ days in the ICU, I've decided I want to make a career change and go into nursing. I did okay in school... have about a 3.0 overall. Most of my struggles were with physics, calculus, and organic chemistry. Everything else I got As or Bs in.

I have most of the pre-reqs already done for the nursing school I'm applying to (ASN program) and think I have a really good shot at getting in. The only classes they consider for the GPA are their 9 pre-reqs (6 of which I have completed with 5 As and 1 B). I have the A&P series and nutrition left before I apply. I would probably apply for either Fall '16 or Spring '17 admission cycle.

NOW. That being said, how helpful is a background in hard science going to be during nursing school? I've taken upper level classes in microbiology, virology, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, and cell biology. I am wondering if those will serve me well in nursing school, or since those were theory classes will it basically be useless that I have taken those courses? I'm wondering mostly about understanding the didactic nursing material (pathophysiology, pharmacology, etc) and not so much about clinicals. Since graduating I've worked primarily as a microbiologist and have done about a year of chemistry.

Thoughts? Thanks!

[Tumbler]

Well, your previous degree certainly won't be useless. It's not that the knowledge isn't useful, it's that nursing "thinking" is very different from the thinking you were expected to do in the sciences. I breezed through my math and sciences, taking more than was required for the nursing curriculum, because thinking that way is easy for me, but the nursing classes? Holy cow. Seemed like it took me forever to learn to think like a nurse, and even then, I never could tear through a nursing test the way I could a calc or chem exam.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Acquiring knowledge is never a waste of time. Nursing is the "civil engineering" of health care professions - it incorporates knowledge & theory from a wide variety of other fields in addition to life sciences, e.g., psychology, sociology, dietetics, psychometrics, etc.

A larger concern may be your new grad job options without a BSN. It's a lot different than it was when your mom (and me) were starting out. In the larger scheme, if you ever want to envision a specialty for career advancement, you may want to look at Infection Control or epidemiology - where your prior education would be very valuable.

[cdmccarthy]

Acquiring knowledge is never a waste of time. Nursing is the "civil engineering" of health care professions - it incorporates knowledge & theory from a wide variety of other fields in addition to life sciences, e.g., psychology, sociology, dietetics, psychometrics, etc.

A larger concern may be your new grad job options without a BSN. It's a lot different than it was when your mom (and me) were starting out. In the larger scheme, if you ever want to envision a specialty for career advancement, you may want to look at Infection Control or epidemiology - where your prior education would be very valuable.

The current plan is ASN then an RN-BSN program. My grades aren't good enough for accelerated BSN programs and there aren't any in my area anyway. I figure I'll get the ASN and maybe try getting into per diem work with that while I do an online RN-BSN program and keep working in my current field full-time-ish until I have the BSN. I'm lucky to have the flexibility I do and I'm going to try and take advantage of that while I don't have any kids. Thanks for the input!