Career choice - Having trouble deciding..

[future_nurse11]

Okay.. To start off, Let me give you some background on myself. I previously attended a court reporting school for about 2 1/2 years & it was a self-paced program. Basically whenever I get to the required typing speed, I graduate. The career of a court reporter basically interested me because of the money. My neighbor was a court reporter, single, & owned a beautiful home based on her income alone. However, the schooling seemed to be taking longer than I initially anticipated so I started considering other career options.

Then I looked into nursing. I found an LVN program that worked around my current work schedule. The program comes around only once a year so I impulsively left court reporting school & signed up for the LVN program.

I have been in the nursing program for six months now. It is very challenging, but I do enjoy it and have made some really good friends along the way. Also, the thought of becoming a nurse has been in my head since I was younger & it's a its make me proud to say that I was one. However, I just get nervous sometimes. I worry that I, since I want to continue school after this to get my BSN, I will miss so much time with my son and my family. The thought has come to mind to go back into court reporting. So that I can make my own schedule and do work from home even. I'm trying to weigh out everything, like the pay, the job flexibility, that interacting with people (or lack thereof), the stress.. HELLLLPP!

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

You are correct in assuming that nursing is much more rigid - schedule-wise, especially in the first few years of your career. You'll be working "unsociable" hours, including weekends and holidays. There are very few clinical Nursing Jobs in which you can wrangle more than 1 week's vacation at a time. If you want to prioritize your family time at this point in your life, I'd say go with court reporting.