Deciding between RN vs. MSW

Most people on this site are nurses or interested in becoming nurses, so I'm not sure you'll get balanced answers. In general, people move on after deciding on an alternate path.

An RN licence will only cost you a couple thousand through a community college. Working with your MSW should let you pay for that yourself if you wanted to. Since you like the psychological side of it more, why not do both? Get your MSW, then go back for your RN license?

There's a lot of overlap and collaboration between social workers and nursing. One of the biggest motivators I would see in going towards nursing is financial.... Currently working with a girl who's doing her MSW while I complete my BSN. We both work for the VA and plan on continuing work there. When I graduate I'll start at ~72k a year, she will start as a GS-9 which is about $50k. She's also going to be saddled with tons more debt from her masters level courses on top of that.

I would consider getting your RN license and working as a Psych Nurse and then eventually consider becoming a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP), if you really love the field. An RN license is versatile with a lot of room for growth and change.

Hello there,

From what you said in your post, it seems like you prefer to be a MSW but are worried about the cost. 20k can be paid off within a year or two of working in your field, if you are disciplined. Also, you are young so you have time to pay off loans quickly and still earn enough to invest in your future. Pre-nursing and nursing school can be very rigorous and stressful. You sacrifice everything to get through and you have to want it badly. With that said, if you decide to make a go of nursing you may be a natural at psych as suggested earlier. Best wishes.

Hello! We have similar paths so I thought I would give you my view.

I have a BSW and worked 10 years in child welfare. I was accepted to and set to start the MSW program with the hopes of going into school or hospital social work (both require a MSW in my area). But I ultimately decided to forgo my spot and instead pursue an RN. I decided that financially the money was better spent on nursing than social work (MSW is 30k in my area, which will ultimately be about my cost to complete nursing school).

I am finishing my prereqs now and will be applying to 2 different programs which will allow to sit for the NCLEX and award me a masters degree as well. One is a masters for entry to nursing (MEPN program awarding a MS-RN degree) and the other is a concurrent enrollment program through my community college (CEP awarding both an ADN degree and a traditional MSN degree).

I too plan to go into nurse case management after gaining several years of bedside care experience. I also entertain the idea of doing an advanced practice degree at some point; psychiatric nursing is very appealing to me. But so is midwifery and lactation consulting!

Also, regarding the MSW itself, my experience with my many friends in the social work field is that most who have their MSW feel stuck in their current position and either choose to go on to become licensed or are wishing they could work on licensure or change careers entirely in order to feel satisfied with their careers.

Of course, given the decision I made, I may have a skewed view of things!