Different types of nursing - research & epidemiology

I am not in nursing school yet but hope to be next year.

I know I will need to work acute care to begin my nursing career in order gain some experience or just find whatever job I can. I will be 40 when I will hopefully become a RN, so I am also thinking of what I will do besides bedside nursing since that can be so labor intensive. I was doing some research online about the nursing jobs available in my area and two positions came up that seem immensely interesting to me. Research nursing and epidemiology nursing. I am loving my current microbiology class and so epidemiology sounds interesting, and the idea of research sounds super interesting as well.

Does anyone have experience in the areas? What its like, how I can get into these areas, can new grads do this, etc.?