What career would YOU have chosen if you weren't a nurse?

rhenmag9 · Nov 4, 2006

-News anchor

writer/journalist

wedding organizer

baker

pre-school teacher

allnurses Guide · Nov 4, 2006

Well, I actually DID start out as a graphic designer, but that career tanked. So nursing is a second career for me.

Art is still my first love, and I eventually want to really do something with it, even if that is just showing my pantings and drawings in various galleries and exibits, and not necessarily making much money doing that.

IF I were ten years younger though, and without children, I'd go back to school and learn to be a web developer, or I'd get an actual 2-year commercial art degree. I only had a BA in art, and didn't really concentrate in graphic design; just took a lot of varied art classes.

BSNtobe2009 · Nov 4, 2006

I would have stayed in the one I was in if I wasn't going to be a nurse. I love finance, but having a huge amount of your salary based on commission sucks.

PurrRN · Nov 4, 2006

If I had had the focused determination ten years ago that I do now, I'd probably go to medical school. But I didn't learn that life lesson until now, and with three babies I'm not willing to sacrifice that much time away from them (my choice). Sometimes though, I could knock my self in the head for not taking advantage of my (pre-kids) life. I console myself by acknowledging that at least I'm on track now and that nursing fullfills that part of me that is fascinated with medicine.

maggijo · Nov 4, 2006

I have considered everything under the sun and still do. I am a former teacher- middle and high school Spanish teacher. I'm surprised there aren't more teachers listed here. I would think there would be a lot of overlap with nursing and teaching. Some of the careers I have considered: photographer, journalist, speech therapist, counselor, interpreter, and Broadway star (I don't know how to sing or dance, so I had to give up that one). It's fun to dream!

sweetpea123 · Nov 4, 2006

It's still not to late for me to be a nurse and....

an accupuncturist, accountant, helicopter pilot, physical therapist, lab technician, costume designer, interior designer, general contractor, and elementary school teacher.

Or maybe it is?

Life is short...make your autobiography the biggest book on the shelf!

muffie, RN · Nov 4, 2006

dietician

professional cat petter

RachieH · Nov 4, 2006

I would have become a teacher, I think...for the little ones. I am in pre-nursing prereqs right now, going back FINALLY for the nursing degree I have always wanted.

I was a pre-nursing major in college, and was thisclose to failing Philosophy, so I dropped it. At age 20, I was simply not emotionally mature enough to 1) get my head around Philosophy, studying like I needed to, and 2) focus on anyone else's well-being and needs besides my own.

Fast forward through a fabulous "finding myself" phase in New York City and I now find myself back where I started...wanting a nursing degree....15 years later! I am now married, and so totally focused it isn't funny. I'm the old lady curve buster in my prepreq classes.

Is it weird that I want to be a nurse even though no one in my family was, I come from a ridiculously healthy extended family where no one has had a serious illness (what I mean is that I haven't spent a lot of time in hospitals), and I don't actually have a lot of experience being around nurses and hospitals?

All I can tell you is that I have felt "called" since I was 20 years old. I see nurses in public in their scrubs and I long to be one. On the rare occasions I have been in hospitals, I'm hyper interested in everything going on around me. Every nurse I meet, I grill. I want so much to be a peds or NICU nurse, due mainly to my love of children, and my overwhelming need to nuture and mother everyone around me. So think I need to channel all of that constructively. Plus I loooooove studying germs, diseases and medicines. And...after 12 years of corporate America and all its inherent BS, I want to have a "skill." I want to be able to do something with my hands, a specific, specialized "skill" that most others don't have. Am I alone?

zenman · Nov 4, 2006

I put up with more BS as an RN than I did as an Officer.

At least as a PO you don't have to hide your piece!

I'd be a medical anthropologist if I had to do it over.

sydie · Nov 4, 2006

I had 2 careers in mind growing up...elementary school teacher and RN. I already have my credential and taught for a number of years. My desire to become a L&D nurse never subsided, so I went back to school. I will be done in May 2007 and feel I am where I need to be.

LadyT618, MSN, APRN, NP · Nov 4, 2006

Auto Mechanic, although I'm still thinking of doing it on the side.

StNeotser, ASN, RN · Nov 4, 2006

If I didn't have to make money I'd love to work at an animal shelter.

On leaving school I wanted to be a nurse in the Royal Navy.