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I feel as though as graduation quickly approaches I am finding myself more and more torn on which avenue of nursing to pursue. Does anyone have any advice on the best approach to selecting a field after graduation/NCLEX?

Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.

Well, luckily you will not be required to sign a lifetime contract. Are you in an area where you have instant pick of an array of jobs? That would be lucky and might make it hard to choose.

A lot of new grads like to cast a wide net, application-wise and see where you can even get hired. By the way, the "experience" part of your profile is understood to mean nursing experience. If you are about to graduate, what is your experience in? Are you currently an LPN? What kind of nursing did you do in that capacity?

Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.

Oh, never mind. I see that you are an LPN. I take it you're not planning to go back to the area you worked previously. Are there any nursing school rotations that particularly rang your chimes? Feel drawn to critical care? Children? Elders? Back to my previous post: see where you get hired. You may love it. If not, get some experience and figure out what to do next.

There seems to be a certain pressure for young people to plan out their futures in minute detail. You don't need to do that. Go with the flow and see where it takes you. Good luck!

Thank you! Your words are reassuring. I do feel a strong urge to know what I'm going to do for the next 30 years. You're right! There's time to figure out what I want to do long term. I'm a planner by nature and I need to just go with the flow on this one.

When I was in high school, my mother asked a friend of mine, who had applied to arround 20 colleges, how she was deciding which one to go to. My friend replied "the rejection letters are making the decision much easier." Very similar to a first job in nursing.

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