Quite to my surprise, I received an acceptance letter to nursing school a few days ago! I have been trying to get into nursing school for three years, and honestly, I gave up on nursing. In March, I made the decision to "quit" nursing and apply to graduate school, instead. I ended up getting accepted into graduate school two months later and I am set to start my master's program on August 31st.
I also just accepted my first full-time job offer and it starts on July 14th. I am overwhelmed and I don't know what to do. For so long, I thought that I wanted to go into nursing, but after several years of trying and with no success, despite being a 4.0 student, I gave up and accepted that nursing "wasn't meant to be".
I should be happy about my acceptance letter, this is something that I waited for for several years. Yet, I find myself extremely conflicted. Part of me wants to continue down my projected path of working full time and going to graduate school part time-another part of me wants to go to nursing school.
I also was a full time student for 3.5 years (I averaged 15 credits every fall and winter and 9 credits every summer) and I am really enjoying the lack of homework, presentations, essays, and tests that being a full time student requires. I know that nursing school is a full time commitment and I'm not sure if I'm ready to go back to that.
I'm sorry for the novel, if anyone read this post all the way through, I really appreciate it. I really need advice as to what to do. I know that no one here can tell me what to do with my life, but advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for the advice, everyone. :) I really appreciate it. You are right, I should stay on the path that I'm already on because it IS a better fit for me. I will always hold a deep admiration and respect for nurses, you guys are amazing for everything that you do! â¤ï¸ I guess that nursing is just not the career path for me.
Congratulations on the new degree, new job, and upcoming academic adventures!
My master's program is similar to a MBA. My ultimate goal is to be in a management position. I like the administration side of things. However, I have a fascination with the medical field. I did very well in my prerequisite courses for nursing. I am a little worried about the patient care aspects of nursing, though. I recently learned more about that from allnurses. I thought that nurses mostly did paperwork, dispensed meds, and responded to codes and saved lives all day. I feel so stupid typing that now but I want to be honest. I don't know if I would be a good nurse if I'm not interested in patient care. I would do it and be very nice but it makes me really nervous and uneasy.
Thank you for clarifying that. If you are interested in health care, but only from an administrative standpoint, have you considered a degree specific to health care administration?
You can always get your Masters in Health Care Administration or similar. You do not HAVE to be a nurse to get into healthcare management.
Really, there is no wrong choice, each will take you down a different path. From what you wrote it sounds like you would be better suited to stay on course w/the job and Masters degree. Just because you are offered something..an acceptance to a school, a job, marriage proposal, whatever, doesn't mean you have to accept it or that it's good for where you are NOW in life.
Nursing school is more than just papers, its clinicals and LOTS time when not in class - including weekends, etc, from the studying. I enjoyed nursing school, but looking back, I also missed a lot of "college" life because there was no way to balance the two...not for me anyway..Like many on here, if I had to do it all over again, I'm not so sure I would. You can also consider becoming an Administrator for a long term care facility or similar w/a Masters - I know several Admins of these facilities and none of them are nurses.
The first time that I applied to nursing school, I was 18. The second time, I was 19, I finally just got accepted and I'll be 21 in September. I didn't know that age was a factor?
Thank you for your advice. :) I was under the impression that you had to be a nurse or have experience in the healthcare field in order to be a health administrator. I was told by several people that I would never land a job in hospital administration if I never worked in a hospital. That is why the master's degree that I'm pursuing is more "general" administration. If I wanted to go into healthcare administration later on, would it matter that my degree specialization is not in healthcare?
Thank you for your advice. :) I was under the impression that you had to be a nurse or have experience in the healthcare field in order to be a health administrator. I was told by several people that I would never land a job in hospital administration if I never worked in a hospital. That is why the master's degree that I'm pursuing is more "general" administration. If I wanted to go into healthcare administration later on, would it matter that my degree specialization is not in healthcare?
Most, if not all management in a hospital is nursing driven. The exception would be some ancillary services. Our CEO, VP, and Direct of Acute Care are all nurses.
Hospitals are in a sense run by nurses, I never understood the idea of a MHA degree without nursing or healthcare experience. It puts you at a big disadvantage.
Also management is wasn't its cracked up to be especially in a clinical setting where most of the staff probably will not like you or your decisions.
My simple math had you at 17 when applying for the first time, that could have been a factor in not being accepted at first.
The first time that I applied to nursing school, I was 18. The second time, I was 19, I finally just got accepted and I'll be 21 in September. I didn't know that age was a factor?
Specializes in Infection Prevention, Public Health.
I have met hospital administrators who have no real understanding of what it means to take care of sick people. Whether fair or not I think they meet a lot of resistance from health care professionals who have provided hands-on care. Credibility gets undermined.
On the other end of the unhappy scale are nurses and other health care providers who are great at patient care, but know absolutely nothing at all about management and are appointed to management positions. Good luck to you.
Thank you for the well wishes! :) Also, thank you for the information about healthcare administration. I will continue on the path that I am on and see where it leads me. :)
In my opinion there are very few jobs you need to be passionate about. Some jobs you can do for money, for experience or just to pass time, but I don't believe you can treat nursing like that. You really have to want to be a nurse, otherwise you get to a point in your training/studies where you'll feel like it's not worth it. I assume this is the US and it's most likely very different from the UK, nevertheless it is an intensive, long term commitment. I've lost a lot of good friends over the past year and often I wake up and just not want to go into placements, but I've worked hard to get to this point so I'll push through. All the best in your decisions!
ixchel
4,547 Posts
Congratulations on the new degree, new job, and upcoming academic adventures!