Leaving federal job for nursing school

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I am currently a health technician at The National Institute of Health. I currently make $26 an hour and am taking pre-req 's for to apply for Nursing School, I plan to apply a year from today. I am a single mom (dad is deceased) to twin girls and my plan is to work overnight once I'm an RN so that I can take the girls to and from school and just to be more involved since they are under 6 years old. I also plan to stop at MSN but will be starting at Community college. I can make anywhere from $26-33 hourly at my current job but would have to stick to the M-F 9-5 schedule, which I hate sometimes. My question is do you think it's worth it to leave my federal job with good pay (no degree, just experience and certifications) for Nursing school? I'm open to all POV. Please help a gal out and sorry for the ramble lol

2 hours ago, FullGlass said:

f you're making $26 an hour at NIH, that's roughly $52,000 per year (2,0000 hours per year approximately for a full time employee). If you are in the DC Metro area, that is not a lot of money. Is there are career path for a health tech or is this pretty much it?

RNs can make up to $120,000 or more in the DC Metro area with experience, specialization, or getting into supervisory roles. NPs can potentally make even more and have the option of setting up their own practice in Maryland and this will probably extend to all 50 states in the future.

If you are currently a federal employee, check into tuition benefits, as the government may pay for part of all of your nursing education, especially if you continue working and go to school part-time.

There are also a lot of federal opportunities for nurses, such as working in the VA or as a civilian in military hospitals. State and local governments also employ nurses and some of them have even better benefits than the feds.

One the great things about nursing is that it is a very flexible career with many different career paths. If you don't like bedside nursing, there's management, public health, school nursing, teaching, research, consulting to tech companies and on and on and on.

There is a lot of negativity on this forum. In general, when it comes to forums, a lot of unhappy people will post, more than people who are happy. There are plenty of RNs who love their job!

You make some good points for the OP to consider and although I may sound unhappy in my job I am not. I work at one of the better places. That being said I liked my job more 15 years ago when most of the negatives I mentioned were rare rather than the norm and I have to say I'm happy that retirement is in the not so distant future. Although, then I'll have to worry about being a patient.

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i think you will do great. I was a single mother who changed careers and im now an RN and its amazing. My son was 3 when I first started with prerequisites and 7 when I graduated from nursing school. You have twins so they can keep each other occupied. I was the only one to occupy my son. I graduated in December, took nclex beginning of March and had a job 2 weeks later with an amazing pay. Even just bought my dream car 3 months in. You can do it. Only you know yourself and what you are capable of doing. Us single moms are strong. I now have a job where i work Mon-fri and Im home by 5 everyday . Good luck on your journey.

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Specializes in Surgical Specialty Clinic - Ambulatory Care.

I think this is a really bad idea. I’ve been a nurse a decade and I just finally got a M-F job but I still am on call twice a month and have to work a weekend every 3 weeks and half of the holidays in a year. Please, please, please listen to what people are telling you. I don’t know what you think private sector nurses make but I, living in southern Illinois, with a DECADE of experience, make $29.71/hr. And my benefits are most definitely not as good as yours. Now if you choose to do something more stressful like work the ICU or ER I then think you could make $38-48 an hour base pay. You would get a shift differential for night shift that could make your base pay $40-50 per hour. But you still have to have a plan for someone to watch your kids when you are on call, weekends and holidays. You do not get to pick the days of week you are working....so you most likely will not work 3 days and be done. Most shifts are twelve hours and 7a-7p and Vice versa. YOU WILL LIKELY NEVER LEAVE AT 7AM. You can expect to consistently be at work up to an hour after change of shift to complete charting and the first year you are a nurse you can expect for that to be much longer. I don’t know many who worked the hospital and got home to get their kids to school. And unless your kids go to be really early (like 6pm) you can bet you won’t be putting them to sleep either...,you may be lucky to consistently have an early dinner with them.

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Nursing has a lot to offer a young person with no children or dependents. They can travel and get paid more after a year in the hospital. The M-F cushier jobs are rare and rely on networking/politics. Otherwise.....Realize if you are sick or there is an emergency, it is a hassle to get a replacement and mgt will make you feel guilty about it and make you wonder about your job security. Don't make the mistake that the negative comments are just for those kinds of nurses and "it won't happen to me because I'm a hard worker". Realize your pay will shock you as a new nurse and it will take you time to increase even by $10. Realize that you will have new bills as a single mom: daycare, private care for hours not covered by plan A, and student loans. Realize the work is nonstop for 12 hrs: you eat and pee when you can and this is iffy. Realize there are politics and bullies. Realize the work and industry gets harder as you get older and people's lives are in your hands. Know the stress and the ugly before you commit to RN or NP. Don't do wishful thinking. You need great daycare and double back ups for dependents. The pay may seem high compared to other occupations but in analysis, nurses are waaaaay underpaid for what they do and the physical and mental costs are REAL. I want nursing to improve for nurses thus, patients.

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On 6/24/2019 at 1:18 PM, not.done.yet said:

In my personal opinion, no. You also have outstanding benefits as a federal employee and lots of holidays off with pay that you won't even come close to as an RN. You are already making more money than a beginner nurse in many to most places. Twelve hour shifts are nice until they aren't anymore and then 9-5 M-F seems pretty dang cushy.

I think in your case the grass is not greener over here.

I agree... I would stay where you are...

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