mid-life crisis at 22, help me with a career decision in nursing.....

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Hi, my name is Tim and I am a 22 year old male from Southeastern CT. I have worked at the Mohegan Sun Casino as a table games dealer for the past 4.5 years and as easy as the job is, good pay ($21/hour), good shift (nights), and great benefits, it is a dead end job and I can't see it as a career. My passion is in real estate. I have been researching aspects of real estate investing for the past two years and hope to buy my first owner-occupied rental property within a year. I got my real estate license last February and would love to get to the point to where I can start my own brokerage one day and be running my own gig. As good as this sounds and I am highly ambitious and motivated, I am afraid that if I put all my eggs in the real estate "basket" and things don't go as planned then I have nothing solid to fall back on other than the garbage casino. I have contemplated becoming an LPN or RN. I would keep working 3-5 days/ week at the casino while going to school and could hopefully find afternoon classes. I'll try and wrap it up. I am basically wondering what I should try for first and what some of the pay scales are at different levels. Should I go for LPN first, then RN. Or should I try for an Associate RN right off the bat? I hate to spend a lot of time and money on a career that I don't even know that I would like, but it's got to be better than casino life.

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Nursing, isn't an easy gig, Tim. I would frankly steer you away from it if you don't have some basic interest in it to start with. It's demanding, ridiculous responsibility for mediocre pay, and a lot of biting one's tongue.

I do wish you good luck. But again, I really don't think you should bother with nursing. Take that same number of years, money, and study and get a business degree.

:)

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I have to agree Tim, that unless you are really interested in medical/nursing, that you should look at different options. If you are really interested in real estate, why not get an assoc in business or accounting..... then, if real estate bottoms out, you can finish and work in the business field.

Just my thoughts,

Richard

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Specializes in Emergency Room.

i agree with the above poster. you should not waste time and energy on a nursing degree if you don't know enough about the profession. it is hard work. and yes, nurses make as new grads what you make now (maybe a little more) but you earn every dollar.you sound like a very business oriented person who would like to be in charge one day. that doesn't happen in nursing right away. you should try to research nursing as a career more before you consider it. good luck in whatever you decide.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Sounds like you've got a good head on your shoulders, in that you're considering your options. You're wise to have something to fall back on because real estate riches come and they go and around here they are gone and brokers are hurting, after a few boom year years.

CT pays some of the highest wages in the country in all fields, but doubt you'll be starting at much more than you're already making if you go for your LPN, so my suggestion is that if after researching some more, you find nursing is the career for you (I know a nurse that does real estate investing) you go for the RN ADN from the get go. The wages are higher and the opportunities are greater.

Good luck to you. Feel free to ask questions.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

hi, tim, and welcome to allnurses! :welcome:

sounds like you're not even sure that nursing is something you might like to do. most people i know go into nursing because they have this overwhelming need to help people. here are a couple of articles that might help you answer this question about whether nursing is something you might like, or not:

you also need to learn as much about the profession of nursing that you can. there are several websites that were set up to do just this:

these are information pages from the u.s. department of labor on what an rn and lpn do:

and, finally, here is an official listing of the rn and lpn schools in your state. find the ones close to you and contact them for information about their nursing programs. most of them should have websites where you can also get information.

whatever you decide, good luck to you.

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Thanks for all the advice. I knew from the start that I was being drawn to nursing for the wrong reasons (mainly shift availability, $$, and need throughout the country). Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind helping people out, but I can't honestly say that is an overwhelming urge either. My biggest deal was that I liked the idea of a night shift job. For instance, although I would probably like a business or accounting degree, I want to keep my mornings or afternoons free to try and get my real estate career going, so if I went out looking for a job right out of school, then I would most likely be working during the day, not giving me the time to practice real estate like I do now with my 9 pm - 5 am shift. On the other hand I suppose I could simply have the degree and just choose when and if I want to start looking for an occupation pertaining to it, but I would hate to be out of it for too long and not utilizing some of the concepts I had studied in school. And to make it even worse, I am trying to decide if I even want to remain in CT as I've lived here my whole life and realize we are one of the top 3 most expensive states in the country and it takes two decent incomes just to have an average home. I went down to NC last month and was amazed by low cost of living and less sub freezing temps. Ugh, decisions, decisions

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