Nursing Major Change and How it Effects Your Practice

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Two directions to this thread.

A) Did you start as a pre-nursing major? Do you feel that you missed out on other experiences you wanted to do?

B) Did you begin college with a different major? How has the change effected your nursing practice?

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I'm an option B here in that I started as a computer science major as it was what my entire family did. I switched to Deaf Studies with a minor in Audiology.

Simply put, without the changes that I went through as a person and a student, I feel like I would be a different nurse than I am today. The computer skills that I learned from being a computer science major allows me to get the idea of bioinformatics much easier than my peers. Also, without the two semesters spent working with the Deaf community; I would never have know how to respect the unique culture that comes with different levels of hearing loss.

Anyone change majors and feel that they were bettered by the experiences they have had?

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Specializes in Pedi.

A) Did you start as a pre-nursing major? Do you feel that you missed out on other experiences you wanted to do?

There was no such thing as "pre-nursing" at my university. I start as a "nursing" major and the program began 1st semester freshman year with anatomy and physiology and chemistry. Second semester freshman year was "Professional Nursing".

The only thing that I regret not doing in college is studying abroad. The reason I was unable to do this was not because I was a nursing major, however. It was because you were forced to decide freshman year which "plan" you wanted to be in and if you knew you wanted to study abroad, you had to select the plan which began clinicals 2nd semester sophomore year. I chose the other plan because I thought I wanted to do a different program that involved rolling the required philosophy/theology core courses into one and combining it with 10-12 hrs of community service in the city each week.

Every experience I had in college was dependent on things going the way they went. So basically, even though I would study abroad if I could do college over again, had I done it in college, there are experiences (either winter break or spring break service trips that I went on) that I would have missed out on and that significantly impacted the person I am today.

B) Did you begin college with a different major? How has the change effected your nursing practice?

See above.

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I would be in category A.

When I was applying to nursing school, I contacted my nursing school first with the intentions of attending and was directed on what to do next. The nursing school itself gave me all the information I needed to complete all the pre-courses and everything else which involves. With admission work completed, I was accepted into the nursing program as a first year nursing student. As a first year nursing student, I began and finished my pre-nursing courses. With pre-nursing finished, I am now about to start my second year (junior year) of nursing school this Fall 2012. So technically, I was a pre-nursing major in my first year even though I was an accepted nursing student.

I don't feel like I've missed out on other experiences because of nursing school. Nursing school is what I've always wanted to do. So, I went for it. I knew right from the beginning that nursing was, it. After a year in passing, I still feel nursing is the best suited field for myself. I cannot think of any other field where I'd be most happy or satisfied working in. I do have other interests besides nursing, but those interests would never trump nursing. If I had to do it all over again, I'd still pick nursing.

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Specializes in trauma and neuro.

wow. i didn't think anyone else had done what i did, it is nice to see that actually. i am a former computer science major too. i did 3 years of it and decided to switch.

i am not sure if being a computer science major has helped me in nursing or it is the being the type of person that goes into computer science that has helped me. because really you have to be good at math, for those logical math classes in computer science and you really have to pay attention to detail, for all the programming and stuff. those 2 things have definitely helped me so far. it is also kinda nice when the teachers are having issues with blackboard, and i am like "i can fix it" or on their personal laptops.

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