PLEASE HELP! Lost on my career path

If you want to be a psych nurse, get a nursing degree. A psych degree won't help much, if at all, and will add significant cost and time to your end goal.

Thank you for your response! When I was getting my CNA, my teacher told me I was stupid and said I would never succeed as a nurse so it is weighing heavily on my mind.The whole thing was a mess and we had to get the school board involved and I felt hopeless. Because of this, I am incredibly scared of failing again in nursing school.

Thank you for your response! When I was getting my CNA, my teacher told me I was stupid and said I would never succeed as a nurse so it is weighing heavily on my mind.The whole thing was a mess and we had to get the school board involved and I felt hopeless. Because of this, I am incredibly scared of failing again in nursing school.

Yikes. Prove that teacher wrong. Use the resources available to make sure you succeed, e.g., office hours, open lab, learning center, career center, tutoring services, library, etc. You can do this.

Getting a BS in Psych and then going back for an ABSN is, as a dear friend would say "a slow boat to China" way of becoming a psych nurse. If you want to be a psych nurse, become a nurse and then get a job in psych. You are a freshman in college, there is no reason why you can't switch to nursing now. In my college, first semester freshman year classes required for nursing were Anatomy and Physiology I and Chemistry. I don't know if you've even started classes yet (colleges in my area haven't gone back yet) but, if you have, you probably just did and it's still within the drop/add period. Even if you couldn't switch into those classes now, there were plenty of people I went to college with who switched into nursing second semester freshman year or first semester sophomore year.

It is not required to be a CNA to become a nurse. Most hospitals will hire you into a CNA role, without any actual certification, once you have completed your first clinical.