undergradevan

@Paco386: Yes I meant a stigma against male nurses but now actually most people that i've talked about it with seem to be pretty cool about it. I've also heard nyc/Westchester area treats it's nurses well in terms of pay and there are big amount of opportunities around there as well. So that sounds good to me. Oh and haha I guess you are right it your post was longer than mine. @Mike A. Fungin RN: Yeah i loved what you said about what you loved about nursing. That sounds awesome. What really got me is the new exciting day everyday and that inspires me. @plowboy911: thanks for that and no its not totally discouranging just more informative and something I do need to here...get all the facts. I'm talking with some nurses now and seeing if i can take a day and just see what goes on at the hospital. Thanks for all the help. I got a lot of information here and from friends about this and I still have to look at everything before I do anything. I mean there was even something i've never heard about Nursing informatics that I was told about today that do nursing and write codes for hospitals systems etc. Which I also found pretty interesting. Haha my mind is buzzing with all these ideas and decisions I'm just going to go to bed now.

First off I wanted to say sorry I realize this might be a little long but please bare with me here. Hello I am 17 I live in NY and about to enter college in the fall for computer science. Now I entered computer science mainly because I like to work with computers but after seeing everything I realized I don't know if I would want to sit and write code all day long at a boring desk in a cubical. This summer I was working at a day camp as a first aid assistant. They're are two nurses that are my bosses and a few coworkers that work with me. I worked with them and over the summer I gradually told them my situation. When today one of the nurses suggested I become a nurse and they felt that they needed more male nurses. They were both RN's and told me that nursing is a really great profession as it has good job security, it pays well as they said get around 80-90k a year (this really surprised me actually) and they work 3 days a week(12hr shifts) so you can still work in many different places (like they work at the camp with me). Which got me pondering if I should switch to nursing as a major. So I had a few questions for the male nurses about nursing : 1) Is there a really bad Social stigma when you say oh I'm a nurse at XYZ? 2) What do you love/hate about nursing? Be brutally honest. 3) If you don't mind me asking: what was your rate from when you just graduated and what is it now(I was told RN nurses rates don't really change) 4) What different places/jobs/departments have you worked as an RN and which did you like the best and why? 5) Did you find it hard to find a nursing job? 6) Do you find nursing work really hard in general? 7) What got you into nursing? and did you major in something before you got into nursing? Also any other constructive comments or advice that you could give me would be greatly appreciated. I really want to thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this post.