CAguy22

After this quarter I will have my BA in liberal studies which is basically an education degree. I have always wanted to be both a teacher and a doctor and finally made up my mind when I started community college. Being 18, I didn't know what options were really open to me, especially going to a community college. Even teaching seemed so distant as it took me 3 years to get all of my basic Ed done to transfer over to my university. Now that I am almost done (I have 3 more quarters to get my teaching credential), I am reading all of these stories about teachers working two jobs in order to support their families, plus the cost of realestate skyrocketing all over the place, especially in California where I'm at is really making me reconsider my carreer path. I am looking at the measily $32,000 starting salary I will be making as a teacher and all of the hoops I've had to jump through including all of these silly tests, and the money and time I've put toward my degree just to be able to make that small amount of money. My heart is really in teaching and helping people, so nursing would be a perfect match for me. I keep thinking about just quitting the teaching path and starting all over again to be a nurse. However, the more I think about it the more stupid I think it would be, because I am 23 years old and need to start working. I keep thinking about going back to get my nursing degree and teach AND be a part-time nurse which is pretty tempting, but I have talked to a lot of people who say nursing is a very demanding job, so I just don't know what I want to do. Sorry for such a long post.

You only have half a year's experience as a nurse, and you're already working as a prn? Cool. I have read posts where people said one needs to have at least a year's worth of experience before they will hire you for a PRN job.

I will be getting my BA in liberal studies to become a teacher. I am also taking my pre reqs for my RN degee. I figure it won't be a bad thing to have my foot in both doors to make some extra money because teachers don't make much. If worse comes to worse, I can just quit one of my jobs and fall back on the other.

Why on earth would you move from California to AZ? I was also interested in moving to AZ after I get my degrees, but looking at cities like Phoenix (On the computer), it is nothing but hot brown desert. I like the green of northern Cali better. The only advantage is the housing is more affordable. The Sedona area looks pretty nice though, but judging by realtor.com and realestate.com, it is almost as expensive as Cali. If I am willing to move away from my family, it has to be a nice place to live. Anybody live in the Sedona area? If so, how do you like it?

Two more questions 1)I know each hospital's policy is different, but can a person choose to work per diem only on weekends, or are you required to work some weekdays during a certain period? 2) What is the hourly wage of a per diem nurse at your hospital? And do you still get differentials for working weekends? Or is that only for full/part-time nurses? Sorry about all these questions. I don't know any nurses yet, so you guys are really my only resource for now.

Thanks for your reply 3rShift. I forgot one more question 3) I have two local hospitals in my city, and another one is scheduled to be built next year. Can you work for more than one hospital if you do per diem?

Hello nurses, I will start taking my prereqs for nursing next month and I plan on getting into per diem nursing. A couple of questions I have is: 1) Do you get to schedule the days you work, or do you have to be on call? 2) Can you go straight from school to a per diem job, or do you have to have experience as a full/part time nurse first? Thanks!

I've been in school since fall of 2000 studying to be an elementary school teacher. I have one more class to take to get my BA! Whoohoo! I have been wanting to be a nurse since I was in higschool, but I wanted to also be a teacher, so I chose the teacher. It wasn't until my aunt was diagnosed with stage 3-B lung cancer and my grandma recieving poor care in the nursing home she was in that made me really really want to get into healthcare some how. So this semester I decided to take advantage of my financial aid while I still can and start working on my nursing degree. Since I really wanna do both (and so I haven't wasted 5 years of my life for the teaching degree) I am going to teach and work as a per diem nurse. In addition, I know that as a single guy in southern California, there is no way I could get a house on a teacher's beginning salary of $32,000, so the per diem nursing will help me out. Both of these careers are very rewarding for me because I get to affect people's lives (hopefully in a possitive way). I know it will be a lot of hard work, but it's worth it.

Since I almost have my BA, I will probably end up sub teaching for a while to get a feel of teaching and decide what grade I really want to teach. Right now because of my financial situation, it only costs me a buck to go to school each semester at my comminity college, so now is the best time to get as much school in as I can. I figure the days that I don't have class/clinicals and such, I will sub teach. If later on down the line, I decide not to be a nurse anymore, I will not have wasted that much money, plus, I always feel you can never get enough education, so I gained something no matter what, plus, I have something to fall back on incase something happens with either job.

You're right, I guess I wasn't thinking too clearly . I would really like to do both, but my students/patients deserve better than that. I was just thinking I could work as a nurse on the weekends, while teaching during the week, but that would be too much. Thanks for your advice and help. I guess I will just stick to teaching, and later on down the road, if I decide teaching just isn't for me, I could always go back to school to be a nurse. I'm only 23, so I hopefully have a lot of years ahead of me to switch carreers. I need to put all my effort into either teaching or nursing. Plus, I probably can't get a nursing job just working weekends anyways

Hi, I am almost done getting a teaching degree to teach elementary school. I just recently signed up for the science classes I need to get into the nursing program to be an RN. I plan on teaching during the week and working 2 12 hour shifts on the weekends for nursing and maybe work extra hours during the week. I would really like to be a travel nurse when my students are out for the summer and their breaks. If I work part-time can I still become a travel nurse? I'm sorry if I sound dumb, but I have no experience in nursing yet. Thanks, Terrence