I have a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism degree, then decided later in life to go back to school to become a Registered Nurse. I took all of my pre-reqs and completed an 18-month Associate of Science in Nursing program at Harcum College, finished with a 3.3 GPA, and passed my NCLEX-RN with 75 questions on my first try.
I was fortunate enough to be working as a Patient Care Associate (PCA) at a magnet hospital and I was able to get a position as an RN immediately. Since I have started working though, the hospital has been breathing down my neck about when I will be going back to school to get my BSN. I was even told in my interview that I was "lucky" because I was the "only nurse who was being interviewed who did not have a bachelor's degree." This was very offensive to me, and I quickly reminded her that I DO have a bachelor's degree, and that it should count for something. Either way, I got the job and it all worked out.
Now that I am actively seeking a program to go back to school for my BSN, I often find that I will need to go back to school for ANOTHER two years (at least!). I feel that, since I have a bachelor's degree and also have an associate's degree, the pressure to obtain a BSN is kind of silly. Some schools even require that I complete MORE pre-reqs before I am even eligible to apply to their program.
I also wish there were more programs for RNs with bachelor's in another field who would like to bridge into an MSN program. I have found a few programs like this at Thomas Jefferson University (which recently closed this program), and Marquette University (in Wisconsin, and I live in NJ!). I also run into issues with the fact that I do not do well in online classes, and would prefer to remain in the classroom setting.
Is anyone else encountering issues like this? I truly believe that a bachelor's in another field, if juxtaposed with an associate's in nursing and a valid nursing license, should qualify for magnet hospitals.
Any thoughts, feedback, or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Krista
**I placed this topic in the "healthcare politics" section because I really do believe that that's exactly what this is... POLITICS. It doesn't matter that I am a hard worker or that I am an exceptional nurse, all that matters to the "magnet hospitals" is that I have my BSN. I just don't think it's fair.
* Also if you look into an accelerated program for someone who already has a previous Bachelors, its done in about a year and its basically the NURSING portion of the program. So heres someone with their journalism BA who took a few science courses ( which they may already have from their previous 4 year degree) and just completes the nursing part at an accelerated pace is granted a BSN. So really a RN + BA/BS is very similar to a BSN
However, "very similar" does not, as we say in the South, feed the bulldog. A person who completes an Accelerated BSN program based on having a BA/BS in another discipline is completing all of the BSN nursing-specific coursework. That's different from an ADN with a non-nursing BA/BS.
I don't really see why people seem to have trouble grasping this (although I can recognize why so many people coming into nursing from other backgrounds would like the answer to be different): If someone has an associate's in journalism and a BA/BS in something else entirely, is anyone here suggesting that that equals a BA in journalism? If someone has an associate's degree in biology and a BA/BS in something else, is that equal to a BS in biology? Etc., etc., etc (insert discipline of your choice ...). Many years ago, I completed half of a BA in music. Does my two years of a music degree plus my nursing degree(s) equal a BA in music? Would any employer looking for someone with a BA in music buy that argument??
I agree with you @TwistaKrista! Same situation I am going to encounter in the future and I agree on your exact point of view. I think a bachelors is bachelors, at the end of the day we ALL take the SAME NCLEX. I do think you should just do an ADN to MSN program( which is my plan), that way you can have a higher degree than all those "think they are better than you cause they have a BSN and your BA/BS in another field doesn't mean anything" nurses and you will have exceeded that BSN requirement that the hospital is requesting. Mostly, you'll become more knowledgeable and have a good foundation for moving forward into another field of nursing and receive better pay.
You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own set of facts. The studies referred to by the Institute of Medicine specifically controlled for length of time since licensure, type of basic nursing education, and all the other common objections to the finding that, like it or not, patient outcomes are better when there is a higher proportion of BSNs on staff. "We all take the same NCLEX" is meaningless in this context. NCLEX isn't a designation of supernurseness, it's the most basic credential you can hold to be employed as a new grad.
If the OP can get into an ADN-to-MSN program, perhaps that will soothe her. Alas, though, BSN is not the same as RN with bachelor's in something unrelated. A bachelor's is not a bachelor's any more than the old warm body theory of staffing declared that a nurse is a nurse is a nurse, so anybody can take the place of anybody. Hey, if you have been in med/surg for five years, you took the same NCLEX as the or scrub nurse-- wanna go down to the OR and cover her vacation? No, didn't think so. Same thing. Specialization is called that for a reason.
I think the part of this argument that makes it unique is that in both situations the person has a license to practice regardless of the previous education field or level. And that license is what is currently dictating job acquisition- not whether or not they have an advanced degree in said field. An RN with a previous music degree can get a job in nursing or music. A musician ( with previous music degree) who gets an RN can have a career in nursing or music. The key here is they have both. Now yes, someone with ONLY a music degree cannot waltz into a hospital and be an ICU Nurse, or vice versa but thats obviously not whats being compared. Thats not even an argument. Its a person with a previous degree who also is an RN. This is not like comparing apples to apples.
This will always be a point of contention.
In a similar vibe, just think about MD's who are currently flipping out about ' Mid level creep". They went through 8 plus years of schooling and several years more of residency to come to find that a community college nurse who got her bsn and msn online can now practice on a similar level to them as an NP. Also people with any previous 4 year degree can acquire some pre-reqs and do a 2 year PA program. It really strikes a nerve in people. We have a tantrum when life is perceived as unfair. I think a lot of it has to do with an education system that is completely out dated, overpriced, and should learn change with the ever changing state of society and health care needs but thats a different topic all together :)
Having a previous BA/BS in something beside nursing is great. It probably helped you through your nursing program. However, when you are working as a nurse, your degree still is an ADN. You have not taken the other course work to be considered a BSN RN. You are still a ADN with a BA in Journalism. When applying to jobs, or looking at your career in nursing, it is the nursing degrees that count. You could not apply for a BSN RN position because you do not have that degree. Even though I have a Master's degree in a non-nursing field, i could not say that I have a MSN because that is not what my master's degree is in.
You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own set of facts. The studies referred to by the Institute of Medicine specifically controlled for length of time since licensure, type of basic nursing education, and all the other common objections to the finding that, like it or not, patient outcomes are better when there is a higher proportion of BSNs on staff. "We all take the same NCLEX" is meaningless in this context. NCLEX isn't a designation of supernurseness, it's the most basic credential you can hold to be employed as a new grad.
If the OP can get into an ADN-to-MSN program, perhaps that will soothe her. Alas, though, BSN is not the same as RN with bachelor's in something unrelated. A bachelor's is not a bachelor's any more than the old warm body theory of staffing declared that a nurse is a nurse is a nurse, so anybody can take the place of anybody. Hey, if you have been in med/surg for five years, you took the same NCLEX as the or scrub nurse-- wanna go down to the OR and cover her vacation? No, didn't think so. Same thing. Specialization is called that for a reason.
When I said NCLEX is the same is basically saying the certification is the same to be an RN, only thing different is the type of schooling and length. Again saying that BSN prepared nurses shouldn't feel they are "better" because there are BSN when you took the same certification an ADN did. YES OK, we get it...BA/BS + ADN doesn't = BSN, we hear you guys. But if you're not in our shoes, you simply don't understand therefore posting up comments such as these meant for people to identify not negatively comment or belittle. But go ahead, I'm entitled to my opinion, the OP is entitled to theirs, and you are entitled to yours.
However, "very similar" does not, as we say in the South, feed the bulldog. A person who completes an accelerated BSN program based on having a BA/BS in another discipline is completing all of the BSN nursing-specific coursework. That's different from an ADN with a non-nursing BA/BS.
I don't really see why people seem to have trouble grasping this (although I can recognize why so many people coming into nursing from other backgrounds would like the answer to be different): If someone has an associate's in journalism and a BA/BS in something else entirely, is anyone here suggesting that that equals a BA in journalism? If someone has an associate's degree in biology and a BA/BS in something else, is that equal to a BS in biology? Etc., etc., etc (insert discipline of your choice ...). Many years ago, I completed half of a BA in music. Does my two years of a music degree plus my nursing degree(s) equal a BA in music? Would any employer looking for someone with a BA in music buy that argument??
Why would nursing be any different?
Nursing is "different" because, apart from the hard sciences and clinical training common to both BSN and ADN programs, a BSN offers very, very little to improve the quality of care of a nurse who has already received a bachelors degree in one of the liberal arts disciplines known for emphasizing critical thinking, research, and written communication, such as English, philosophy, political science, history, and, yes, journalism.
I speak from experience. I'm in the early portion of an accelerated MSN for people with a bachelors in another field. I attend a respected, but not top-tier state school. I routinely get 100% on papers that my professors of rhetoric and critical thinking would have savaged for the logical fallacies they contain. My nursing research class contains nothing that I didn't already know from taking a research design course for my psych minor. I took a 300-level bioethics course for my philosophy minor, and believe me, compared to that, my 2 unit ethics of nursing class is a cakewalk. But, unfortunately, none of this prior (and significantly more rigorous) education is recognized, and instead I'm playing softball with a bunch of material that I've either already covered in much greater depth, or else could pick up over a weekend of reading.
In short, everything that differentiates a BSN from an ADN (critical thinking, written communication, ethics, cultural competency, research) can be acquired via a long list of other undergraduate majors. Bachelor's level nursing education has a monopoly on absolutely none of the skills it purports to impart on its graduates
You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own set of facts. The studies referred to by the Institute of Medicine specifically controlled for length of time since licensure, type of basic nursing education, and all the other common objections to the finding that, like it or not, patient outcomes are better when there is a higher proportion of BSNs on staff. "We all take the same NCLEX" is meaningless in this context. NCLEX isn't a designation of supernurseness, it's the most basic credential you can hold to be employed as a new grad.
If the OP can get into an ADN-to-MSN program, perhaps that will soothe her. Alas, though, BSN is not the same as RN with bachelor's in something unrelated. A bachelor's is not a bachelor's any more than the old warm body theory of staffing declared that a nurse is a nurse is a nurse, so anybody can take the place of anybody. Hey, if you have been in med/surg for five years, you took the same NCLEX as the or scrub nurse-- wanna go down to the OR and cover her vacation? No, didn't think so. Same thing. Specialization is called that for a reason.
Sincere question: did those studies control for ADN nurses who also had degrees in other fields?
Specializes in ER, Med Surg, Ob/Gyn, Clinical teaching.
I find it helpful to reframe these kinds of questions. You have a BA in journalism. If someone had an associate's degree in journalism and a BS in something else entirely unrelated to journalism, would you consider that equivalent to your BA in journalism? Why or why not?
This is the perfect response I must say...
Same opinion i have... if I have BSN in nursing and an associate in say Lab tech, will they take my BSN as a degree in that field?
Nursing is "different" because, apart from the hard sciences and clinical training common to both BSN and ADN programs, a BSN offers very, very little to improve the quality of care of a nurse who has already received a bachelors degree in one of the liberal arts disciplines known for emphasizing critical thinking, research, and written communication, such as English, philosophy, political science, history, and, yes, journalism.
I speak from experience. I'm in the early portion of an accelerated MSN for people with a bachelors in another field. I attend a respected, but not top-tier state school. I routinely get 100% on papers that my professors of rhetoric and critical thinking would have savaged for the logical fallacies they contain. My nursing research class contains nothing that I didn't already know from taking a research design course for my psych minor. I took a 300-level bioethics course for my philosophy minor, and believe me, compared to that, my 2 unit ethics of nursing class is a cakewalk. But, unfortunately, none of this prior (and significantly more rigorous) education is recognized, and instead I'm playing softball with a bunch of material that I've either already covered in much greater depth, or else could pick up over a weekend of reading.
In short, everything that differentiates a BSN from an ADN (critical thinking, written communication, ethics, cultural competency, research) can be acquired via a long list of other undergraduate majors. Bachelor's level nursing education has a monopoly on absolutely none of the skills it purports to impart on its graduates
I'm not arguing with anyone about the points you're making about the quality of your previous education. That's not the point. Nor is it the point that I (or anyone else in nursing) feel that our nursing degrees make us "better" than anyone coming into nursing with a different background.
However, in whatever discipline your previous degree is in, how far would my nursing degree(s) get me, career-wise? Would nursing degrees be considered to be the equal of degrees specifically in whatever discipline you are coming from? People coming from other backgrounds are so quick to say it shouldn't matter, a baccalaureate degree is a baccalaureate degree, and so on, and, as I said before, I can certainly empathize with the desire for that to be the case. I came from a liberal and fine arts background myself, and that background has certainly benefitted me (personally, not professionally) in nursing. I had the same experience you had, that the coursework in my diploma program and BSN completion program were not that challenging compared to my previous studies (I still remember the glorious day that I realized that, in my hospital-based diploma program, I was never going to have a blue-book exam; I was never going to have an exam consisting of five or six "compare and contrast" essay questions ... :)). But it just isn't so that degrees are interchangeable. In any discipline, it does matter what specific degree you hold. Everyone assumes this in other disciplines. What I don't get is why so many people (at least on this site) feel that nursing is somehow different (or, actually, I do get it -- it's because people don't take nursing seriously as an academic discipline ...)
I'm not arguing with anyone about the points you're making about the quality of your previous education. That's not the point. Nor is it the point that I (or anyone else in nursing) feel that our nursing degrees make us "better" than anyone coming into nursing with a different background.
However, in whatever discipline your previous degree is in, how far would my nursing degree(s) get me, career-wise? Would nursing degrees be considered to be the equal of degrees specifically in whatever discipline you are coming from? People coming from other backgrounds are so quick to say it shouldn't matter, a baccalaureate degree is a baccalaureate degree, and so on, and, as I said before, I can certainly empathize with the desire for that to be the case. I came from a liberal and fine arts background myself, and that background has certainly benefitted me (personally, not professionally) in nursing. I had the same experience you had, that the coursework in my diploma program and BSN completion program were not that challenging compared to my previous studies (I still remember the glorious day that I realized that, in my hospital-based diploma program, I was never going to have a blue-book exam; I was never going to have an exam consisting of five or six "compare and contrast" essay questions ... :)). But it just isn't so that degrees are interchangeable. In any discipline, it does matter what specific degree you hold. Everyone assumes this in other disciplines. What I don't get is why so many people (at least on this site) feel that nursing is somehow different (or, actually, I do get it -- it's because people don't take nursing seriously as an academic discipline ...)
You're beating a strawman. Nobody on this side of the debate is arguing that undergraduate degrees generally confer discrete skills and knowledge that can only be obtained via majoring in that particular field of study, and that a bachelor's of science in nursing is somehow the pathetic exception to this rule. Quite the opposite. Undergraduate education is not trade school. You do not need a bachelor's in business to work for a business, or even to be the CEO of one. You do not need a BA in music to be a musician. Newspapers don't hire journalism majors exclusively. You don't have to major in creative writing to be a writer. You don't need a criminal justice major to be a cop. Plenty of genius computer programmers never set foot in a computer science classroom. Mathematics majors often command far greater salaries in finance than finance majors.
Anyone five years into their career in the aforementioned fields would get laughed out of an interview if their major (pardon the pun!) selling point was that their undergraduate major aligned with their current career. Anyone who has worked in a field for more than a couple years knows that, barring the specialized skills and credentials needed to work in that field (clinical nursing skills and passing the NCLEX for nursing), what you specifically majored in as an undergrad means absolutely nothing and has zero predictive power as to your abilities and aptitudes in a particular field.
This is where nursing differs from other fields. The fact that a nursing hiring manager told the OP that she was lucky to be considered because other candidates had undergraduate degrees in nursing, whereas she had merely an undergraduate degree in journalism (and had therefore missed out on what, a semester's worth of nursing theory courses? and had in any likelihood taken the equivalent of those courses directly from the disciplines whose theories nursing education loves to borrow and repackage in watered down form?), is telling. Nursing has an inferiority complex, and tries to compensate by setting up artificial barriers to entry. It's not enough to ace your prerequisites, ace your clinicals, and pass the NCLEX in 75 questions. If you haven't heard the Gospel of Critical Thinking, Research, Cultural Competency, Leadership, and Ethics according to St. BSN, you are less-than. It's an insulting and pathetic attitude, and I don't blame the OP and others in her circumstance for objecting.
NOTE: I emphasize undergraduate over and over because I want to be clear that I completely agree with and understand giving an RN with an MSN weight over an RN with a master's degree in, say, art history. The additional years of study that a master's affords would allow a nurse to conduct the depth of study and research that might actually make a difference in a position relating to health policy, or best nursing practices at a hospital, etc.
I have a Bachelors in Political Science. Then I went back and got my BSN. The things I learned in the extra classes that a BSN provides (verses ADN) does not compare to what I learned while obtaining my Political Science degree. They are two separate subjects. The things I learned were vastly different in each degree.
Fair enough. If you are willing to take the time, would you detail what exactly you feel the BSN-specific classes provided that you didn't get from your polisci degree? I am having completely the opposite experience, but I'm not entirely finished with the BSN portion of my degree. I would love something to look forward to.
elkpark
14,633 Posts
However, "very similar" does not, as we say in the South, feed the bulldog. A person who completes an Accelerated BSN program based on having a BA/BS in another discipline is completing all of the BSN nursing-specific coursework. That's different from an ADN with a non-nursing BA/BS.
I don't really see why people seem to have trouble grasping this (although I can recognize why so many people coming into nursing from other backgrounds would like the answer to be different): If someone has an associate's in journalism and a BA/BS in something else entirely, is anyone here suggesting that that equals a BA in journalism? If someone has an associate's degree in biology and a BA/BS in something else, is that equal to a BS in biology? Etc., etc., etc (insert discipline of your choice ...). Many years ago, I completed half of a BA in music. Does my two years of a music degree plus my nursing degree(s) equal a BA in music? Would any employer looking for someone with a BA in music buy that argument??
Why would nursing be any different?