What did you do before nursing?

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I've met more than a few people that have made or are pursuing nursing as a second career. What did you do before? What are the ups and downs in comparison?

I'm not a nurse yet, but since I'm the OP, I'll go first. After being a fast food worker, a pizza cook, and a warehouse worker for Best Buy, I was an intel analyst in the Army, serving everywhere from infantry battalions all the way up to division headquarters. Later, I was a targeting analyst for an established defense firm, and later still for a an upstart company that took the contract from my original bosses. 10 years down the road and seven countries later, I'm knocking out the rest of my pre-reqs before I begin nursing school in January.

Specializes in ED, Critical Care.

Firefighter/Paramedic 25 years still doing it full time.

Went to RN school while working full time. Did some nursing a little since graduating nursing in 09.

Probably will get into it when I retire or maybe go to NP or PA school which ever will be less B.S. head games like nursing was! :wacky:

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I was a college professor. I didn't become a nurse until I was 40. I felt a calling to nursing, quit the prof gig, and never looked back. So happy and fulfilled being a nurse!

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.

In college/before, I worked on a farm, did some CSR work, worked at a convenience store, worked for TRS (tranlation for hearing impaired, sorta, over the phone), was a lab assistant, then joined the Army. I went through "combat medic" school, then further school that in addition to training me for my Army job, resulted in an LPN license. I worked nursing floors at an Army hospital in addition to being in a combat support hospital, then started teaching in a hospital by the time I was 23 or 24. After that, I was an Artillery officer and worked mostly with guided missiles, my last job running training and operations for a fires battalion with about 650 people. After that, I was recruited into high end / large project technical sales, did that for a while, then project/service/operations management, and went to NYU for grad school in IT/Management. 12 years after touching my last patient, I reactivated my LPN (LVN in the state I live in now) license with a refresher course, and started working in nursing again this year; I'll finish my 2nd Bachelor's degree, in nursing, through Texas Tech in December of next year. I'll be 37, so I'll make it before 40. Not so confident I'll finish my MSN-FP before then - that'll probably be at 41.

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I was a newspaper reporter before becoming an RN. I loved the work, but the pay, crappy hours, and endless catering to advertisers sucked. At least now, I'm paid better for those crappy hours and endless catering! ;) In all honesty, some times I miss my old job, but I do enjoy the challenge and idea that I'm hands-on helping others.

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Before I became a nurse I was a manufacturing and IT Project Manager for 20 years for 3 different technological companies. I became a nurse because I discovered when I had a child how much I loved taking care of people. My Mother and Grandmother were nurses. And, I was so tired of the corporate BS end of things, where you were just a number and your input didn't really matter. Over time I grew to dislike it - - I felt like just another a cog in a wheel of a corporate money making machine. Unfortunately, as a nurse I still feel that same way sometimes. I try my very best to focus on what's best for my patients, but we are so overwhelmed with work and so short staffed that I do not feel like I am taking care of people in the way that I thought I would be able to. This is truly the busiest job I have ever had. I literally run from one task to the next, trying not to fall so far behind that my patients suffer for it. We never get breaks, and we frequently do not even have time to eat lunch in our overnight 12.5 hour shift. I made twice as much money before as I do now. Money was never the issue... the job was the issue. But, now I make 1/2 of what I did before, and I am STILL feeling like a cog in a wheel of a corporate money making machine. Plus, added to that is a feeling of sadness: I feel very sad that I do not have the time to take care of my patients in the way I assumed I would be able to - - in the way I would want my mother or father or child to be taken care of if they were sick. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

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Specializes in Cardiac, Transplant, Intermediate Care.

I became a nurse after having a baby with Down syndrome. The nurses took her away, and left me sitting in the dark, waiting all night for them to bring her back. I walked out to see what was going on, and there were 2 nurses sitting behind computers. I asked if I could have my baby, and they began to argue, "she is in the layette on oxygen....well she is only on room air...". I decided that if I were in their situation, I would treat people better. I got on a waiting list at my local community college, became a Certified Nursing Assistant, worked at that same hospital as a CNA while I got my ADN.

Prior to this, I worked in radio- small and large markets. Wrote advertisements, generated the daily log of programming and advertisements, did billing/accounts receivable. Worked accounting in business offices and even high end brokerage firm in portfolio management.

I always enjoyed volunteering at the retirement homes in my town, helping out with vacation bible school, etc., so I thought nursing would be my niche. I couldn't have been more wrong about the helping people part. I had a couple of nursing instructors who enjoyed eliminating 1 or 2 students per clinical class. Nursing school was very much different from college in the mid to late 1980s, when we would actually be taught by professors. Technical school was pretty much "divide into groups, read this paper, present your subject to the rest of the class." Another example; lung assessment/lung sounds were "covered" by giving us a piece of paper with the outline of a person, having us draw anatomically where the lungs are, and handing that in. I went from that to caring for lung transplant patients.

I ended up on an intermediate care floor after my last clinical instructor suggested that I apply for work there. Sometimes I miss the co-workers that I had in other vocations, because we laughed a lot. I stay in nursing because I love the people I care for, and was able to cut back to working 3 eight hour shifts per week.

After it is all said and done, my dream job would probably be growing things like vegetables and flowers, but at age 50, I would have someone else perhaps sell the stuff. After being a CNA and nurse going on 12 years now, I am a little hardened and bottom line most situations. I know this was all over the place, but it explains where I am at right now, after beginning this journey in my mid 30s, and turning 50 this year, my 8th year of being a nurse.

Look forward to reading the rest of your responses!

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I dropped out of college (biology). Drove a school bus for a couple of years, a truck, worked as a gofer in an office, short order cook, Sold shoes.

I went back to school and became an OB nurse, then CNM. I delivered a lot of babies - which was the best part.

In nursing the hours are longer, physically and mentally harder. Giving dispositions to lawyers on cases that went sideways, - M&M finding of "standards not Met" usually due to poor charting ( I sat on M&M boards) - the frustrations between having to choose between adequate charting and adequate patient care. (Choose the charting - it's more important to you license and career). The knowledge that I work in the most litigious field in medicine - and WILL get sued again... There is the worse part.

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Specializes in ER, cardiac, addictions.

I was an unemployed foreign language teacher, doing substitute teaching, and also working as a retail clerk and emergency radio dispatcher.

The down side of nursing: I love foreign languages and teaching, and would have loved for them to be my life's work.

The up side: there were jobs available in nursing, but not in teaching. I got tired of working minimum wage jobs with a college degree, and I already had most of the prerequisites for an ADN. (I should add that it worked out well, and I do get a lot of satisfaction out of being a nurse.)

If I were in that position today, I probably would never have though of nursing, though, because I couldn't have afforded the time and $ to earn a BSN on minimum wage pay. In my area, ADN jobs are almost as hard to find as teaching jobs were, back when I first got out of college.

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Worked with DD/ mentally ill adults in home and day program as a direct care worker. When I got my psych degree I went to the psych team and got tackled a lot.

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I am 51 and just finishing my BSN. Before becoming a nurse I worked at a group home for medically fragile severely mentally disable adults in Brighton, Colorado. Before that I did homecare out of my house for terminally ill adults and care for disabled children.

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Specializes in School nursing.

My first degree was in television. I didn't want to move to LA, so I worked in theater administration for a short while, then quite a few years in higher education as a science department administrator. I ended a serious relationship and wanted to switch up my career. I also wanted to be a nurse, so I took advantage of tuition remission to take all of my pre-reqs for free, got into nursing school, quit my job, and went to said nursing school.

Then, of course, I ended up right back in education as a school nurse! But I love it and wouldn't want to do anything else.

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Specializes in ICU.
In college/before, I worked on a farm, did some CSR work, worked at a convenience store, worked for TRS (tranlation for hearing impaired, sorta, over the phone), was a lab assistant, then joined the Army. I went through "combat medic" school, then further school that in addition to training me for my Army job, resulted in an LPN license. I worked nursing floors at an Army hospital in addition to being in a combat support hospital, then started teaching in a hospital by the time I was 23 or 24. After that, I was an Artillery officer and worked mostly with guided missiles, my last job running training and operations for a fires battalion with about 650 people. After that, I was recruited into high end / large project technical sales, did that for a while, then project/service/operations management, and went to NYU for grad school in IT/Management. 12 years after touching my last patient, I reactivated my LPN (LVN in the state I live in now) license with a refresher course, and started working in nursing again this year; I'll finish my 2nd Bachelor's degree, in nursing, through Texas Tech in December of next year. I'll be 37, so I'll make it before 40. Not so confident I'll finish my MSN-FP before then - that'll probably be at 41.

Fellow Red Raider here.

i was a civil engineer, which I hated, so I went back to school and got a master's in biomechanics hoping it would get me a job with a device company. However, my wife and I moved to Michigan in 2010-not a great time to be in the Mitten State- for my wife to go to school. After being unemployed, under employed, and employed in a terrible job for a few years I went back to school. I wish I had gone this route straight out of HS.

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