What's harder, nursing school or the education program to be a teacher?

[Infofreak411]

This is for any of those former teacher outlet there that have since become nurses!

I currently have a degree in secondary education and after a long time of pondering, would really would like to pursue my dream of become long a nurse.

The only thing is I keep holding myself back because everyone says how next to impossible hard the schooling is and the high failure rate. It is very discouraging!

But then I think back to my program to become a certified teacher and that was no walk through the park either! The workload was insane. You had to maintain a B average in every class and if you get below a B in just one class you would fail the whole program. In the end only about 60 percent of people passed and became teachers.

So I keep thinking we'll if I made it through teaching school maybe I can make it through nursing school.

Any former teachers out there want to chime in please!

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

OK, I'll bite. I think nursing school is harder, simply because you have to learn to think differently. Things aren't necessarily black and white, you have to learn to think about "which is MORE right," instead of which is just "right," in any given situation. The core classes are the same as what you would take for education; I am talking about the actual nursing classes that are different. Aside from the educational part of it, I have worked with retired educators who went into nursing as a second career, and couldn't believe how much harder the nurse works. Nights, weekends, holidays. Physically demanding (pulling/lifting 300+ lb people.) 12-14 hour shifts~ not just to catch up your work~ you might get a busy admission during the last hour of your 12 hour shift. Not every nurse is in a union. There aren't any in my area. You probably won't have benefits as good as most teachers do, and very little job protection. Looking on the bright side, you can always go back to teaching if you don't like nursing.

[ksuheather]

I thought my end classes were easy. Lots of busy work but easy.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

Nursing school is way harder. I have a Masters in Teaching and taught Elementary (5th grade) math and science. Nursing school is nothing like anything else you have done. It will be a shock.

That being said, I LOVE nursing more than I did teaching. Teaching experience comes in handy with nursing as you are familiar with adjusting teaching modalities and assessing learning styles.

[Dranger]

The people at my university who couldn't get into nursing school went into psych or education. There is your answer.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

You probably won't have benefits as good as most teachers do, and very little job protection.

Teachers don't get any different benefits. And the trend is getting rid of tenure, so there is little job protection. They are doing everything they can to get rid of the "expensive" teachers and hire more new grads that make half as much money. Education is in the toilet right now.

[Student Mom to Three]

Nursing school isn't particularly difficult......just very intense and very time consuming. You'll be fine! I went from social worker to RN in my early 40s and am loving every minute of it!!

[klone, MSN, RN]

Nursing school isn't particularly difficult......just very intense and very time consuming.

I agree with this. I didn't find it HARD, per se, just very all-consuming.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

I think nursing - because you have to learn a new language and culture. Both degrees have helped me in my career.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

OP: All I can tell you is that while friends in the Education track had time in between and after classes for partying and enjoying their weekends, friends in the nursing program were studying and busting their butts. Just an observation.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

My family (multi-generation) is infested with educators.. mostly HS & Higher Ed. hmm - I eventually recognized it as a genuine congenital defect, stopped fighting mother nature and became a nurse educator - LOL.

They were all gobsmacked when they saw that the grading scale (which they believed was sacrosanct) was higher for nursing. They were all fascinated in the 'process' for nursing education - made me feel like a specimen/lab rat and asked endless questions whenever an opportunity arose.

[Guttercat, ASN, RN]

I found the nursing program to be "boring." (Read that disillusioned.) It was not the "hard science" of medicine and pathophysiology that I had envisioned learning, just very time consuming, as others have stated. I imagine an education/teaching path would be similar: you learn and apply what is presented in the program you are entered into.