What is it with nursing?

seems like everyone i know is going back to school to be a nurse...they might already have a 4 year degree in something, but they're going to school for 2 years to get an RN...i dont get it? I know nursing pays pretty well...but it's not easy. It almost seems to me that a lot of these people these days dont knwo what they want to do with their lives and cant find a job that pays much so they say, eh, i'll go into nursing, i'll always be guaranteed a job. I notice a lot of men do the same thing with being policemen.

I take a rather philosophical approach to this issue, because having returned to school to become a nurse at a bit of an older age (not straight out of high school), and having been in a program with a high number of students like myself, we shared this conversation many times.

Most of the people I know who go back to school to become a nurse, myself included, originally took jobs of convenience, or worked previously in an industry where we thought we would be happy. A lot of us worked mindless jobs that offered little personal satisfaction. As we matured a bit, we realized our hearts not in our jobs, and we wanted to have a career that was more meaningful to us, we wanted to feel like we were truly contributing something positive to our community through our actions, and we desired to help others, with the benefit of making a career that pays us fairly well. It just so happens that nursing is the perfect opportunity to do those things. There is no limit to what a nurse can do in terms of whether she is a staff hospital nurse, a school nurse, a nurse educator or college professor, etc. There is just a vast abundance of versatility that nursing offers.

So I strongly disagree with your opinion that a lot of them don't know what they want with their lives, I think it's the exact opposite.

There were very few nursing students I graduated with who were openly all about the money and job stability first and foremost. And those few were certainly the type of people, personality-wise, that I would never want caring for me or my family. People like them don't last long, those are the ones who burn out quickly and hopefully leave the profession.

Nurses are among the most respected people in the US. There is currently a shortage of nurses, and the pay is starting to improve. There are also a lot of men going into nursing. It is a wide-open field.
It takes a caring person to be a nurse. If your friends are going into nursing just for the pay, they won't stay very long.

There is a big demand for nurses. AND nurses are basically allowed to treat everyone around them like crap.