What is the salary for this job? What kind of classes should I take for college? Does it matter whether or not you go to a good college? What are the pros and cons of this job? Well, depends on what type of nurse, and what country you are in. In the US there are three options.
First you can become a licensed vocational/practical nurse (LPN or LVN). This is a one year program. Basically you are a nurse but can't do as much as an RN and can't work without an RN supervising. Salary is around 30-35 thousand.
RNs make forty to fifty thousand on average. there are two degrees you can get, either a two year associates (ADN) or a four year bachelors (BSN). you need the bachelors degree to do things like be a director or to go on as a nurse practitioner, anesthetist, etc. It doesn't matter what school you go to as long as it is accredited.
Pros: good salary, get to help people, it is a fun job, good coworkers
Cons: some patients are grumpy and mean, paperwork, high stress, can be long hours You need to do diploma in hospitality and then specialize in nursing... Education: A Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Don't waste your time with classes that aren't University level. Just four years and you can be done, faster in some schools even. Talk to a counselor and they will guide you towards your goals. However, make sure you apply for the Nursing program immediately to make sure you are on the list to get in, or at least find out how long before you graduate and get to work. You may find that you'll want to choose a different college right then and there.
Salary: More than you'd think. Not bad, but a lot of work. And you can work anywhere in the world!
Pros: Never a shortage of jobs. Its a career that gets respect still. May share in recoveries, births, be a helpful person.
Cons: You'll need to see sickness in all its gross details, deal with all walks of life, see a lot of suffering, work some long hard hours, have to forgo your own problems to fix other's. Its a job that works 24/7 and you could have any of those.
Ask yourself why you want to do that job, if its not just for the money, you'll be fine. Salary for an RN depends on where you are working. Are you in the US? If yes, then there are some parts of the country that pay ok, others pay poorly. Pay can be anywhere from the high teens per hour to in the 40s per hour. Nursing is not just one thing, there are many specialty areas that you can work in, and sometimes, you can make more money depending on your specialty.
Classes you should take are the sciences. In college you will need basic chemistry, microbiology, human anatomy and physiology, and nutrition. As far as the difference between a 'good' college and a 'bad' one, that depends on your perspective. A good nursing school is one that has a tough program with instructors who will push all your buttons so that you learn. Many students drop out because they can't take the pressure or the aggressive nature of some of the instructors. Its not going to be easy so you have to develop thick skin and not take any of your experiences as a nursing student too seriously.
If you decide to study nursing in the US you need to attend an accredited school, otherwise you will not be able to sit the exam to get your license. None of these schools are easy to get into, and most of them have waiting lists. My recommendation is to go to a community college and do the RN program there, then you can transfer to a 4 year college afterwards and do the bachelor's program. Its much, much cheaper to do it this way, and you won't graduate owing $80,000 or more in student loans.
What are the pros and cons of this job? To be honest with you, nursing is not a career that I would recommend to any young, ambitious person. The money isn't bad, but the job is very dirty, and you will take a lot of abuse almost every day from doctors, patients, patient family members, and hospital administrators. Most of the time you will be working short-staffed with more patients than you can safely manage, and it makes no sense to complain because your supervisor won't really care. They'll just tell you to work harder. You will spend all day long running from one patient to the next, with hardly any time at all to take a break even to pee. You will miss many of your meal breaks because you won't have time to take them. And if anything at all goes wrong, its always, always, always going to be your fault.
There's a ton of paperwork that you have to do on every patient and you are expected to do it all on top of everything else thats going on. No matter how hard you work, you will always have patients and doctors who complain about something that you didn't do or should have done. Health care is different now than it used to be years ago because most of the patients are much older and sicker now, and many of them have a combination of so many diseases that you have to watching out for all sorts of complications with them in everything that you do.
Even the patients who can do things for themselves will expect you it to do for them because they think they're in a hotel, and that it is your job to cater to their every whim and fancy. Many of them are very rude, demanding, and condescending, and you have to be very careful about what you say back to them because you can lose your job. You will also be dealing with vomit, urine, feces, blood, and all sorts of diseases and conditions, so if you are faint-hearted this is definitely not the career for you. I could go on and on, but the most important thing to remember is that you will also be working with other nurses who are very mean and nasty, who will not help you when you need it, and who will say nasty things about you behind your back.
As far as pros, I can't think of any. If you really like to help people and you get a good feeling from doing that then that's probably about it. Just don't expect most of them to say 'thank you' or to even show any appreciation at all. Of course, that's just bedside nursing, and that's not the only thing you can do with a nursing degree. Just know what you're getting yourself into before you jump in. Take a job as a nursing assistant for a while to get an idea of what its really like. |
