Nurses are responsible for caring for numerous people a day. Training to be a nurse prepares you for a career in which there are many opportunities and a variety of career options. If you’re looking for a career that is rewarding, challenging and will never be the same thing every day, nursing may be the major for you.
Education
A Resident Nurse (RN) major is most often offered at the associate and bachelor’s level. You’ll most likely start college as a pre-nursing major taking prerequisite courses before being admitted to the nursing school. It’s a rigorous major, requiring many hours of studying. Be prepared to take courses such as health assessment, anatomy and physiology, chemistry, nutrition, pharmacology and psychology. In addition to written work, tests and projects, you’ll have lab sessions where you practice the skills you learn about — either on your classmates, mannequins or real patients in a hospital. Classes in high school to help prepare for a nursing major include AP Psychology, AP Chemistry, AP Biology, statistics, health science and English composition.
Questions to ask
Make sure you know what you’ll start the program as — can you apply directly to the program as a senior in high school or do you have to be a pre-nursing major and apply after a year or two? It’s important that the program is accredited. You want to make sure the school has a good program — ask how many graduates pass the NCLEX-RN exam. Also ask about what type of clinical training sites they use — are they local or on campus? As a nurse, you’ll have patients who don’t speak English — does the school have medical-related language courses?
Salary
RNs make up the largest sector of the healthcare field with 2.5 million jobs, so someone graduating with this major will not be short on opportunities. An RN in 2012 made an average of $65,470, or $31.48 per hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
> Still not sure if nursing is right for you? Learn more about this career path at NextStepAcademy.com.
