A couple weeks ago the family and myself had dinner with Karen, her family, and the Wises (during which we had the most fabulous mojitos known to man). Shortly after meeting Mrs. Wise, she proceeded to spend about 25 minutes trying to convince me to become a nurse. At first I just humored her by playing along: “Oh yeah, no problem. Let me just go ahead and change major – again – months before my junior year.” But then I got to thinking (red flag number one). If I graduate with a bachelor’s in Psychology like I currently intend to do, I cannot work in the Psychology field without first getting at least a Master’s. I knew this when I chose Psych in the first place. Not a problem. The thing is though, even with a PhD and my own private practice, a typical annual salary is usually anywhere between $50,000 and $70,000. On a good day. With only a Master’s it’s even less. Now nursing jobs on the other hand require far less schooling and for a better pay. With an associate’s (ADN) or bachelor’s (BSN) degree alone, both of which qualify you as a registered nurse (RN), average yearly salary is around $52,000. If you go on to get a master’s (MSN), with which you can become a Nurse Practitioner (NP), a Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), and others, salaries reach between $70,000 and $110,000.
Needless to say, the shortage of nurses makes it a lot easier to make good money while spending less time getting there. Not that money is everything, but it certainly makes life easier. And if I can go to the same amount of school for the same cost and get paid more in the end, I’ll do it.
The problem is, I’m already halfway through with my Psych degree. Plus, I am dead-set on going to Maastricht next summer, which means I have a very strict degree plan already mapped out. That said, if I were really serious about going the nursing route, I can do one of two things.
A) I can change my major to nursing immediately. However, that would mean spending an extra year or so catching up on the pre-requisites I need before I can go to Baylor’s nursing school in Dallas. It also means I’d lose a lot of my scholarship for Maastricht because of some of the stipulations on that funding. Without that money, I probably couldn’t afford to go, which is not an option.
B) I can prepare for what is called an Accelerated BSN Program, which allows individuals who already have a Bachelor’s in something other than nursing to earn a BSN in only a year of rigorous coursework. The problem here is that I’d most likely have to spend an extra semester at Baylor taking pre-reqs for the Accelerated Program, thus again losing Maastricht scholarship money. Not to mention the Accelerated BSN is a whole additional year on top of my Psych degree, which would be time consuming and expensive. There’s a small chance that I could rework my current schedule to fit in all my pre-reqs, but I haven’t looked into it enough yet. But if I could do that, then I could graduate from Baylor a semester early, spend a year in the Accelerated Program, another couple years getting a CRNA, and then be able to pay off all my loans in a few years.
Goodness! I don’t know what to do..
Filed under: Ponderings
