Nursing major - does school matter?
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Anonymous
| My daughter really wants to major in nursing (eventually get her nurse practitioner degree). She has the chops for a school like Georgetown or UMich, but I’m trying to get a hold on whether those $$$$ schools are really worth it for this major. Thoughts? |
Anonymous
| Nope. Its been discussed on here before at some length by folks who have taken nursing degrees. If you run a search it will likely turn up. |
Anonymous
What should I search for (e.g. suggested terms)? I have not found the search function on this site to be user-friendly or helpful, but I am open to advice. |
Anonymous
Or, if you have links to specific threads, I would appreciate you posting them. |
Anonymous
| I have a niece who recently went to an ok state school for nursing and I am positive she was at the top of her class. Even still, her interviews at larger, prominent hospitals were very competitive and intense. I would think you'd have a leg-up at a better school, but that you also have to perform well in school. I also believe she said that students who went to Georgetown had preferential placement at Medstar's new-grad nursing program (they took more students from the school due to the affiliation with the hospital). |
Anonymous
| What state are you in? If there is a good state school there, try for that. For the more prestigious hospitals I think it does matter a bit. |
Anonymous
| Remember that she could also get to school and completely change her mind. So she should aim for the best possible school that is still reasonable and not crazy money. |
Anonymous
We're in DC. |
Anonymous
| RN here - no it doesn’t matter. An accredited program that gets you to licensure is what you need. Some hospitals offer tuition reimbursement in exchange for committing to stay there for X amount of years. If you have in-state options, those are your target schools. Even better, if those programs are direct-entry - meaning, you don’t compete for spots after freshman year. Ideally, your spot is guaranteed at the time of admissions. Good luck! |
Anonymous
THIS is what you really should be looking for. |
Anonymous
No, prestigious hospitals do not care at all that she went to GMU versus Georgetown. If she passed her boards, and she has a pulse, she has a job. |
Anonymous
|
I'm an RN. The best advice I can give a new nurse is to get experience. She should get a job as a tech and work in the department and hospital that she is targeting for employment in the future. We hire our techs preferentially when they graduate nursing school. Even 10-12 hours per week is extremely valuable experience and will give her an "in."
She should select a program that is affordable and respectable. It's cool that you can study nursing at Hopkins, but it doesn't give you a huge leg up as a practicing RN. If you have to pay full price, it isn't worth it. A respectable state school BSN program is her best choice. She should look around carefully for programs with PhD or DNP qualified instructors and happy(ish) students. (Nursing school is intense like engineering school is, so look for students that are relatively happy.) And jobs are not a big deal. Major metropolitan markets on the East and West coasts are more competitive. But smaller markets in Texas and the Midwest go begging. The pay isn't great, but it's fine to go to one of those markets and get two-three years of experience before going elsewhere to make money. Once you have experience, you are likely to find a job in any market without difficulty. And you can travel then, which pays really well. |
Anonymous
|
I'm an NP, worked as an RN for 6 years before becoming an NP.
I would caution you that the job market for nurses is not static. I graduated in 2006 and had my pick of jobs but during the recession a lot of RNs who were out of the workforce came back. Also, outpatient practices, rehabs/long-term care, nursing homes, etc etc will use MAs or LPNs rather than RNs so those nursing jobs do not exist anymore. I heard from younger friends that it was much, much harder to get a decent hospital-based nursing job in 2010 as a new grad and that continued for some time. Also, there are more people who want to be NPs than there are clinical sites/spaces and there's also a shortage of nurse educators. So I would not take it as a given that she can get into a masters program with an undergrad from literally anywhere. All of that said, since your only in-state option is (I guess) UDC, you are going to pay a lot even for her to go to GMU, right? I agree with PPs that I would not pay top dollar but I would look for a reputable program at a decent school. I do not know of anyone who got tuition repaid in exchange for taking a job after graduation although that sort of thing was around shortly before I went into the field. |
Anonymous
| OP here. We’ve been saving since the kids were babies and could send them to any college they want- so it’s not so much that we couldn’t afford to send her to a pricier school, more just...well, should she go to a cheaper school and then have the money leftover for a house, car, etc. if she’ll have the same job regardless? |
Anonymous
| Another RN here. They don't care where your degree came from. Only that you have a BSN and have passed the licensure exam. Most hospitals won't hire ADN's anymore and are forcing current RN's with that degree to take classes to bridge to BSN. |