Nursing is a great career because it offers numerous benefits. The top 6 reasons to pursue nursing include good compensation, exciting and rewarding work, flexible scheduling, varied career options, and upward career mobility. These factors make it easy to answer, is nursing a good career? with an exuberant yes.
Do you wonder, is nursing a good career for you, and is being a nurse worth it? Only you can answer that, but let’s walk through some of the key reasons to pursue nursing. There are countless great reasons to become a nurse, not the least of which is the good feeling that comes with knowing you’re making a direct difference in the lives of patients and their families.
You still may be wondering whether nursing is the right fit for your professional future. Should I be a nurse? Will it be worth the investment? We get it. After all, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) is a major decision requiring a significant investment in time, dedication, and money.
At Misericordia University, we believe nursing is a fantastic career choice, and with our Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, we can help jumpstart your career. There are some key reasons why we believe nursing is such a vital and rewarding role, and we are excited to share some of those with you.
6 Reasons You Should Be a Nurse
To help you decide if nursing is an ideal career fit for you, we’ve outlined six key reasons to pursue nursing. When you ask, is nursing a good career, we shout yes.
1. Nurses Make a Comfortable Living
Because of the high demand for BSN-educated nurses, it’s no surprise they enjoy good pay and job security. It’s also worth mentioning that with the level of upward mobility in the profession you can expect when you earn such a degree, you have the potential to earn more over time in the field.
The median annual salary for RNs in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is $75,330 per year as of May 2020. The state of Pennsylvania employs the fifth largest nursing workforce in the country, and the average salary here is $74,170.
Other more advanced degrees pay even more. In the U.S., nurse anesthetists earned an average of $183,580, while nurse practitioners earned an average of $111,680 as of May 2020.
Another benefit of nursing compensation is that nurses generally enjoy comprehensive benefit packages with their health care employers, including overtime and holiday premiums, paid time off, 401(k) matching, health insurance, and maternity leave. You can expect to be covered not only with a good salary but also with a competitive package all around when you take a nursing job.
2. Making a Difference as a Nurse is Rewarding
If you ask most RNs, “Why is nursing a good career?” their top reason will likely not be the paycheck. Many will tell you that nursing is much more than a way to pay the bills. As much as nursing is financially rewarding work, it also comes with great personal reward: you get to make a difference. Most nurses agree that the best part about entering the profession is the ability to help those in need and change lives.
Besides helping patients heal from physical wounds, overcome chronic illnesses, and avoid disease, nurses help patients and their families through emotionally challenging times. Nursing is such rewarding work because it allows you to connect with patients individually — during some of the most challenging times of their lives, no less — and develop care plans to help them succeed.
Put another way: you’ll be hard-pressed to find any other career with such meaningful responsibilities or intangible job benefits.
3. Nursing Provides Exciting, Changing Work
If you’re looking for a stare-at-your-computer-for-eight-hours-a-day type job, nursing is not the career path for you. One aspect of what makes nursing such a rewarding career is the excitement that comes with the unpredictability of what each day will bring.
Every patient you encounter will come to you with a different story and set of symptoms. Therefore, each requires a unique care plan. As a nurse, you’ll get to flex your creative and problem-solving muscles every day, all for the benefit of your patients.
On a broader scale, nurses also serve on the frontline of medical innovation. The health care landscape is always changing. New research and technologies emerge all the time, so endless opportunities are available for professional development and evolution within your role.
4. Nurses Have Flexible Work Scheduling Options
Because most health care employers need nurses 24/7/365, you’ll likely have plenty of luck finding a position that fits your lifestyle. If you’re a working parent who wants to work 12-hour shifts three days a week, which is common for hospital and emergency room nurses, it’s often possible. If you prefer to work nights and pick up extra shifts on the weekends, there’s likely an employer that offers that as an option, too.
If you’d rather keep a standard 9–5 work schedule, you could work in an outpatient care center or a clinic. There are plenty of nursing positions outside the hospital or clinic, too. For example, school nurses enjoy the same scheduling as students, which often means weekday daytime shifts with weekends, holidays, and summer breaks off.
5. Nursing Offers Diverse Career Options
While most nurses work in hospitals, there are many workplace options beyond the bedside, such as in outpatient clinics, long-term care settings, health insurance companies, and patient homes. However, if a hospital setting is what you have your heart set on for your nursing career, myriad specialty areas become available to you once you earn your BSN.
Depending on your personality and work style, you can choose between many clinical roles that differ greatly. What an emergency room nurse experiences during a routine shift is vastly different from that of a nurse who works in the intensive care unit, the labor and delivery floor, the pediatrics floor, or the outpatient GI center.
Of course, with a BSN, your nursing career aspirations aren’t limited to just hospitals, and you can even pursue administrative or managerial roles. As far as other nursing sectors go, a BSN also grants you access to roles such as:
- Flight nurse
- Travel nurse
- Home health nurse
- Informatics nurse
- Nurse manager
The great thing about nursing is that you can flex between these roles as you desire, and you can truly adapt your career to the specific niche and patient population that interests you most.
6. Nurses Can Advance Their Careers
If you desire a career path with opportunities for advancement, nursing is a profession to consider. While possible to enter the field with an associate degree in nursing (ADN), you’ll have many more options if you earn a BSN.
An exciting option that opens as you progress in your nursing career is working in administration or management for nursing, such as by being a nurse manager or an executive of a health care organization. With a BSN in hand, employers will see you as a leader in the field, setting you up for management opportunities if that’s what you desire.
Additionally, nurses can decide to pursue a higher-paying advanced practice nursing position. These positions — such as nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, or nurse midwife — require a master’s degree in nursing, and you’ll need to have a BSN to enter these programs. In these professions, you can have more autonomy as a provider and manage more aspects of patient care.
There is a great deal of upward mobility within the nursing profession, so if you are an ambitious person who wants to climb the ladder, then nursing can be a great fit.
Is Nursing School Worth It? Is Being a Nurse Worth It?
Whether in a traditional, four-year program or an accelerated program, earning your BSN requires a major commitment, both in time and in money. A great way to get the most out of your education and enter the nursing field soon is to attend an accelerated nursing program. At Misericordia University’s ABSN program, students with at least 60 non-nursing credits from an accredited institution can be eligible to enroll in our 16-month nursing program.
Rest assured that when you earn your BSN, this will put you into a stable, well-paying, rewarding nursing career. We are committed to making sure our ABSN program is worth it for every student who walks through our doors.
Get on the Faster Path to a Rewarding Nursing Career
There has never been a better time to change paths to nursing. By becoming a nurse, you’ll be entering into an exciting and rewarding field that allows you to connect with people in need and make a real difference in their lives.
If you’re ready to pursue this in-demand profession and want to learn more about how the Misericordia ABSN program can help you transition into the field in as few as 16 months, reach out to one of our admissions counselors by completing this form.