... but my grade are pretty much finalized now. So I thought I'd share. I'm changing some of the names of the classes just to be a little less searchable.
How to give someone a physical, nurse style (2 Credits) A (~98%)
All the basics of Nursing and The basics of being a nurse on a psych floor (5 Credits) : A (98.3%)
An overview of nursing issues (2 Credits): A (~98%)
Drug, drugs, and more drugs (3 Credits): A- (91.6%)
How diseases work (4 Credits): A- (~92.4%)
Actually working in a hospital and in mental ward: (5 Credits) A (~97%)
That should make my GPA a 3.9
Here's the thing. I don't find it all that difficult from an intellectual standpoint. It keeps me busy, especially the parts where I have to write papers, but I don;t struggle to "understand" the content. To tell the truth, so far it's mostly been common sense.
I am pleased with my performance, but to a certain extent I feel like I'm just performing at the level that I expected. I can live with a B if its a nice high B, but in truth I expect to get A's. So getting an A doesn't feel like an achievement. It's more like a milestone to me.
I suppose that's both good and bad. Good in the sense that I hold myself to a relatively high standard, bad in that there is little joy in what amounts to very good performance. I'm also concerned that I'll expect The Peanut to always bring home A's. And that would be unfair, especially considering my high school GPA was something like a 2.5 The only C's I ever got in college were Accounting I and II. I can understand Chemistry and Physics and Statistics without a problem, but accounting remains a mystery.
At any rate, it's something that I intend to look out for. I tell her now that she's my favorite Peanut because she is so smart, so nice and so cute. I want to keep reinforcing that (hopefully in more sophisticated ways) as she gets older. I want a kid who is smart, confident and tough. But I digress.
The real upside of the GPA is that if I can keep it up I'll get into graduate school pretty easily, if that's really what I want. I got into this program with the idea that Ic ould always return to sales, but I don't know if I really want to do that. Even though you can make a heck of a good living, it's always uncertain.
But the more I go to school the more I wonder if just staying in patient care is the better choice. I think I could move into management pretty easily, just because I have a business background and I'm male. The faculty has told us to expect to move into management just on the basis of our having dual degrees. We're sort of expected to be leaders.
If I don't choose administration, I could do grad school and become a nurse practitioner. There seems to be a trend now that nurse practitioners are being replaced by DNPs. or Doctors of Nursing Practice. A DNP is actually a year shorter than doing a masters followed by nurse practitioner school. In the end the duties are the same, but you call one of them Doctor (I'm not sure how I feel about that).
The thing about doing a DNP is the income. It's a three year, part-time program that is mostly online. You can work and go to school simultaneously. Because it's a practical degree there is no research or thesis requirement. After you graduate, bang, you've pretty much guaranteed yourself an upper middle class income for life. I like the idea of not having to sweat to put The Peanut through college.
Then Mona also wants to go back to school and get a psychology masters. She wants to do early intervention type stuff with autistic kids. So add in an income like that and we'll be OK to retire someday. She's taking an online intro to psych class now and like likes what she's learned so far.
The DNP also might be cool for retirement. Mona wants to re-up with the Peace Corps when we pack it in. Part of me thinks that might be cool. With a DNP I think I could pick my post and pretty much be sure that I wouldn't be digging wells and evading guerrillas in some scary jungle somewhere.
Some people with my GPA in nursing want nurse anesthesia, but I don't think that's for me. It's another two years of full time school, and I don't know if we can really afford that. Plus, in my opinion, the OR is boring and being a nurse anesthetist looks like lots of boredom with the occasional moments of panic and a high risk for malpractice suits. That's just my opinion. If you want to be a nurse anesthetist please don't let me stop you. The people who do it seem to love it, and the money is fantastic.
At any rate, you're now up to speed.
So what do you think? Do I go back to sales and keep nursing as a fallback? Do I try for management and administration? How about Grad school and a doctorate?
If you've read this far it's my great hope that you'll share your opinion. I really appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts.
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5 comments:
You're doing so well...I'd stick with it and try for mgmt.
It is up to you, Jorge. Those are some very, very different paths. I chose the doctorate because I loved research and teaching, and because I wanted job security. But I think you would succeed at any of those.
You should work on your IT background also. Electronic Medical records are the way to go now, and there is a huge need for IT and Clinical backgrounds. LOTS of job security
The DNP will not oust the MSN ARNP level for a while. They have said that about BSN for the RN for years. In just about every DNP program that I've looked up, there is a cornerstone project which means research paper that is required. Make sure that you do the homework before going into it so that you don't get a nasty surprise! Good luck with your decisions.
I think you should do what you want to do, not what you think gives you the most money. We all know that money doesn't buy happiness - even in retirement.
I would think hospital management would suck. Then again, you won't catch me being a nurse either, as I'm not a fan of blood and guts.
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