Have you considered becoming a Registered Nurse? Have you looked at various schools and cringed at the long list of pre-requisites for you do to BEFORE you enter their nursing program? Have you read the fine print of how your place on their waiting list is established and can change at their whim? And have you ever pondered to yourself, why is there a waiting list at all when there is a nursing shortage?
Yes, more people are deciding to get into nursing so that does increase demand as there are a limited spaces. HOWEVER, you are ALSO competing for nursing courses at a time in history when Nursing is becoming a degreed profession. Therefore, you are competing for classes with not only NEW people just entering nursing – but also EXISTING NURSES who are trying to get their college degree.
Yes – existing nurses are competing for the same nursing classes as new entrants to the field. Sound crazy? Let me explain:
In the past, almost every nurse was trained vocationally. This means that they recieved skills training at a vocational school, earned their nursing license and went to work. Facilities then provided additional training on the job. Or they may have gone to a hospital and exchanged time and years of training for a “diploma RN”. Getting a college degree in nursing was only accomplished by those wanting to move into management or for personal satisfaction.
Today, nursing is transitioning into a degreed profession. Health institutions are only hiring RNs with nursing degrees because of new designations (MAGNET) and increasing government regulations.
That’s why there are so many people applying to schools to get a nursing degree today. In the past, they would have gone to a hospital to get trained for their “diploma” RN. Now, even those diploma RNs (no matter how many years of experience) have to go back to school to get their college degree. They didn’t need a degree in the past to do their job, but now they need a degree to KEEP their job.
So the demand for college nursing courses is coming from NEW people wanting to be nurses, LPNs who want to become RNs, as well as EXISTING RNs taking classes to gain their college degree. WOW! Three large sets of people trying to get into Nursing Courses all at once.
All three streams of people are creating huge waiting lists or allowing some institutions to charge extremely high tuition (I have met many new nurses with over 80K and some with over 100K in student loans).
How can you bypass RN School waiting lists and jump past these three large streams of people? Joining a blended nursing degree program is the best way to avoid waiting lists, classrooms and even term papers (for gen ed classes).
There are many ways to approach online RN programs and blended nursing degrees. New students learn their clinicals first and then do their RN online. Existing Diploma RNs can do online programs direct to Bachelors. RNs that have their Associates degree (ASN, ADN) can do their BSN online super fast because they have very few (if any) pre-reqs. Every online RN program has mentoring or “test-out” clinicals (because basic RN skills were learned earlier in their career or through education).
If you are brand new to approaching nursing school (especially if you are a working adult with a family), I recommend researching blended, accelerated and online RN degrees. These types of Registered Nursing Programs will not only allow you to become an RN faster (and often reduce your overall school debt), but they will also help our society by getting more Registered Nurses working our health facilities.
The idea of people sitting on waiting lists is ridiculous since colleges have been using the internet with proven curricula. The intersection of retiring nurses and the large retiring general population (baby boomers) is creating a frightening situation in healthcare. Blended online RN programs are going to save the day – if you will take advantage of them.
I hope this article helps explain why nursing classrooms are so full and why there is a phenomenon of long waiting lists at most of the traditional Nursing Schools around the country.
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