Start Up A Healthcare Industry Career Through Getting A Nursing Degree Online

By Author: Bimol Bee
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The employment market of the USA demonstrates an amazing, phenomenal growth of demand for health care professionals, especially in all the nursing specializations. It is hard to believe, but it is true, this demand has never been as high as it happens to be today. Over 2 million Registered Nurses are employed in the country today, but the demand is expected to increase by at least 30 percent points in the short-term perspective, like, say, five-six years from now. What conclusion could be drawn from this fact? The answer is not difficult to find: if you happen to be thinking of a career path to take that will guarantee availability of jobs and good financial incentives than healthcare and nursing would be among the best options to give them a try. Nursing degree in one of the nursing specializations would become a guaranteed path for building a rewarding and self-fulfilling career!

The growing demand for nursing professionals with a degree means that the employment, as well as spectacular salary benefits, will become within your reach. But before you make any commitments you should realize one thing of critical importance ...
... as far as your path to a successful nursing career is concerned. In order to make this investment into your future success and to make this investment correctly – so it will pay off, in the end, exactly as you have planned it to – you need to make the choice of the online educational establishment. The first requirement should be the ACCREDITED status of the online nursing degree program. If the online degree program in nursing has this status you can be sure of the high standards of training and the validity of your degree with any potential employer. Your diploma will be valued and accepted in no less degree than a diploma of any of distinguished traditional, campus-based colleges and schools. So, the accredited status of the online course under you consideration should be a key requirement.

According to the accreditation requirement in the segment of nursing training any college or an online program is required to develop their programs in such a way so their students will be well-prepared for passing the National Licensing Exam after their graduation. This examination is of paramount importance for the success of your career in nursing, since it entitles you to practicing in single or multiple states. As soon as you have successfully passed the NLE you will be able to use obvious career-building benefits and enjoy greater flexibility and opportunity for your career promotion.

The second step to be taken after you have established the accredited status of the online educational establishment under you consideration would be to choose the right nursing degree to aim at. Basically, the options here are the same as with a degree in any other professional specialization. The main options are three: an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN), a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), and a Master's Degree in Nursing. It is perfectly understandable that you need to choose the right direction of your career from the very beginning. If you aim at BSN than you need to look for an online program that offers such an option, a program with just AND qualifications would be useless for your career aims in this case.

Let us have a closer look at those three nursing degrees that are available for you to choose from.

Associate Degree in Nursing or ADN. The ADN program is the basic stage of any nursing specialization and its objective is to get a student prepared for passing the National Council of Licensing Examination for Registered Nurses, so called NCLEX. Having successfully overcome this examination a student becomes fully eligible to apply for licensure. After you have obtained your licensure you can began an official nursing practice at the position of RN, a Registered Nurse all over the USA territories. Besides the online nursing degree programs, this course has become rather popular with traditional colleges and universities, though if you happen to be a working person than the online program would be the only feasible way for your to obtain the ADN. Besides, the online education has some other serious benefits and advantages to think about, for instance, the degree can be obtained in the accelerated manner and you will be able either to start practical work as a RN, or move on faster to the next level of the nursing qualification, in case this is your career plan. The next level would be BSN, or Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing.

Only the Registered Nurses are eligible to qualify for Bachelor Science Degree in Nursing (BSN), so you will need to get ADN, in the first place, before you can become BSN. The aim of the Bachelor degrees is to expand the knowledge and skills - to satisfy the ever-increasing demand in healthcare segment for nursing specialists with a bachelor’s degree. After you have successfully obtained your BSN the range of employment options available for you would become significantly wider. You will be entitled to move higher from your RN position, finding attractive employment options at healthcare establishments of different types and levels, for instance, in hospitals and community health care centers, in private practices and patient care facilities – to name just a few. A lot of people stay satisfied with their RN status and do not care to obtain a BSN, but for those with higher ambitions getting a BSN is totally a “must”.

Master of Science Degree in Nursing will become your key to the utmost challenging and demanding employment positions in this segment of the healthcare industry. The Master's degree training is aimed at bringing to perfection the professional skills as well enhance the theoretical knowledge of the trained nurses to the most advanced level. Besides the purely medical aspects the MSN degree training will include also such courses as management, administration and leadership. In this respect a holder of MSN will be entitled to the most attractive and demanding positions after graduating.

By the way, together with the development of new technology and taking into consideration the fact that online nursing degree programs are successfully winning higher and higher popularity each year among those who cannot afford going to a traditional campus-based college, the traditional establishments have developed their own online counterparts of the nursing degree programs. They have understood all the convenience and advantages of online degree training and moved forward, trying to fill this developing market niche.

The greatest, though not the only, advantages of online degree programs in nursing is their flexibility of scheduling. You can study according to the schedule that you adjust independently, fitting your degree training around your daily activities, anytime and anywhere. This is impossible with the traditional, campus-based approach to degree training.

Your online nursing degree program spendings will be, on the average, lower than those of on-campus programs. Since the online degree training is very flexible as far as the schedule is concerned you, depending on your circumstances, can benefit from their accelerated degree training options; in this way you can graduate much ahead of schedule and gain a competitive advantage, in the long run.

A PC with an online access allows you to make use of the best training facilities disregarding your actual location – you can reside anywhere in the country or even beyond its borders.

Online degree programs make very good use of all modern means of online communication such as discussion groups, chat forums, video lectures. The training offered by ACCREDITED online nursing degree programs is 100% equivalent to the interaction and experience of a traditional college-based degree program. Also you will not have to spend funds on such issues as commuting and campus accommodation costs, purchase of textbooks etc. All the needed materials will be provided in various digital formats, making the process of learning extremely creativity-stimulating and student-centered.

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