How To Find The Perfect Type Of Nursing Degree To Build An Amazing Career In Health Care?

By Author: Bimol Bee
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If you have made a firm and determined choice to build a successful, life-time career in nursing specialization the next step to take would be to decide where to start. This is not a so simple thing to do, since upon the correctness of your choice a lot of things will depend, especially your potential career success in the health care industry. You should put a simple, but critically important question here: “What type of nursing degree would be just perfect for me?” Finding the right answer to the posed question you will be in position to take another important step – to find a suitable nursing school to enroll to, which will be in agreement with the chosen type of your professional specialization!

First of all, if you are seriously interested in getting a nursing training, you should be aware that there are just two basic types of nursing degrees. The first one is LPN, which is a commonly used abbreviation for Licensed Practical Nursing (sometimes another term is used instead of it - Licensed Vocational Nursing, depending on the area or location of the establishment you are to be employed at). The second type ...
... of the nursing specialization is RN or Registered Nursing. A LPN degree and a RN degree are two types of nursing specialization you will be given an option to choose from.

As a rule, a considerable share of the potential students of the nursing art give preference to LPN degree, since it has proved to be an efficient starting point of a career in health care – you can get the degree faster and start working earlier than in case of RN. The admission requirements for LPN training program are elementary – all you need to present is your high school diploma or GED. That would suffice to get enrolled into a LPN training program.

LPN programs are widely available with community colleges and technical schools, but as far as state universities are concerned, they very rarely offer Licensed Practical Nursing degree training, so you should better concentrate on other types of education establishments. At the same time, following the trend of growing demand for professional health care specialist, some reputable private schools, such as Galen, Kaplan or Keiser, have established their LPN degree courses for anyone whishing and able to meet the tuition costs and become a certified LPN degree holder, in the end!

The significant advantage that a RN degree holder has over a LPN degree holder is the fact that registered nurses are considered to be specialists with high qualifications and the payment they are entitled to is, on the average, substantially higher. LPNs usually work under the supervision of registered nurses. And taking into consideration the common practice of some hospitals, which simply do not hire LPNs, since such is their employment policy, RNs have significantly more advantageous chances to win a rewarding and self-fulfilling employment position in health care than LPNs. This is a piece of news you have in mind, while making your own choice of the nursing specialization to follow. As you can see, LPN does not offer the same advantages for career furthering as are available with RN degree.

From the point of view of career advancement opportunities a Registered Nursing degree is much more appealing that LPN, since a degree in registered nursing guarantees for you a career boost that is clearly superior to that offered by just LPN degree. If you manage to obtain a RN degree that will mean a possibility to hold a managerial position, in the long run. It goes without saying that an LPN degree could become just a first step towards earning a RN degree, and you would be in a more favorable position in this case, since you will already have gained some practical, hands-on experience.

A feasible and quite effective strategy might become completing an LPN degree, which should take about a year, then finding an employment position according to your specialization and, after gaining valuable hands-on experience, taking up an online LPN to RN degree training program, without necessity to sacrifice your hard-earned job and still getting your living to support yourself and, if it happens so, your family.

In this way you can become a registered nurse, while continuing to work. Such strategy has its inherent advantages: for instance some employers may offer to help you with financing the tuition costs of your continuing education, in exchange for your commitment to keep your job for an agreed number of years upon your graduation as a certified RN degree holder! You should agree, this is a quite appealing option, isn’t it?

Surely, there is always another, optional way to become a RN – you can get it through obtaining an Associate's Degree in Nursing or a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. But that will take longer time of staying at the college campus: two years for an associate’s and four years for a bachelor’s degree. Such degree programs have been developed recently by the majority of community colleges, private schools, and state universities, which have noticed the high demand for nursing specialization professionals and, as the result, growing popularity of this type of vocational specialization among the potential students. So they have used this opportunity to fill in a recently opened niche at the education services market.

An Associate's Degree in nursing automatically makes you a Registered Nurse. And this degree opens new employment opportunities that you would not obtain with just a LPN certifications, which results in much better financial incentives for you. Still it is not the limit of your career growth in health care industry yet. It is still possible to earn more money and enhance your hiring potential noticeably. The way to achieve this further career growth would be getting a Bachelor of Science Degree in nursing. To this end you can use accredited online nursing degree programs, so you can continue working while finishing the degree training course. Surely, you can make use of traditional part-time classes, but the majority of people find it to tiresome. Just imagine the necessity to drive to a college three times a week after your hectic working day, spend a several hours there, completing the degree course. The majority of health care professionals give preference to a convenient distance learning methods offered by online degree programs. Such online courses have several serious advantages over the traditional nursing degree schools. First of all, online degree has become practically the only possible way for continuing education of already working professionals. Secondly, the scheduling of online degree programs is incredibly flexible. An online nursing degree student can complete the course without leaving his or her home and/or quitting his or her job. That is, while finishing online course a working person can still sustain the family and fulfill other responsibilities. Online nursing degree can be fitted into your busy daily schedule seamlessly, which cannot be said about traditional colleges, where you have to attend class in person.

Besides, the spendings on online nursing degree are much lower than the tuition costs of a traditional nursing school. As an online student you will save noticeably, as well, on the costs of campus accommodation, commuting, textbooks and other teaching materials and so on.

If you still find it difficult to procure financing for your continuing education there are two options left: firstly, very often your employer will agree to pay partially for your continuing educational expenses if you commit yourself to continue working at your position after the graduation for a certain period of time the duration of which can be negotiated between you and the employer; secondly, many nursing degree programs offer financial aid and grants to their students too.

The status of a registered nurse with a BSN entitles you, with some luck and persistence on your part, to win such appealing job positions as a ward manager – and that would be just the lower limit of your potential!

Still the most prestigious positions require getting a Master's Degree in Nursing, at the very least. So, as you see, there is a lot of space above you to increase your academic potential significantly!

In conclusion let us do some summing up. The path you may choose depends on your circumstances. If you wish to obtain a degree in the fastest possible way and start working then you should aim at a LPN degree. On the other hand, if it happens so that your career objective is a stable, high-paying job and a management-level position, then give serious consideration to an Associate's Degree in Nursing or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree, this path is longer and requires more financial and time resources, but it pays off very well in the long run!

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