People who haven’t earned a bachelor’s degree yet should consider a RN-BSN degree. This degree provides a solid foundation for a nursing career (with room for advancement). Nurses who have already achieved a RN-BSN have an opportunity to deepen skills through a master’s program. Understanding education options and benefits will get you one step closer to the career you want.

Why Choose an RN-BSN?

Prospective nursing students have many education choices. An associate’s or certificate program in nursing takes three years or less to complete. To some students, this is appealing. However, investing in a bachelor’s program in nursing, which takes four years to complete, has more long-term benefits. Equipped with an RN-BSN degree, nurses are more appealing to prospective employers and have more opportunities for advancement.

Achieving this degree provides nurses with the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to take the registered nursing exam, also known as the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN). The demand for registered nurses is growing quickly as the nation scrambles to meet a national shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for registered nurses will grow 22 percent by 2018.

Program Details

As a prospective RN-BSN student, you might be wondering what the next four years looks like. Most BSNs spend the first two years of study fulfilling general requirements, like English, Science, Math and other basic college requirements.

After getting general education under your belt, you’ll move on to nursing related courses. Learn about nursing science, principles, and nursing practice. You’ll also get hands on clinical experience. During this experience, students have an opportunity to work in the community and network with future co-workers and employers.

Most BSN programs are creating schedules tailored to students with other obligations. Weekend, evening and online classes are available with these programs. This makes earning a BSN even more attainable than 10 years ago.

RN-BSN Career Opportunities

Earning RN-BSN credentials provides exciting opportunities for nursing students. Nurses are in short supply. This means, wherever you decided to live, your skills with be in high demand. Some nurses decide to check out travel nursing, allowing them to travel across the country (and even the world) to treat patients. These positions pay generously and typically offer contracts for 12 months or less. Nurses can also choose to specialize in an area of interest, such as pediatrics, obstetrics, cardiology or ambulatory care. There is never a shortage of opportunities for trained nurses.

Earnings: What Does a RN-BSN Make?

Prospective nurses launch this career to advocate for patients and ultimately make a difference. But, let’s face it, you have to eat and pay the mortgage too. Fortunately, nursing provides generous wages and perks. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, registered nurses can expect to earn $43,410 to over $92,240 annually, as of 2008.

Desperate for help, healthcare organizations may offer signing bonuses, gain share and a bonus structure. Flexible shifts, on-site daycare and great healthcare benefits are just a few more perks of the job.

Or maybe… you are one of the lucky ones who has a secure job. But even so, you suffer, you feel job burnout. The good feeling is gone. You dread going to work, doing the same old thing, even though you need the money.

Or too much stress, maybe. Your boss is under the gun to drive everyone harder, harder, harder, and threats of being fired are commonplace.

Or maybe your career involves a type of work particularly stressful to you, something you never foresaw when training for the work. Or maybe it’s just soul-numbingly boring.

Or perhaps you’ve fought and earned your way as far up the ladder as it seems you can possibly go. You’re stuck in a dead end. Maybe you just need more money.

One way or another, it’s time for a change! Your mental and physical and emotional survival depend on it! Its time to fight back, by learning a new level of skill sets in your field. or even to change careers altogether.

You can do it. You did it before. You can do it again. Because you have to! It will take discipline and stress-management skills, to cope. But you proved you can do it, the first time around. Never forget that.

Human survival has always required a high level of stress. Evolution is the result of ever-shifting changes, and intelligence can be defined as the ability to adapt to new situations.
Your ability to perform can be crippled by your unwillingness to deal with the stress of change. But it’s a necessary transition. Deal with it. And grow.

Your old life has to be reinvented. Choose a new path. There are so many for you to decide among. First, look at growth trends. Look at job markets. And most importantly, look at yourself— what do you want? What do you feel good about doing? How has your life changed?

When you first educated yourself, maybe you were single, but now you’re married, you may even have children. Is travel out of the question? Should you search for a career more The crazy schedule or the frequent travel that is typical of your career may not suit your new lifestyle. You should look for an occupation that is “family friendly?”

Work is partly based upon life experience, too. Find the area that really fits you. The result affects your mental health, and the well-being of everyone around you.

Reinvent yourself. Redefine yourself. You have nothing to lose, but the future!

To give you the range of possibilities, here’s a list of offered career studies, from Stratford, a distance learning university— the choices are amazing, and they are yours.

• Accounting
• Administrative Assistant/Secretary
• Art
• Astrology/Parapsychology
• Auto Mechanics
• Bookkeeping
• Business Management
• Child Day Care Management
• Child Psychology
• Computer Programming
• Computer Training
• Conservation/Environmental Sciences
• Contractor/Construction Management
• Cooking & Catering
• Cosmetology/Esthetics
• Creative Writing
• Criminal Justice
• Dental Assistant
• Desktop Publishing & Design
• Drafting with AutoCAD ®
• Drug and Alcohol Counseling
• Early Childhood Education
• Electrician
• English as a Second Language
• Fashion Merchandising and Design
• Fitness & Nutrition
• Florist/Floral Design
• Forensic Science
• Funeral Service Education
• Gardening/Landscaping
• High School Diploma
• Home Inspector
• Hotel/Restaurant Management
• Interior Decorating
• Internet Specialist
• Legal Assistant/Paralegal
• Locksmith
• Medical Billing Specialist
• Medical Office Assistant
• Medical Transcriptionist
• Motorcycle/ATV Repair
• Natural Health Consultant
• Nursing Assistant
• PC Repair
• Pharmacy Assistant
• Photography
• Physical Therapy Aide
• Plumbing
• Private Investigator
• Psychology/Social Work
• Real Estate Appraiser
• Relaxation Therapist
• Security/Police Sciences
• Sewing & Dressmaking
• Small Engine Repair
• Start Your Own Business
• Teacher Aide
• Travel & Tourism
• Veterinary Assistant
• Video Game Design
• Wedding Consultant
• Writing Stories for Children

Educators continue to identify surprisingly strong growth trends in distance education. There are a number of very good reasons. This rapid increase in long-distance educational gains is no fluke or mystery.

One reason that distance learning is booming is the most obvious— the internet has made higher education infinitely more accessible for working students and those in rural communities. The hours are flexible, the courses plentiful, and the classes never full to capacity.

It’s a fact that our current university structure can’t educate all of the enormous population of coming students, within classrooms on campus. In fact, the largest high school class in history graduated this year, 2009.

US Gov stats predict an ongoing and even rising rate of growth in higher education enrollment. And lifelong learning for adults is becoming the standard, rather than the exception, as jobs shift and markets mutate.

Students need courses that fit their lives and their own unique schedules. Flexibility in distance learning makes this possible. Different learning styles, as well as working while learning, makes distance learning ideal.

Computer-savvy students today want more control over their lives during learning. The fit can help many students excel. Especially those with families, jobs, duties, in rural areas, or with disabilities.

Online students typically earn higher college scores, more A’s, half as many failing grades, as traditional on-campus or commuter students. Online students also are highly literate, having used the web in many cases since first learning to read.

Keeping apace with these trends, faculty in higher education are scrambling to provide the instruction required on such a large scale. As the roles of faculty shift, there is a often new division of labor among instructors, such as “facilitator, teacher, organizer, grader, mentor, role model, counselor, coach, supervisor, problem solver, and liaison,” all designed to assist the student.

For instance, Old Dominion in Virginia offers nationally ranked programs in the sciences, engineering, arts and letters, health sciences, business and education. Their network includes nearly 50 locations throughout Virginia and as far away as Arizona, Georgia, Washington State, the Bahamas. Their distance learning programs even reach U.S. Navy ships and submarines deployed around the globe. More than 3,500 students have graduated from Old Dominion University’s Distance Learning program.

Students can find the courses they need at different distance learning institutions online. There is no penalty for being on campus, when your laptop is your classroom.

So go online, find the career that fits you best, and the program that will serve you best.

Go ahead, shop around— do it your way!

And I say, “Because you have no other choice, if you want to keep moving up, and be secure.”

You say, “But, I know someone who got a degree, but their company closed, now they’re out of work.”

“Expect it,” I say, “and be ready for it.”

Right. This happens frequently in the tech world, and the rest of the world that follows tech, closely behind. Their skill set is no longer the hot button it was, say, ten years ago.

I say, “All the more reason to dedicate yourself to improvement, education, because like a computer, you need constantly updating, and you always will.”

Once a college degree is obtained in one field, it can be built upon, over and over again. Continuing education, both on site, and in distance learning, has evolved tremendously in recent years. So, college itself is also a beginning.

For the truly successful person— and that is what you want to be— education has become a life-long process. A means of personal control.

For those who are committed to as much control as possible, over their own lives, education never really ends.

Take a quick look at the nursing profession, always increasing in salary, always in heavy demand.

Even with the growing demand, nursing salaries vary wildly, depending upon the type of nursing license one possesses.

A pediatric clinical nurse might earn only 15K, a critical care nurse 60-70K, an emergency room nurse much more at 90K. But the salary zooms skyward to the CRNA Anesthetist— at 175K!

The CRNA level of knowledge and training brings relatively higher skill sets. Education makes all the difference. Not a surprise that salary climbs just as rapidly.

Here’s why— at the low end, 15K, a degree isn’t required, only certain specialized training. In the middle, 90K, the R.N. has a bachelor’s degree. At the high end, 175K, the CRNA requires a Master’s of Science degree.

The price of that CRNA’s Master’s degree, with all the hard time put on for study, and all the expense involved, is high. Two or three full years of study, on top of a Bachelor’s degree already attained. But the payoff is also high— a lifetime of vastly higher earnings. (Not to mention the main reason for the deepest satisfaction of all— the wonderful ability to give mercy to patients suffering in agony.)

And why is the pay so high?

Because so few people are willing to put in that effort, up front!

How far can you go? All the way home, to a better life, and an evolving knowledge base to carry you on and on into the future. No matter how radically our world keeps changing all around you, here is no reason for you to ever be left behind.

If you want a good life badly enough, you’ll find the career you want, and you’ll learn everything needed to achieve that career.

We’ll help you find the way. But it’s you who has to keep looking ahead, always preparing, always learning.