This is hilarious!
Lord knows I have entered the realm of stupidity many a few times in my life!
And let me tell you, there is no cure for stupidity, only an acquired resistance after multiple bouts of dumb behavior!
I wish I had invented the “I Can Has Cheezeburger?” website.
I am about 2 cats (and twenty years) short of qualifying for “crazy cat lady” status, and there are “itteh bitteh kitteh committeh” meetings in my house around the clock!
Love it!
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If you are writing about EMS in any capacity you want to send me your posts for inclusion in the “Handover” carnival edition I’ll be hosting April 24th! I must say - I’m getting some great submissions!
Change of Shift will be here next week! You have a great post on your blog, yes, I’m talking to you, and you know you wanna send it to me, like yesterday. Better yet, go into your archives and send me what you consider your best post. Hey, now that is a great idea if I say so myself! Be sure to tell me why you chose the older post and I’ll put it in CoS.
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Ah, the vaunted Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
The path to enlightenment.
The epitome of achievement, without which you must fight for your right to be called a professional.
So, why don’t you have it?
Why would you even want it?
*****
I know all the excuses because I gave all the excuses!
Why the hell would someone want a BSN?
Not me.
Are you serious?
Well, here are the top five reasons I (and perhaps you) used to give for not getting a BSN.
I list ‘em.
Then I bust ‘em.
*****
1. I don’t have the time.
Who said you had to take it head-on, full-time? Chances are you don’t have all the non-nursing courses required for the BS degree. You know, a humanities class, ethnic studies, world culture. You can dip your toe in by taking one class. One. Doesn’t even have to be a nursing class, at least at first.
Check out a few BSN programs. Find out what they require outside of the nursing classes. Then take that class at your local junior college; make sure the units are transferable.
One. Class.
I bet you can take them online, too, giving you even more flexibility.
If you have the time to read this post, you have the time to read an assignment.
Seriously.
2. I don’t have the money (aka: In this economy? Are you nuts?)
Oh, I feel your pain here, fellow nurses. Trust me.
But there are ways to work around it.
Take your non-nursing requirements at a junior college. I’m taking both my ethnic studies requirement and my world culture class online from my local junior college, and both are transferable to the UWGB. I paid a whopping $100 for both classes, six units. Had I gone to the university level, I’d have paid $360 for one unit.
Most hospitals have something available for continuing education, and classes toward an advanced degree count. It may not be great, but it is something. Parlay that into a future benefit by taking a class that will count for something other than just CEs.
As far as choosing an educational institution, you will save money if you can stay in-state. The tuition will be much lower. I’m an “out-of-state” student at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, and while I think it is a fantastic program, my checkbook shows the difference.
And remember, you can work at your own pace. If that pace is dictated by the checkbook, that’s okay.
3. It will take too long. (AKA: It’s too much work!)
What is “too long”? Time is going to pass whether you take a class or not. You might as well have it pass with some units to show for it at the end. That’s the beauty of getting a BSN in this day and age. You work at YOUR pace, you take your time, with classes that fit into YOUR schedule.
By the way, have you taken any classes for anything since your nursing graduation? Did you take an art history class? A music appreciation class? A literature class? You might be shocked at how much credit you have sitting in your life experience. I took two paralegal classes once, just for fun. “Intro to the Legal Profession” and “Litigation I”, through Cal State Hayward’s extension program.
They both counted as upper division electives toward my BSN. And I had taken them twenty years ago.
4. I’m too old (AKA: Oh god! I’ll have to take statistics!)
Oh, puhlease. I’ve got half a century behind me and, God willing, half a century in front of me. You’re too old for what? Did your brain put up a barrier to any future educational input? Have you bought into the notion that “older” means slowing down?
Let me tell you, education is wasted on the young. Find out what it is like to get an education and appreciate it! I appreciated nothing when I was nineteen. Not the fact I had been chosen for the nursing program right out of the gate, not the fact that it was FREE back then. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have run my instructors ragged with questions and picked their brains until they were as dry as the Mohave.
You are sitting there with decades of hands-on nursing experience behind you. You have so much to contribute to classes, to your colleagues….
About the only reason this excuse works is that you intend to retire in a year. And if you are, your 401K is in better shape than mine…..
(PS - if you can add, subtract, multiply and divide, you can do statistics.)
5. I don’t get any benefits from having a BSN (AKA: I’m already a good nurse without it!)
Well, if you are defining “benefit” as a tangible increase in greenbacks, I can’t argue with you there.
While earning a living as an RN is great no matter what your education level, there are intangible benefits to the BSN. As my colleague who is thisclose to her PhD said to me, “It won’t change the way you practice, because you already practice at a high level. It will, however, change the way you think about how you practice.”
Anytime you can increase your knowledge and blend it with your experience, you are “benefiting” from it. And so are your patients.
The nurse my patients get now is not the nurse they would have gotten three years ago.
Oh, I’m a good nurse. Always have been. Safe, caring, knowledgable. And proud of my ADN and the program that produced it.
But I’m a better nurse now. Not because my degree may be higher than the nurse working next to me, but because I, personally, have a deeper knowledge of my profession than I had before. A better understanding of why I do what I do as an RN. An increased ability to think critically about patient care and what I, as an RN, can provide.
More money? Nope.
But the intangibles are worth every cent I’m paying for the BSN. Every drop of blood, sweat and tears.
And I’m not even done yet.
*****
If you have ever, ever considered going back for your degree, now is the time to start.
Do it for yourself.
Do it for your patients.
Do it for your career. For flexibility.
You never know what opportunities will come in the future, but barring a few exceptions, I can pretty much guarantee that opportunity will require at least a BSN.
The Top Five Reasons for NOT Getting a BSN…BUSTED!
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