Title got your attention right?
After all whats the point? I mean doesn’t the picture capture what nursing is all about? Is a Bachelors degree in Nursing (BSN), a complete waste of time and money? What do you think? Remember your degree will and has cost you an appendage or two. Do you have any idea how much school tuition is? Or an easier way to picture it is how many Ramen, could tuition alone buy? Or how much pizza? Let’s calculate an average nursing school tuition of about $54,000 (without any scholarships your smarty pants).
- You could buy about 420948 bags of Ramen Noodles. Which would take you about 2.5 years to cook, not including the time to heat the water. The Ramen contains about over 799999999 calories (give or take). The same amount of calories burned in over 2800 marathons, that’s 73360 miles!
- You could have cheesy pizza that would be delivered every single day for 28 straight years! Hmm..I could definitely live with that. Let’s bring out the welcome mat to cardiac disease heaven while we are at it.
You get the point right? It costs monies, monies that many of us will be slaving away paying off the rest of our lives. And that’s not even including a graduate degree, for you over achievers. So again, why on earth when we can have an RN after our name, with an Associates degree in Nursing, would we subject ourselves to numerous student loans, when instead we could have 28 friggin years of pizza OR Ramen!?!?!? Tough call I know.
The various entry levels into nursing practice has been a hot topic over the years. More so now with more and more organizations attaining “Magnet” status. Over the years, researchers, hospital and academic leaders have found that education has and does make a difference in nursing practice. Some of the reason behind this is the advances in technology in medicine and organizational change, thus requiring a hire level of education (Spetz, J., & Bates, T. 2013). In addition to various advances, studies have shown inverse relationship between the mortality of the hospitalized patient vs. the number of BSN nurses. Comparatively showing a decrease in patient mortality to the increase in more educationally prepared nurses.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) nationally recognizes the baccalaureate prepared nurse. The IOM has set a national recommendation that by 2020, at least 80% of all nurses receive his/her bachelor’s degree (Institute of Medicine 2011). In general there has been such an increase in advocacy for a higher level of education, that many more organizations are now requiring an entry level BSN. Throw in the BSN RN Magnet recognized nurse, it’s no surprise why the nursing profession is advocating higher levels of education.
Pearl of Wisdom
For those of you who are considering it, or even currently attaining your BSN. I will give you one piece of advice that I wish I knew before I started. You will be writing papers, you will be exploring your literature skills and your initials will become APA (American Psychological Association). All your nursing papers will be and forever more become APA formatted. In addition to learning how to save someone’s life, you will also need to learn how to properly format and reference all your papers. Keep in mind APA continues, or at least it feels like it, to be updated with rules and so forth. So here is my gift to you….. It’s called PERLLA and it was my heaven sent (yes I used it for my Masters degree, if it worked for me, I promise it will help you). I swear by this, (no they are not asking me to advertise for them, and no I am not affiliated with them) it will make your life 10X easier. This is program that is very very reasonable in price especially when you have the mountain of student loans waiting for you once you graduate and enter working force. Anyways, I will add the link below and I do hope it makes your journey oh so much easier and then some (LINK BELOW).
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition
References:
AACN Supports NJ Resolution To Require BSN For State’s RNs. (n.d). RN, 69(10), 14.
Institute of Medicine. 2011. The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Spetz, J., & Bates, T. (2013). Is a baccalaureate in nursing worth it? The return to education, 2000-2008.
Health Services Research, 48(6 Pt 1), 1859-1878. doi:10.1111/1475-6773.12104
The Working Nurse 