Aloha, good people of the internet. I am knocking at your mobile phones and laptop screens for your opinion on what could be a pivotal decision in my life.
I’m a 3rd year nursing student and I’m having some severe doubts in this line of work over the past few months. And yes, covid has a lot to do with that.
Basically, I’m not seeing healthcare as the line of work suitable for me. I’ve only started doing shifts recently and I can tell you: you do not want to be near a hospital right now. It is chaos and everything is pretty much hanging by a thin thread.
Also, I just think healthcare workers are treated like sh*t by the government and the people in general.
I’ve picked up an interest pre-pandemic of shifting to a different degree but not sure what. That’s when I came across a job post for a .NET developer on Reddit and found out that it had twice the salary I was expecting as a nurse. Went to Google, searched what the hell a .NET developer was and this article popped up.
I’ve been hooked ever since. Watching videos, coding in my free time, taking up courses on skillshare and Coursera. I genuinely think that this is something I am passionate about, but the practical side of me is already declining the idea because I already took out a loan for the nursing degree.
I’m in an existential mess lol. Anyone who could provide input would be highly appreciated, TIA!
Is it too late to make a change? NEVER. Though the sooner you get on it, the better.
Coincidentally enough, I teach programming. What I’ll say is that it comes with its own time stresses (look up “the Crunch”) and to excel in the field, you’ll need excellent time management skills and a critical eye for fine detail. We can discuss other aspects of this later, should you have any questions.
If it actually speaks to you, then you should go for it. Ignore the money side of it, debts can be paid off if you’re frugal. Consider living the rest of your life doing a job you hate or a job you love, and let that decide.
Finish the semester so you get credit for the nursing courses, in case you want to come back after trying the computer career. Then nothing is irretrievable or wasted.
It will be challenging to get a job with just taking some .NET online tutorials. Most companies will not even look at you without a college degree. And the reality is that a computer programmer solves problems in whatever language is most appropriate or is dictated by the company. It’s good you’re learning .NET, but that is just a start. It’s common for typical programming tasks to involve several languages, and you often have to pick those up on your own. You’ll be at a disadvantage over someone who has an actual computer science degree. That high .NET salary will likely go to someone with a well-rounded computer programming background. Companies sometimes hire people without degrees, but those people typically have a long list of independent or public projects they’ve worked on which demonstrate their competence in the field.
If you want to get into the tech industry without a degree, an easier path is through testing or support jobs. Typically, companies are just looking for competent and reliable people that can be trained on whatever task they need done. And those jobs sometimes have opportunities for side projects that are more like development. For example, you might write a program to automate testing of one of their products. Those kinds of side jobs are fine for someone with initiative and can pick up languages on their own. Over time, you could actually transition to the actual development team if that’s what you’re interested in.
You could actually leverage your nursing education by finding a company which makes medical products or software. You probably wouldn’t be able to get a programming job right away, but they would likely be eager to hire you for testing or support.
I agree. You’re third-year, which I presume means that you are working on a BSN. My wife is an RN BSN. When she had her two-year degree she was stuck in nursing homes, which was lousy work. After she earned her BSN, she started getting better offers. (Incidentally, her capstone project for her BSN was about the need to have laws passed to adequately staff nursing homes.)
Remember: The choices aren’t just between hospitals and nursing homes. There are loads of things you can do. My wife worked at a wound center, and then for a home healthcare company. Before she quit to start her own visiting foot care nurse business (Certified Foot Care Specialist, so now she’s an RN, BSN, CFCS *L*) she was making $35/hour – which isn’t bad for northern Washington.
And as filmore says, your nursing degree may help you to find a job with a related company.
This is bringing up so many mixed emotions ngl… didn’t think the internet would make me cry today lmao.
What are subjects I need to watch out for? What’s the best thing I can do in my own time to actually prepare for my transition, should I choose to do so?
So far, I’ve taken no computer-related/programming units in nursing other than a computer literacy course for entering medical stuff. Is there any good primer you can recommend so I’m not jumping in the waters blind? Tysm!
Thank you for this! I have a tendency to be impulsive. Yeah, I’m close to finishing my hours for the hospital, idk if the credits will still be retained though should I choose to come back; need to get that checked. I’m sure everything else will still be credited though. Who knows, I might end up being a computer engineering nurse lol.
I made a joke about this in my previous comment… looks like it’s actually a possibility wow.
Didn’t realize the barrier of entry for computer-related careers really required a college degree it’s no different than the medical industry in that sense.
If I understood correctly, testing jobs or support jobs are basically entry-level positions to carve your path into the industry? Basically, like a trial, if they can see if you’re skilled enough to further into the development stage?
I know you might not be a complete expert in the field, but how likely is it that I can actually mesh a nursing degree with a computer degree without having the need to actually practice my nursing degree? Can I just get an associate’s degree for comp eng/development, or does it need to be a bachelor’s? Tysm!
@Johnny_L.A yes, I’m currently taking a BSN. I’m also exploring my options in my nursing degree, props to your wife for earning a good sum. I’ve been feeling a ton of discouragement for the field with the numerous horror stories our upperclassmen have been sharing as of late the ones who are already working. The pay from where I’m from (Anchorage) is generally great, but cases here have been rising since June, and hospitals are worked to the bone. I’ll try looking more into my options, I’m pretty sure neither a nursing home nor a hospital setting is going to work for me. Tysm!
From what I understand from Wifey, RN, nursing homes/care facilities pay crap and should be avoided due to understaffing. Hospital-affiliated companies might have ‘difficult’ management. IANA nurse, but I think I’d choose ER. You win or you lose. I don’t know if I could stand taking care of someone for a longer term and losing them… Not for me. But again, IANA nurse.
My wife wanted to take care of elderly patients, so she went with a home health care company. After leaving to start her own business, she gets referrals from her former employer. She makes more money per hour (even after giving a veteran’s or former health-care worker’s discount), but she doesn’t work as many hours – by choice. She can make her own schedule.
From listening to her, there are crap jobs and there are good jobs – and her own job. The thing about nursing is that there are many avenues to choose from.
Do remember that the pandemic won’t last forever, so if you like doing nursing, but not the madness that’s going on right now, this too shall pass. Eventually. You might also start thinking of what kind of specialty you might like.Maybe something like working for a podiatrist or dermatologist (not many emergencies there, I bet!) or a school nurse.
But if you’re like me, and don’t like being around gross sick people, a career change is a good idea.
If you wanted to hit the ground running, find yourself a tutorial, or a book, or a Youtube series, that teaches programming basics. Whatever speaks to you and works well for you. As long as it’s a fairly modern language, the specifics aren’t important. The basics are the same regardless of the language.
I’m going to suggest you start with Java. It gets used a lot, and its syntax is fairly similar to a handful of other, popular languages that get used. Here’s a quick list of topics (I wrote this for a friend of mine also self-teaching Java):
“All code starts from main()”
Printing to console (System.out.print and println)
“Simpler logic with many branches” branching code (switch/case)
Controllable iterators (for)
Somewhat nicer logic with strings (.equals)
If you decide to start with Java, you can get a programming toolset called “Eclipse” for free, and it works well with Java and other languages.
If you get the basics of programming down, take a peek into “Object Oriented Programming”. This is a concept that will make or break prospective programmers, and modern programming relies heavily on it.
I just came home from about two weeks in the hospital, and even discounting the COVID issues, the amount of shit I saw nurses putting up with astounded me. As I told one of them, I expected they’d have to deal with random stuff oozing out of various patients, and patients in legitimate medical distress, but not the level of abuse they get from people screaming at them over the smallest of problems. After a week of just listening to this crap I was ready to snap at the other patients myself.
If you’re already not sure about the job, and have found something else you think you’d like more, I’d say bail out immediately. If you’re not committed to nursing as a calling, it will probably be a nightmare.
It’s not exactly of a clear-cut path. Rather, it’s that once you’re in a company, your skills allow you to move around even if you don’t have the typical degree. So if you’re well-motivated and can easily pick up coding on your own, you may have opportunities that allow you to slide into more development roles. But companies don’t typically expand their development group from testers. Developers typically come from having a computer science degree. But once you’re in the door, your abilities can allow you to move around with some flexibility.
Having a nursing degree won’t necessarily help with being a developer unless you are in some kind of medical field, like hospital software. Your medical experience will be valuable there since most software developers won’t know medical lingo and procedures. But it would be best if you completed some kind of nursing degree. If you don’t get your BSN, at least get an RN. Employers will like that better than you saying you took a bunch of nursing classes but didn’t complete the program.
An associate’s degree in software development won’t really open a lot of doors for development jobs. Companies will want developers with an actual CS degree or professional experience. But it will be very valuable for you to see if you really like software development. If it’s not too financially burdensome, it would be a good idea to at least start the associate’s program to see if it’s right for you.
It’s going to be challenging being a software developer in Alaska. I don’t think there’s a lot of tech companies up there. You may want to look at the career center of your school and see what kind of market there is for the jobs you want. Remote work is becoming more common in the tech industry. It may be possible to get a job with a company somewhere else and you just work from home.
I hope it’s OK to piggyback a question here. I think the OP might possibly find this of interest. I have a relative who got a BS in business 20 years ago, hasn’t done much with it, and now wants to go to a computer programming “boot camp” because he doesn’t want to go back to college for a CS degree.
Of course, the boot camp recruiters make it sound like if you complete the program, you’d have your pick of jobs. Somehow I doubt this, but this isn’t my field. Do CP boot camps offer a viable alternative to a college degree in computer science?
I don’t know anything about careers in programming, but I am a college professor who does a lot of advising, and third year is usually not too late to change your major (although you will need to have a focused plan for completing your new degree, and you may end up staying a semester longer than you intended). Assuming you’re in a BSN program, many of the credits you’ve taken so far are probably general education courses like freshman writing, lab science, etc. that can be applied toward any major. Even if you’re in an associate’s program and you’ve been taking mostly nursing courses, you probably have some science and math coursework that will transfer to other programs. Check the curriculum requirements at your college and at any other institutions where you might be thinking of transferring, but you’ll probably find that you’re not starting again from scratch.
Also, talk to your academic advisor! Helping with this sort of problem is what they are for. If you don’t have an advisor, don’t get along with them, or they start pressuring you to stay in the program, make an appointment with your school’s career center. All colleges have resources to help students deal with this sort of thing, and “I’m pretty far along in the nursing program and I’ve discovered it’s not for me” is a super-common issue. If it turns out that switching to a computer science degree is not an option for whatever reason, there probably will be a well-defined exit path that allows ex-nursing-majors to complete a degree in something without wasting a bunch of credits (at my university, it’s the BS in Public Health Education), and a degree in something is always better than no degree.
I’m pretty much the same, this is what my superiors and colleagues are nagging me about–I care too much for a patient or get easily attached which is why nursing homes are not the best fit for me. I had a cancer patient in my General Surgery ward during my first month of shifts, and nearly broke down when I found out when I arrived for my shift that they had passed away because of organ failure for a minor operation… I’m getting emotional while typing this. Bless your soul Carol.
I agree with your wife 100% regarding the multiple avenues–this is the main reason I chose nursing in the first place. Initially, I just wanted to become a nursing attendant (1-2 years) but when my student loan got approved for a BSN–I pushed through. ER is one of the things on the top of my head too because trauma cases don’t really make me uneasy, I have a strong gut for gore. Thank you again for the input!
I was actually looking for positions as an ophthalmic nurse, turns out its not really an in-demand position from where I’m from. Also, I get you on the pandemic passing, but with more people refusing to take the vaccine, I doubt we’ll reach herd immunity within the next 1-2 years…
Like my previous comment, I don’t feel particularly queasy with trauma cases and extremely sick people, I find it a little bit fascinating to be honest. The idea of a career change just really popped in my head because of a wide variety of aforementioned factors, and a newfound interest and passion for something I’ve never considered.
@Acierocolotl I’ve secured myself a few online courses to get me through these topics (some of which, I’ve already started at) funnily enough though when the topics get too difficult for me to comprehend, I always run back to Indians on Youtube that teaches things x10000 better. I’m securing an online certification for Java right now! I’ll take a look at Eclipse and Object Oriented Programming–terrific suggestions. Thank you very very much!
@Horatius this, this exactly. I hope you’ve recovered from whatever brought you to the hospital but you’re spot on. Shit is not for the impatient tbh. I’ve lost track of the number of times when I wanted to smack someone. But that, I can tolerate. The thing that broke my heart was when we had to say no to patients when we were fully occupied. We had people that were literally dying right outside the hospital… it was not a pretty sight, and the fact that it never got publicized just adds burn to the wounds. I love nursing and seeing people go back to a healthier state, but this profession just drains the living life out of you…
Life is definitely too short, I agree. I don’t necessarily hate nursing, I am just highly skeptical of its current state due to covid and how long this’ll all last. A pain in the ass, honestly.
@filmore you’re somewhat right with the status of tech here in Alaska–it’s not that big of an industry yet. This is why I’ve always envisioned moving out to a different state; which one, I’m not really sure. The only thing that has been keeping me here is comfort and job security (I’m assured a position in a hospital after I graduate). Other than that, there’s nothing really going on for me. I like the idea of going remote! I love biking around, but staying at home is a breeze honestly.
An associate’s won’t technically hurt my savings, but it sounds like its not worth doing tbh if it’s not going to land me any good opportunities. Whether or not I pursue nursing, I still do want to get an RN. Any added credential is a bonus in my book! Thank you for the wonderful input!
@Fretful_Porpentine This is something I never took into account. Thank you kind stranger! Tbh, I never really reach out to school staff other than my professors, but this sounds like a terrific idea to iron out all the details and to clarify which units will actually be transferrable. I also don’t want to leave bad blood with my college if I do leave because all my teachers are honestly angels and they’ve done nothing but teach us what we need to get through this entire ordeal. Bless your soul kind stranger, thanks!
it’s no different than the medical industry in that sense.