7 Reasons To Become a Nurse

Why would you choose to become a nurse? And would this be a good career pathway for you? Nursing is more than a job – it is a life purpose that can offer great job stability, rewarding benefits and significant growth potential. 

Whether you’re wanting to help others in meaningful ways, explore diverse career pathways, or are seeking better job prospects, nursing is a worthwhile profession that can serve you and benefit others. Here are 7 reasons why nursing is a great career choice and why it continues to be such a respected profession in today’s market: 

1. High Demand for Nurses

Nursing is one of the most in-demand professions out there. With ever-increasing medical technologies and greater need for evolving patient care, nurses are frontline providers of these healthcare solutions. 

Job Security

Registered nurses, particularly BSNs, are needed in increased numbers to provide aging and chronic patients care as employment opportunities are expected to grow by nearly one million strong by 2030. This high demand means greater job security for nurses nationwide.  

Global Demand

Not only are nurses wanted nationally, but the demand for them is high everywhere. Because the healthcare industry relies heavily on nurses for patient care, this fuels the high demand for nurses globally. If you’re interested in working internationally, the geographic flexibility of nursing is a winning asset. 

2. Diverse Career Paths

Nursing provides ample career opportunities and job flexibility to keep your needs and interests satisfied. Whether you prefer to work every day with patients or invest yourself in research, education or administration, to become a nurse opens the door to a variety of job opportunities. 

Advanced Specializations

One of the best things about nursing is if you find your passion in a certain skill set, you can specialize in that field for your career. Specializations like oncology, mental health, pediatrics, and critical care offer unique responsibilities and functions that can help you excel in your profession. 

You could even choose to pursue a career as a nurse anesthetist, nurse midwife or even flight nurse that can empower your chosen passions, offering you a higher salary and advanced expertise.  

Work Settings

Nursing enables you to work in a variety of settings like a fast-paced hospital or a quieter environment like a school, patient home or a long-term care facility. As mentioned, you can even work in research, training or administration based on your interests. This ensures that your nursing career matches your pace and desired environment so that you can focus on optimal care delivery.  

3. Personal Fulfillment

Nursing can be a deeply personally fulfilling career. This is a primary motivation for many to become a nurse. Many nurses live their purpose every day helping patients and ensuring healthcare teams succeed in providing quality care. Having an opportunity to not only provide acute patient care but to also be an empathic, listening and expert caregiver to patients on their journey can be truly rewarding. 

Helping Others

At the heart of nursing is the desire to help patients on their healing journey. This is especially needed during a patient’s most vulnerable times and when they don’t know what the road ahead holds. 

Nurses are there to provide comfort to each patient, being an empathic presence that helps patients believe that hope, health and healing are possible. If you are driven by a passion to be a helping hand in others’ time of need, nursing would be a rewarding career. That’s why nursing is such a beloved profession by both patients and nurses alike. 

Collaborative Team Dynamic

Nurses are the beating heart of good patient care. They are essential to healthcare teams that usually require doctor, social worker, therapist or other core staff collaboration. This team dynamic fosters a sense of belonging and purpose for nurses, often inspiring them to bring their A game to provide the best care possible. 

4. Competitive Salary and Benefits

Not only do nurses enjoy meaningful work, but they are also rewarded with competitive salaries and benefits. As the healthcare demand for more nurses expands, so does the financial stability and remuneration for nurses. 

High Earning Potential

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nurses earn a median yearly salary of $86,070. Nurses enjoy higher earning prospects that increase with education, specialization and experience. RNs and nurses who pursue advanced degrees like a nurse anesthetist or nurse practitioner especially benefit from these higher salaries. 

Enhanced Benefits

Nurses also enjoy enhanced benefit options that provide them with greater work-life balance and a better quality of life. These benefits can include comprehensive health insurance, more complete retirement plans, paid time off, and educational and advanced specialization pathways to further your nursing career. Healthcare employers can also provide flexible scheduling allowances that enable nurses to prioritize their overall wellbeing. 

5. Opportunities for Growth and Advancement

 Nursing offers generous opportunities for professional development and growth. With higher learning possibilities from further training and advanced degrees, nurses are taking leadership roles and specialized career pathways. 

Advanced Degrees

Nurses can seek advanced degrees that will enable them to pursue specialized roles as nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, nurse educators or critical care specialists. These specializations provide higher salaries, increased autonomy and expanded responsibilities. In this way, advanced degree nurses enjoy greater autonomy and more independent decision-making responsibilities. 

Leadership Roles

Nurses who seek to shape the future of healthcare can take on leadership roles that advance patient care delivery. Roles as nurse manager, director of nursing or healthcare executive position advanced nurses to manage teams, influence healthcare policy and better patient care standards and best practices. 

If you have a desire to make real change in healthcare, then pursuing leadership opportunities could be the way you impact patients and your surrounding community. 

6. Schedule Flexibility

Nurses enjoy greater work-life balance because they have more autonomy over their schedule than in most careers. This enables them to prioritize their personal lives in ways that help foster a greater willingness to give their best to their nursing careers.

Shift Variety

Nurses are offered greater flexibility and variety to choose their schedules than traditional jobs. For example, nurses can typically choose between the standard 8-hour shift and a more condensed 12-hour shift or even weekend offerings. This shift flexibility helps nurses to attend to their family, educational or personal life needs in a way that is responsive to their life priorities and career goals. 

Work-Life Balance

By enabling nurses to blend career priorities and personal life demands, nurses can leverage their schedule flexibility towards a better quality of life. By benefitting from time off options and shift schedule flexibility, nurses can optimize their emotional, physical and mental wellbeing in a high stakes healthcare career. If you hold your personal life and career pursuits in equal priority, nursing can effectively balance your work-life goals.

7. Resilience and Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction among nurses ranks 80% overall which is relatively high compared to other careers. Pursuing a purpose that makes a difference in patients’ lives, forging deep bonds with patients and healthcare teams and the confidence that job stability brings can make a lasting impression on career nurses. This not only makes an impact on nurses, but benefits the wellbeing of our communities at large.

Building Resilience

Because nursing is a fast-paced profession where real-time decisions are made in critical moments, nurses build resilience and typically adapt to these responsibilities nimbly. This helps forge resilience in nurses’ character to face life stressors with fortitude. This contributes to invaluable personal growth in the face of complex life and career stressors  and strengthens can-do habits. 

Fostering Community

Nurses play an integral role in patient care teams that collaborate on a shared purpose. Deep bonds with care partners and colleagues foster an unparalleled sense of belonging and mission. 

Not only do nurses nurture community through teams, but they forge profound ties with the patients they care for that advances their impact on them. This makes nursing a profoundly enriching career that places nurses at the forefront of mission-critical decisions and relationships every day that build community.

Bonus: You Can Start Quickly

One of the best advantages to become a nurse is that becoming one is faster than most professions. You can graduate with an associate’s degree in nursing (ADN) or become a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in as little as two years. In this way, you can get hands-on, real-world experience sooner so you can start helping patients faster. 

You can even pursue higher education levels like a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) or more as an option when you’d like to advance your career. 

Excited to Become A Nurse Faster With Achieve Test Prep?

If you’re ready to become a nurse sooner, Achieve can help get you there with our entry to nursing program or fast-track your nursing career with bridge programs like LPN to RN, LPN to BSN, CNA to RN, RN to BSN among many more options. Be among the many satisfied students who have succeeded with Achieve and get ahead in your nursing path today.