You can become a nurse when you have finish your nursing program and pass your state licensing. You can attend a two years program or a four years program. With both program, you can take your state board license and you can become a register nurse. The pay will only be a couple of dollars more with a BS degree. When you have a BSN in nursing, you can become a manager and do more with your career.

Before you can apply to be in a nursing program, you have to finish all of your prerequisite and then wait for acceptance into the program. There'll be many competition and you can wait for a year or two until you can get into the program. Once you get accepted into the program, you have to pass all classes every semester and you can be dropped from the program if you fail one class. You have to wait one or two more years before you can get back into the same program or you have to apply it elsewhere. The program is demanding and time consuming.

You can't work as a nurse until you have passed your state licensing exam. After you pass your exam, you'll be able to start working. Career in nursing is stable with high income but it's demanding with high expectations. You have to be errors free most of the time. You can get your license suspended or revoke depending on the errors. This is the down side to caring for people. You have to focus on your job when you're at work. If you focus well then you might not encounter any problems.

There're many different types of nursing. You can work on any hospital floor after you have your license. You can work as a pediatric nurse, emergency nurse, medical- surgical nurse, rehabilitation nurse or psychiatric nurse. There're some areas that are less demanding than others like working in the rehab unit. Patients in the rehab unit have less medication and they're almost ready to be discharge home. You can choose the easier floor if you don't want to handle a high pressure floor.