Studying for MSN: How Does a Working Nurse Get through Grad School?
Do you enjoy nursing? Helping your patients, family, and colleagues feel better, do more, and generally enjoy life? Are you ready to take your career to the next level? Maybe a master's in nursing is in your future.
Where could a master's in nursing take you?
With top skills and advanced knowledge, you could find yourself leading a high-performance nursing organization such as the American Organization of Nursing Executives, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, or the National League for Nursing. On your way to the top, a master's in nursing education could propel you into the seat of a:
- Nursing Manager
- Director of Patient Safety
- Quality Improvement Director
- Program Manager
- Director of Nursing or the equivalent
With a master's in nursing health systems, you would be eligible for a leadership role in one of these settings:
- Urgent care
- Occupational health
- Industrial setting
- Provider offices
- Public health departments
Benefits to getting an advanced degree
Getting a master's in nursing will yield benefits, even when you're working. You should be learning how to integrate evidence-based nursing principles into your own practice while continuing to improve nursing care to your patients, families, and communities. You should be able to synthesize your personal nursing philosophy within the rapidly evolving healthcare environment.
As you learn, you might be in a position to advocate for policies that improve public health and the nursing profession. You could do this through using socioeconomic and psychosocial determinants of health along with the ethical and legal foundations of nursing.
Study Tips While Working and Learning
Going back to school after spending a few years in the employment sector can seem a bit daunting. As millions of students have discovered before you, it's never too late to learn. It can be done, it has been done, and you can do it. Here are five tips to help you on the road to completing your master's in nursing:
- Choose your university carefully. Make sure the curriculum supports your goals, especially if you want to focus on areas such as nurse education, health policy, or the nurse practitioner path. Make sure it has support systems in place for mature students. Are the hours flexible? Will class times and any meeting fit into your schedule?
- Find yourself a study space. This can be a room in your home, a space at the library, or the local burger joint (some of which have free Wi-Fi). Make sure you won't be disturbed.
- Study what you're told to. This may sound limiting, but it's way too easy to become engrossed in a subject and want to go deeper and deeper. Passion is wonderful. But don't get so side-tracked you neglect the other stuff that might not be as fascinating but will most certainly appear on your exams. Focus, focus, focus, and try not to get too distracted.
- Be sociable. This sounds like a direct contradiction to the advice above, but it's a special kind of sociable. The kind where you form alliances with fellow students. Before or after class or independent study, get together with like-minded people on the same course. Make friends. Compare notes. Let your hair down. Discussing similar problems, be they life problems or directly related to the course material, takes a huge load off your mind and goes a long way to fighting off nerves and fears that come with taking such a big educational step.
- Take notes and look at them. You can take the most brilliant, cross-referenced, color-coded and lovingly organized notes, but if you don't refer to them over and over, you're not getting the best mileage out of them. After you've written them, type them up. Set aside time each day to review the previous day's notes and once a week, look at all your notes. Not only will they help you grasp new material, but it will save you having to grope through the dark recesses of your memory come exam time.
Getting Started
Are you a working nurse interested in earning your MSN? If you want to earn your Master of Science in Nursing, ECPI University offers this program at an accelerated rate. For more information on this exciting degree, connect with a helpful admissions advisor today.
It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!
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Gainful Employment Information – Master of Science in Nursing
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