Educating yourself on the web!
Educating yourself on the web!
At the current time it isn't possible to enter the nursing profession with an online degree. The reason for this should be pretty obvious, being a nurse is a hands on job that requires practical training. A lot of things can be learned over the internet, unfortunately nobody has yet come up with a good way to teach practical hands on skills over the internet. If you want to become a nurse you are going to need to get the practical training that can be had in a traditional school. Given that you can't become a nurse with an online degree it may seem odd that there are so many online nursing degree programs. This isn't actually so odd and there are good reasons for it.
The primary reason that there are so many online nursing programs is that for a long time a bachelors degree was not required to become a registered nurse. That has changed now and all new RN's require a degree. Of course all of the nurses who entered the profession were allowed to keep working without one but more and more they are finding that they need a degree as well. Promotion will almost always require that a nurse have a bachelors and often a masters degree, a nurse without will have seriously limited career prospects. This has led to the creation of a number of degree programs to help RN's who don't have a bachelors degree to get one.
The other reason that there are so many online nursing programs is that the practical experience doesn't have to be gained as an RN. Can you imagine being in a hospital and having a palliative care nurse that has NO practical experience? That's not what you want, is it? There has been an increasing trend towards using Licensed Practical Nurses in order to reduce the number of RN's. LPN's perform a number of the more routine duties that are required of a nurse. In order to enter this career field requires training at a college but it does not require a bachelors degree. The training requirement can usually be met by one year at a training school. However the practical experience gained as an LPN can be used towards becoming a registered nurse. Becoming an LPN and then getting an online nursing degree is an alternate way of becoming a registered nurse.
Like most professions nursing is seeing an escalation in credentials that are required to get promoted. At one time no degree was required, then a bachelors became necessary. Nowadays if you want to get promoted and become a management nurse or work in a specialist field you are going to need a masters degree. Since it is usually experienced nurses who pursue these degrees most of them are offered online. That way nurses can upgrade their education and qualify for promotion without having to quit their jobs.