Online Nursing Degrees - The Right Choice For You?

Online nursing degrees are growing in popularity as more people rush to enter the lucrative, highly in-demand field of nursing.



Online degrees offer some wonderful advantages. You can take classes at whatever time of day is convenient for you. You can work full-time and still earn a salary while getting your degree. You can bring your laptop with you and study and send in homework assignments while you are on the bus or subway, at the beach, or at the coffeeshop. You don't have to spend time and gasoline driving to a college campus, looking for parking, walking half a mile to your building, walking back....
However, online nursing degrees do have their limitations.



First of all, there is currently only one online program in the country that we know of - the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh - that allows a person with no healthcare degree or certificate to get their nursing degree. They take a limited number of students, they require you to have a previous bachelor's degree, you must have completed a number of science and other prerequisites, and they grant an accelerated second bachelor's degree. Most of the program is online, but you must go to the campus in Oshkosh several times, AND not every state offers the clinicals that are required for the program.



What is much more common are programs that allow an LPN or a paramedic to take a "bridge" program which allows the LPN to complete their associate degree and become a registered nurse. An example of this is Chamberlain College of Nursing. Excelsior College and many others offer these opportunities as well.



You can also, after you get your associate's degree in nursing, take online classes to get a bachelor's of science in nursing. This frequently will result in a higher salary, and also, if you want to progress into managerial positions, you generally need at least a BSN.



There are online nursing degree programs which grant master's degrees in nursing as well.
Also, you can take many of your prerequisites online - English, psychology, nutrition, etc. You need to have those completed before you are accepted into an LPN to RN bridge program.



For information and links to a bunch of great online nursing degree programs, click here: http://nursingschoolprograms.com/online-nursing-degree-programs



IMPORTANT NOTE: Not every state accepts these online nursing programs. For example Florida does not recognize Excelsiors paramedic to lpn program, so if you took that program, you would not be able to sit for the NCLEX-RN program in Florida. You must check with your state board of nursing before you sign up with the online program, because you do not want to spend all that time and money and find out that you are not eligible to sit for the NCLEX, which is the test that you must pass in order to be licensed as a nurse.