What do I have to go through to become an RN (Registered Nurse)?
Asked by Ashley
I'm in high school and my plan is to become an RN. Can someone tell me what I will have o go through to do so, or what you had to. I would like to know what i will have to go through with schooling and with the experience I will need to become an RN as my profession. If you have experiences from being an RN, I would love to hear about them to help me know this is what I want to do.

Best Answer:
Ask around your community - sometimes there are job fairs you can attend to get information on a given career. Many colleges offer exploratory experiences during summer break wherein you're grouped with high schoolers interested in the same career, and actually take your group to a job site - in your case, of course, it'd be a hospital - and let them watch the job being performed by licensed professionals. An RN needs a college degree. Math is not a problem for most, because there is actually little need for anything beyond basic high school math. Nursing is heavy on the sciences, and any of the life sciences you can take while in high school - biology and chemistry, for example - will help you when you encounter those disciplines in nursing school. Be sure of how you feel working around sick people. There can be some nauseating experiences - dealing with a vomiting child, a whiny older adult, a critically burned person, a dying person. Nurses encounter all of that. And don't let anyone tell you a nurse can just shut herself or himself off from that - it ain't gonna happen! I've been a nurse since 1964, and just because I'm also a guy does not mean I'm insensitive to suffering...or to the boundless joy of a new mother being handed her just-born baby. Forty-five years a nurse, and it still brings tears to my eyes to see the look and the love on a new mother's face. So it ain't all harsh - but it is demanding. Be sure of yourself - if you can graduate high school, you can handle nursing school - but you WILL work your ash off! Good luck!