I ' m biased because my mom is a clinical nurse specialist . But I ' d say it ' s a fantastic career path , as long as you accept certain conditions . When I was 1825 my mom tried to convince pretty much every friend of mine who didn ' t have a set career path how great nursing could be . You can ' t be the kind of person who develops a chip on their shoulders if they aren ' t top dog . Doctors outrank you , they ' re paid more , and might occasionally overrule you , and it ' ll often be because they know something you don ' t . If you can ' t handle that gracefully , you shouldn ' t be a nurse . You can ' t be the kind of person who becomes resentful that the doc ' s time is legitimately more valuable than your own and that you might spend 20 minutes with a patient , gathering info he ' s going to read in 5 seconds and disagree with you . Hours will be crazy , especially at first . There are fields where they ' re not as bad and others where they ' re the name of the game . Some places let you work better hours as you go up the seniority ladder , some don ' t . Better make sure your partner is OK with spending a lot of evenings and nights alone if you have one . While you can get a good job with just a bachelor ' s , there ' s plenty of room for specialisation . My mom worked a few years as a shift nurse , then did a master ' s , then did her clinical nurse specialist certificate ? , then her lactation consultant certification . Until she went into management a few years ago she was working mostly with highrisk pregnancies and very sick babies . There is a huge difference between her daytoday and the daytoday you can expect on your first day out of school . You ' ll never be rich , but the money is pretty good in most places . Nurses are in demand pretty much everywhere , and if you ' re a good one you will never be out of work . You can ' t outsource or automate nursing . Depending what field you choose , it can be terribly emotionally taxing . My mom ' s cousin works in neurology , specifically with ALS patients . Nobody she sees lives more than about 2 years after the day they meet . My mom deals with a lot of grieving parents of newborns who didn ' t make it . No matter how many times you see it , sometimes you can ' t help but take it home with you . You have to be emotionally tough yet empathetic , and 5 minutes after you see the roughest thing of the week you ' re going to get someone pissed off that they ' ve been waiting 5 minutes to see a doctor and who the fuck are you if you can ' t help them . Not an easy tightrope to walk .