Becoming a nurse is a dream for a lot of people. They get to pursue a career that’s centered around helping people with advanced medicine and technology. The nursing industry has grown in great proportions due to the global situation and is only going to continue growing as demands continue to rise. Here are five things you should know prior to becoming a nurse.

1. Getting a bachelor’s of science degree in nursing (BSN) will set you apart from the rest.

When looking for career options, one of your best bets is to get a BSN so you can have more doors opened in the job industry. When earning your degree, it’s important to also take your clinical experience seriously in order to land a job in the field as fast as possible. Your hands-on experience, or bedside experience, will make it easier to land the job of your dreams.

When seeking educational experiences, you can look towards the National Honor Society High School or NSHSS. The NSHSS helps gifted students pursue their future academic and career goals with leadership programs, educational tools, career guides, and scholarships. These programs have been carefully developed so high school students can have access to undergraduate and graduate degrees in their preferred field.

2. Becoming a registered nurse is of the essence.

In addition to your BSN, which you can gain in online nurse practitioner programs in Ohio, you should strive to gain more competency by becoming a registered nurse (RN). You can do this by passing the National Council Licensure Examination or NCLEX. This license will allow you to make a career in many more fields such as school nurse and doctor’s office nurse. You will have a unique set of responsibilities beyond a normal nurse’s load to provide quality patient care thanks to this RN license.

3. There are many job opportunities in the nursing industry.

It’s important to know that as an RN with a BSN, your health care career possibilities and specialties are basically endless. You can be anything in the nursing field like a trauma center nurse, emergency room nurse, cardiac nurse, clinical nurse specialist, family nurse practitioner, and geriatric nursing.

Nurses can also work alongside surgeons during surgery processes, as primary care nurse practitioners, in mental health clinics, as nurse anesthetists, as well as nurse managers, among many other positions. For people looking for a wide range of career and growing opportunities, then a career in nursing may just be the route to take.

4. Not everyone is built for this type of career.

It’s also important to point out that a career in nursing is not something everyone can do. The nursing field requires people to have a lot of compassion for their patients while also having a tough and resilient spirit to endure the pains of others as your own and give them strength in those hard times. It also requires people to be comfortable around human bodily fluids such as blood and urine, and endure gruesome scenarios that can easily make a normal person quit their job on the spot.

5. It’s one of the most fulfilling jobs in the world.

All this goes without saying how much of a fulfilling life a nurse can enjoy. Despite all of the pain RNs can endure at work, many have expressed how fulfilling it is for them to pursue this career. They enjoy being able to help others overcome their battles with the world, themselves, a disease, chronic conditions, and other many circumstances their patients go through. RNs understand that not everyone can be saved in a job like theirs, but most will do what they can to give it their all if it means only saving one person.

Try to reflect on how you can make the world a better place by becoming a nurse and take the next step towards your career goals.