Nursing? Why is it so popular?

I go to a private university in NC and we have an amazing nursing program. The two largest degrees at my school are nursing and education (I am in the education program). We don't have a wait list for nursing, just a process to get into the School of Nursing. It's a 4 year school so students have to take their core educational classes, generally completed within the 1st year or two at the school. They can still take classes needed for their nursing degree but can't go out and do clinical until they are accepted into the School of Nursing their junior year (3rd year) there. To get into the School of Nursing you have to fill out an application and undergo an interview process and have a GPA of at least 2.6. I think the reason so many want to go into nursing is because the pay is good and medicine is one of the fastest growing jobs on the market. With a nursing degree you can do so much stuff. Work in a hospital, work at a doctors office (of any type), work in a nursing home, work in the home of an elderly patient, work in the ER, work as a school nurse at a public school or at a college/university, etc.

In my high school the teachers used to push it because everyone was talking about a dreaded nursing shortage that would be all over the country. I think that created the first surge of nurses and people just keep on following it because the schools keep on recommending nursing. I think that this must have been some government initiative to fix something with health care that has gone out of control. Our local hospital has laid off over 30 nurses this year and we have over 40 waiting to graduate this year who had gone to school for all these years assuming they were guaranteed a position at our local hospital.

nurses get lots of money

I think its a combination of things people hear, read or have been told. First the media pumps this idea into people's heads that nursing is a in demand career field with many choices. While the many choices in nursing is true, nursing being in demand is a semi-truth. There are only some places, those are far and few, that will hire new grads. Most places are not hiring new grads because it cost too much to train them. The economy has caused lots of people to go for nursing because its at the associate degree level for entry, which makes it very cheap to go to school. Also nurses have a reputation of making lots of money, which is a big motivator for people right now. The problem is that their are some people who are going into the field for the money not because they have a passion for nursing. I used to want to be a nurse but then once I seen all these people flooding the nursing field, that turned me off. I think a lot of people think nursing is easy and that they will make easy money but they really have no idea.