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Should I change my major to one I like or stay with what's dependable?
I started nursing school in February. I originally was just going to go for an AA and then found out that nurses with AA's wind up doing all the lower level stuff and decided I wanted to transfer in January to a Uni to do a BSN.
Now I'm almost through my first year of nursing and I'm not so sure I want to make this my career. I like learning about the body, but I don't think I'm up for dealing with angry, injured, sick people for the rest of my life. At first I just figured "Well I'll just go straight for a Masters and do something specialized and not so hands on like Anesthesia" but a Masters is so far away and will cost so much money in tuition.
Now I'm considering switching to another major when I leave for Uni like: Political Science, International & Cultural Studies, or Government & World Affairs.
I would like to work for some kind of international agency and have a job that includes politics, government and traveling. It's really important to me to be able to get involved in world events and to be able to travel globally. I also really enjoy doing research and writing reports. I'm a female and would like to be a game changer in politics and such.
Do you think the majors I'm interested in will get me a good job or do you think they're a waste of time? My parents are very happy right now that I'm in nursing so I'd hate to disappoint them, but I just don't think I want to spend the rest of my life cleaning up gross messes and bandaging wounds when there's so much more in the world to do.
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School costs money and you will want to at least have a good enough job that will support you until you have a clear vision. Taking a major just because it interests you is not really a sound decision (coming from a film major). If you want to see whether you like politics, take time off to volunteer or work for a campaign and see what it's like, don't just start over every time you have a new interest.
I actually believe a BSN will open WAY more doors than political science or any of those other soft disciplines. Really and truly, most political science majors don't end up working in their fields and are far less marketable over all. They wind up in law school and then working at Biglaw firms paying off their huge law school debts and the political thing doesn't happen. On the other hand, having a background with a hard science doesn't preclude you from having a political career. Look at how many of the U.S. candidates in the GOP have been medical doctors (Rand Paul and Ben Carson spring to mind, whatever you may think of their politics).
You can see the world easily through travel nursing, and can use your background to create policy in public health, for instance and go back to school once you have a clear vision of what cause or ideals you stand for and want to push forward. A Master's in Political Science or Public Health is a much clearer signal of a serious policy maker than an undergrad degree in poli sci, which is incredibly common and not particularly useful. If you decide law school is the way you want to go (which is a pretty good background for politicians) and you're going because you have a clear vision and after working as a medical profession you can afford law school without incurring a ton of debt, you'll be a better candidate who will stand out among a sea of poli sci majors. The undergrad time is just for absorbing information, graduate degrees are for demonstrating your ability to push the field forward.
Well people are just as angry and ungrateful as sick people, and politicians are commonly regarded as being underhanded and using others for their own ends, so don't expect only shiny happy people outside a hospital's walls. Most of my friends who got international degrees had a lot of trouble finding work based on that alone. Learning a language and reading about world events are things you can do on your own and are far more marketable than the degrees you're considering. The vast majority of people making huge changes in the world are not poli sci majors, nobel peace prize winners almost never have a political science undergraduate degree, medical professionals do far more to impact others' well-being.
Unless you come from money and can definitely afford a master's right away, I believe everyone should get a STEM degree (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) for their undergrad. Any other standalone undergrad degrees are far less marketable and require graduate degrees. If you know those fields aren't for you, then go out and DO the work you're interested in--if it's writing, just write, you don't need a degree for that; if it's film (talking to a young me) just watch and make films; if it's politics, just go out and get involved in politics, a piece of paper that says Bachelor's in those fields doesn't set you apart at ALL--what you've produced is the only thing that will set you apart, and the four years everyone else is wasting in school at frat parties, you can be spending actually creating change that people will notice. You can absolutely learn just as much about political science and world affairs as you would in a poli sci undergraduate program by following the news and reading scholarly papers on your own and you won't incur huge school bills.
In the end it's up to you, but I do hope you'll print out this answer and put it in a notebook if you go the poli sci route, so when you've graduated and you're finding yourself in heavy competition for an unpaid internship with tons of school loans and suddenly thinking, well, 80 hour weeks at a law firm might not be so bad if I just get another $200k of debt on top of my undergrad loans, that you knew what you were in for and you had your reasons. Make sure to note those reasons, too, because they must have been important and you need to keep them in your heart to make sure the sacrifice was worth it.
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Are their pathways to the administrative/managerial side of healthcare from the 'customer-facing' (as you might call it, dealing with angry and injured patients) environment? That might be a possibility. In which case the hands-on/not so hands on is not going to be your long-term target, merely a route to the administrative side. There's plenty of research, and report writing/presenting here. Making the strategic choices for your ward or department rather than serving on it? Funding, logistics, budgets and targets. Policies, if not actually politics. If it's absolutely gotta be affairs of state and foreign policy and all things government then you should really switch. It's a broad field indeed. A lot of political media presnters and journalists came down this route too. Look at the credentials of many a known tv political 'face' and you'll find a similar academic background, and very often a list of extremely well-known international agencies they've worked for. Nursing is indeed what we might call 'dependable' and safer. But at the same time it's more limited, and limiting. Government & Worls Affairs is obviously a massive arena. So we could hardly call studying towards a career somewhere in this vast landscape a waste of time. I'd say that if you're describing patients as 'sick people' and their afflictions 'gross messes' then you are maybe not likely to engage with a life of nursing at the 'sharp end' of things?!! But think about the administrative and managerial side of health care maybe, too?
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Nursing is a very rewarding career. Nurses more than doctors do the actual caring for the patients. But like any career if you are not happy with the job the benefits and rewards will not outweigh your displeasure with the job. Meaning don't follow a career path you are not happy with just to please your parents.
While nursing may be a path to a secure high paying job. All the money and job security will not make you happy. If your not happy in your job it will affect other areas of your life.
The careers your looking at are good meaningful careers. Not all government or political job include travel so be more specific about what you wish to do in these positions. Government jobs while more secure than the private sector equivalent pay about 10 to 20 percent less than the private sector.
In short this is your life, your career. You will be working at it for the next 40 plus years. You must be happy with the choices you make today and not your parents.
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