If you want to be a nurse would it be better to go into a nursing program or go into pre-med?

Hey MiKayla,

If you have decided that you are set on becoming a nurse than you should go into a nursing program.
Pre-med will prepare you for medical school.
I know nursing programs that will accept students straight out of high school, but there also compressed nursing programs in which a minimum of 10.0 courses (websites for different colleges outline the courses you are required to take) at the college level need to have been completed prior to applying.
Therefore, you may want to complete your 10.0 courses in a pre-med program in case you aren't sure whether you are sold on being a nurse. This way you can change career options more easily. That being said not only is the completion of certain courses a requirement, so is maintaining a certain average. Thus, maybe the courses that you would be required to take in a pre-med program would be difficult to do well in and therefore you want to consider a different undergraduate degree for those 10.0 courses. There are nursing programs at colleges that come at varying levels, so look into different nursing programs at different colleges.

I have provided you with a guide to becoming a registered nurse.
However, you may just want to be a practical nurse, in which case you would go to community college and complete a nursing program there to graduate with a diploma.
I won't look into details here, but as you can see there are different types of nurses.
Each type has a specific job description and different responsibilities, although there may be overlap, that are important to consider.

See what best suits your interests, goals, marks, personality etc.

All the best!

If the goal is to become a Nurse, you most certainly want to go to Nursing School. Being a Pre-Med student puts you in classes to prepare you to apply to Medical School at the end of your 4 years of undergraduate work and would make you take a ton of classes not applicable to a nursing school application. You do not go directly into a nursing program. You apply to, let's say, University of Illinois and you major in Nursing. You take prerequisite classes for two years (Biology, Chemistry I, Anatomy, Physiology, and so on) then apply to that University's Nursing school, then attend that nursing school for two years. There are other degree options for nursing such as Diploma programs through hospitals (those are being phased out and there are hardly any left) and Associates Degree programs which have fewer prerequisites but just about every state is moving toward requiring a Bachelor Degree which is the pathway I listed first. Pre-Med is 4 years of taking very high level chemistry and biology classes, such as Organic Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry, Cellular Biology, etc and none of these classes are required for Nursing School. What I am getting at is these are two entirely different pathways with two entirely different goals so you must choose once you get into college which pathway you wish to go down, Physician (Doctor) or Nurse. If you want an advanced degree in nursing (Nurse Anesthetist, Nurse Practitioner, etc), you then go to graduate school after becoming a nurse