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Would majoring in nursing science at a UC be more efficient than taking a nursing program at a cal-state or community college?
I'm interested in a healthcare profession in general, one where I know I can help others. I was wondering if I decide to take the nursing route, which college would be more ideal. #nursing
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Kathleen’s Answer
I got my degree at a community college and it's just as good as any other school.
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Richard W’s Answer
The trend in the United States is to compensate nurses with bachelor degrees (4 year college/university) better than nurses with associate degrees (2 year college). And, promoting within nursing to research or management is going to be difficult without a bachelor degree. Because you can do additional studies to take an associate degree to a bachelor degree, the best answer for you is how soon do you want to work as a nurse? If you want to work as a nurse two to three years from now, the associate degree is perfectly acceptable and will get you into the marketplace. Then you can take additional studies to get a bachelor degree if you choose to. If you start directly with a bachelor degree you will have four years, minimum, before you enter the workforce as a registered nurse. The two different programs are considered "2 year" and "4 year", but I put that in quotes because prerequisites for either program can take as much as a year so you should plan for the worse and consider the programs 3 years and 5 years. It is possible to work up to full-time while you are in nursing school (I did), but I would not recommend working more than PRN or low part-time hours. To give you a reference on bachelor versus associate degree in nursing, in Texas (where I work and live) the state is less than 55% bachelor degree prepared, meaning that approximately half of the nurses in Texas hold an associate degree or diploma in nursing, not a bachelor degree. Hope this helps.