Strategic Planning

I missed this weeks discussion but from what I understand the guest speaker spent some time discussing why we want to get a bachelors degree. It was the exact subject we had to give a presentation on recently. When I did my research I found it interesting that if you look at it from a strictly financial point of view most bachelors nurses will not make more money than associates nurses over their lifetime and the cost of the extra education is not worth it if you plan to work a floor somewhere for your whole life. The bachelors has value in the fact that it will make you more competitive in job interviews, allows you to consider management  positions, and is the required stepping stone for APRN. When I got done doing my research I basically felt that if you were going on to get your bachelors you would be crazy not to continue your education further. This was my future plan anyway but it just reinforces it even more.

Change

I had no idea what to expect from today's lecture. Although I had to leave class a little early today I really enjoyed the second video that we watched. It was easy to see the logic in some of her conclusions when you step back and look at it. The social norms idea caught me off guard but after thinking through it a little it makes complete sense and is easy to observe in society. The discussion on the change of scrubs was a good one. It was easy to see how people have a hard time with change, especially when you see it with something as dumb as scrub colors. I have found that the more time nurses have to just talk the more they like to complain, especially when it involves change. If you can keep nurses busy they fill more fulfilled in their work and they don't have time to single out everybody's flaws. I am not afraid of change but it is different to allow change to occur than it is to be the one implementing the change. It can be very stressful to try and implement change as a manager but I think I will be able to manage it.

Career Development

This was an interesting unit. I enjoyed the discussion about FNP's and career possibilities moving forward. The information about additional education and job potential was informative and timely considering I have recently been looking into NP programs to decide if that is something I might be interested in. I also felt the career goals and planning discussion in class was good. I feel that I have a lot of the pieces plugged in already but most of my plan is only one to two years right now without an overall end goal in mind. I'm really struggling to decide what it is I want to be doing in 5 years but it is time to buckle down and get it figured out. The sooner I start the better.