ADN Nursing Programs (RN)

00:01 Can I be really honest about associate degree nursing programs? These spit out the most prepared nurses hands down.

00:09 When I worked with nursing students and knew nurses, the ones who had the most advanced clinical competence were those that came out of an ADN program.

00:17 These programs are really hard.

00:19 They're intensely competitive and cut out literally all of the fluff.

00:23 As their name suggests, these programs provide individuals with an associates degree upon completing, and they are typically taught at community colleges and technical schools. They will usually tout that they're only around two years in length, but realistically it's more like four because you have to have about two years of prerequisites before you can even get started in the program.

00:44 And after completing these programs, you can take the NCLEX-RN and become a registered nurse, which is awesome.

00:51 These programs are usually fairly affordable and can offer flexibility in scheduling if you need nights or weekend classes while you balance like your family or your other job and all of that.

01:03 And they really do a good job of preparing you for your actual future nursing job, in my opinion.

01:10 So if you're sitting there wondering, "Well, why on earth wouldn't everyone just do these programs then?" Because many hospitals prefer nurses to have a BSN. This looks much better on paper for the hospital when they're describing their staffing statistics and if they have a certain number of BSN prepared nurses and then the hospital can qualify for different awards.

01:30 And you might even have heard these rumors of studies that show that BSN prepared nurses actually lead to better patient outcomes.

01:37 But, fun fact, that is actually a really misleading, as the hospitals that were compared in those studies were not equitable hospitals.

01:44 So the studies really they indicated more about the general support and financial situation of the hospital versus nursing.

01:51 But alas, the hospitals often prefer, depending on where you live, BSN nurses.

01:57 So sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to find a job with an ADN if you want to work in a specific hospital.

02:02 But, again, I would just check in with where you live as it's really, really dependent on that. So what if you want to get your ADN, but you also don't want to limit your options in terms of your career because of it? There are bridge programs and there are a lot of them.

02:17 These are transition programs that take you from your ADN to your BSN degree, and they're largely online, making them easily available.

02:24 Many health care systems will hire you with your ADN if you sign a contract stating that you will obtain your BSN within five years, or you can just find a job that values you with your ADN as they should.

02:37 So what do you actually gain by getting your BSN versus an ADN other than potentially having an easier time finding a job? Let's look at a BSN nursing program, so we can compare them.