BSN Nursing Programs (RN)

00:01 A Bachelor of Science in Nursing or BSN is typically a four-year program that's taken at a college or a university.

00:08 After completing your BSN program, you as an individual could then go sit for your NCLEX-RN and become a registered nurse.

00:14 It is also really important to understand that not all BSN programs look the same.

00:20 For example, in some programs the nursing coursework is focused at the end of the curriculum, and you may even need to apply for the nursing program after being admitted to the college or the university, and you might not get in.

00:32 With other programs, your admission to the college grants you access to the nursing program, and you begin to take those nursing courses immediately.

00:41 So what's the difference between an ADN and a BSN program? A BSN program will have courses not found in an ADN program.

00:48 These are going to be things like management, leadership, sometimes Public Health, Communications, all of those.

00:56 Why would you want to take more classes and get a BSN? Many hospitals, they prefer hiring nurses with their BSN because it reflects positively on their hospitals when they're applying for things like magnet status and other grants for reasons that don't make sense to any actual nurses.

01:13 But the financial hospital people, they make those choices.

01:16 The role of the nurse is essentially the same.

01:18 It's literally actually the exact same, whether you are an ADN or a BSN.

01:22 But adding BSN to the end of your name does open a lot of doors.

01:27 Having a bachelor's will also allow you to go directly back to grad school if you want. So what are the drawbacks of a BSN program? First, they can be quite expensive.

01:37 In the United States, the average cost of a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program is 10000 to 35000 a year, which comes to a really nice total of 40 to $140000 over a four-year period.

01:49 Usually, not always, but usually nurses are not paid more for having their BSN versus their ADN, so this cost, it doesn't always pay off, especially initially. The huge thing I want to mention here is you do not have to go to a BSN program right away.

02:06 Popular options are the many, many bridge programs that will take you from your ADN degree to your BSN and can even most of them be completed online.

02:15 Even better, as long as you sign a contract saying you will complete the program within a certain time frame when hired on your, with your ADN, your hospital or healthcare institution, will, a lot of the times, actually help you pay for those programs.

02:28 This can help open doors into hospitals that would typically choose not to hire you if you don't have your BSN, but you do promise to get one eventually.

02:36 But, what if you would like to have an RN, but you already have a bachelor's degree in something else? Are there options for this? Of course there are. You know, there are.

02:45 It seems like the nursing options are endless when it comes to entry level and ways into the profession. So let's take a look at that next.