Before you answer, PLEASE read all of my PROS/CONS for each career below.
Also, when you answer, tell me why you would choose one over the other. Don't just say one or the other. Give a strong argument to why you think what is more better for you.
1) Food Chemist 2) Registered Nurse
Food Chemist
Pros:
You get to be part of team of to develop a new food product, say a chocolate bar or a low fat sugar free granola bar or whatever you're told to create. You can brainstorm ideas in improving it's taste or coming up with new food ideas. Someday you may see this product in the supermarket. You get the feeling that you created something that people are buying. Also, you know what's in the ingredients because you help create it. Or you may be the one who is analysing the contents of fat, calories, etc. in food and be labelling the nutrition content on the package. Or you could be analysing the food products like diary and check for mad cow disease. You could be looking for food poisoning from e coli bacteria and if found, the product will have to be recalled. You can manage food and safety practices. This is helpful to the public's health, saving million of lives when you recall a product that is poisonous. Even if you decided that food is not your interest anymore, you can still try to get a job in the chemist in a field other than food because of the analytical skills you built from experience and education.
But with food chemist degree, if you're tired of being in the lab, you can be food inspector, policy maker or chemist in a different field because of the analytical skills you have. It makes it easier to move around. A food scientist can return to school and get a masters degree and get higher pay and get a position they want.
Cons:
A food chemist is small field. You may be stuck in the lab all day if you're a food technician. If you're a food inspector, you have conflicts with importers/exporters because they may have disagreements. However, you can be a policy maker and make decisions concerning food and safety which you would work at a desk.
Registered Nurse
Pros:
You have a license to practice nursing which recognized by the nursing association after passing an exam.
Pay is good. People will always need nurses. You will less likely be layed off. There's a great demand for nurses. You get to comfort sick people and help make them better (if they can). You work directly with people one on one and may feel as if you are making an impact in someone's life. However, you may be helping patients who needs 24 hour care for someone seriously disabled, which is a pro or con depending on how you look at it. You will need a good sense of humor and staying on the positive side.
You may feel a sense of reward of a patient who was very sick when first admitted but gets better because of your work and gets to go home.
Cons:
The major con I hear from these workers are that it may be extremely depressing working with people whose health deteriorates and people are dying every day. It can be very morbid, having to deal with death and sickness all the time.
You have to give patient's baths and change their bed pan. You have to change adult diapers and soiled beds and clothes. You may be working in a mental ward or the chronically ill ward or a senior home. You will always be in the hospital. It is physically demanding. You're on your feet all the time. You have to carry the patient and help them go to the bathroom. You have to give them needle shots if you can find their vein. Patients may never get better and may be mentally ill or paralysed from the neck down.
You have a higher risk of catching disease from the patients than people who don't have to work with sick people.
Also, sometimes, you may feel patients are not very appreciative of the work you do for them.
Doctors will ordering you to clean up the mess made by a patient. You cannot avoid that part. It is part of being a nurse.
Some doctors can arrogant and treat you poorly (or so I have heard) and they’re your boss. You do all the really dirty work of cleaning up while the doctor does most the treating and diagnosing of the patient.
Also, it can emotionally draining with people who are dying or seriously ill and have their guts all over after a bad accident or after a fire and suffering third degree burns, having body parts amputated and people suffering great pain.
You must do a lot shift work at times, some days nightshift and some days dayshift. They may expect you do at least three nightshifts a week or the rest are day shift.
You will have to make good judgments and think fast because you're working with a life and death situation. You could be sued for wrongful practice if your actions caused death or more harm or you make a mistake and give wrong dosage of medication. You must call other doctors in case of a serious emergency or you can be sued if you don’t. Poor action or lack of action can get you into trouble so you have to be responsible because the patient depends on you.
However, if you're a nurse and you get tired of being in the hospital, you can't switch to something else with the nursing degree. If you're a nurse, it is all you will be for the rest of your life but you can always further your education and get into specific areas like pediatric (working with kids), psychiatric (working with mental patients), ER (working in emergency room), gerontology (working with seniors). But a food scientist can move around (see above for food scientist) and not have to return to school.
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