Which one will you think i should rather be a paralegal or a nurse?

Question

in high school i get 70 and 80s in science and math 65 70 75

but in history and law i use to get 85 90 95

i will love to be a nurse but i think it going to hard for me but i like law a lot so i was wondering maybe i should be a paralegal and then a lawyer.

what do you think i should become?

after i graduate i really want to live comfortably like a nice apt and a car and i dont have to worry.

Answer 1

How about a Legal Nurse. Yes, there really is such a job. You will need to first get your RN then your BSN in Nursing. From there you go to special classes on law. When you are done you will work giving help to lawyers on nursing matters. (bodily injury, malpractice, etc.) The money in this field is VERY VERY good. A salaried position will start at about $45 an hour.

I know a lady who does this part time locally as a consultant. She works an average of 5-10 hours a week-court weeks take up to 30 hours. On court days she charges a discounted rate of $150 an hour. Her normal rate is $400 an hour.

However, there is a down side to it all. One, she is self employed so she has to keep her own books, pay her own taxes, cover her own insurance, etc. Second, In order to get the big bucks like she does, you really need a minimum of 10 years experience in nursing plus five in the legal nurse work.

There are also other plus sides that you should consider:

A) for this career you do not go to school full time after the first 3 years. You work as an RN (starting at $20-$25 and hour base pay) and continue your education, This give you a nice income while getting the experience and the education you need.

B) As an RN you can go to any town in the country that has over 30,000 people and get a good paying job within a few days. RN's are always in demand.

I just called a hospital outside of Aspen CO out of curiosity- They have openings and will pay my moving expenses if I go to work for them. If I have administrative experience and want an administrative job, they will fly me down to talk to them about an opening they currently have.

Answer 2

Most nursing schools have a grading system that requires you to make an average of 80 or higher in all your classes, and no grade on any individual test or assignment can be a failing grade.  I'm even aware of a few nursing schools who require that their students pass their sciences and nursing courses with no individual grade lower than an 80 and an average that is higher than an 85.

If you're getting 70s and 80s in high school science, which is pretty mindless stuff, you're going to be hurting when you get to college and need to make nothing less than an 85, EVERY time.  And frankly, as a patient, if you come into my hospital room or my husband's hospital room and you say something really stupid that lets me know you don't know your basic sciences, you WON'T be coming back into that room as the nurse on duty.

You can't just bluff your way through the nursing curriculum.  You have to learn the material and MASTER it so that you can USE IT.  Memorizing isn't going to help you if you don't understand.

You don't tell us what grade you're in.  If you're interested in nursing and have a year or more of high school left, why don't you try working harder and see for yourself what it will take for you to get grades above an 85 in your sciences?  That will tell you better than anything whether or not you're willing to put in the hard work you'll have to do as a student nurse.

By the way - you will have a math test in nursing school before you're allowed to give medications.  The only passing score is a 100%.  Period.  Decimals, fractions, ratios, percentages, solving for X .... most of it is basic math and algebra I skills.  Most schools will give you 2 or 3 opportunities to take the test and get the 100.  But if you can't do the math to calculate drug dosages properly, you're going to kill somebody.  The schools don't pass the students who don't have the skill to do the basic math.

If you're already a high school senior and don't have any science classes this year, okay.  Next year when you start college, sign up for human anatomy.  It's the easiest of the science prerequisites for nursing.  See how you do, and see how much work it takes to get those grades of 85 and up.  And remember that physiology, microbiology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology are all a LOT harder than anatomy.

Paralegals need excellent research and writing skills.  It can pay just as good as nursing, depending on the law firm you work for.  Sometimes paralegals make a LOT more than nurses.  Again, it depends on who you work for.  In some states you can take a certificate class, 6 to 12 months, to become a paralegal.  There are associate degree and bachelor degree programs out there, as well.  The education you get will determine where you can work and what you can make.  It isn't any easy course, by any means, but it's geared to the history, law, language arts, writing - humanities and liberal arts type of education.  That seems to be your strongest side, grade-wise, at least so far.

You're the only one who can decide how hard you're willing to work to get the grades and the KNOWLEDGE you need to be an effective practitioner in either field.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Nursing is a hard job but it the pay is not bad. Why don't you go to a community college and get in a 2 year nursing program, get your associates in Nursing and work a while. You will make as much as someone with a BSN and if you like it you could always go back for your BSN and chances are the hospital will pay part of your school for you. If you get in and do not like it then you can change and take classes to be a paralegal. That way you can try one out and see how well you like it then if you think you are not happy in it you can go back and get a degree as a paralegal. That would be my recommendation. Also it seems that more and more people are going into law now, more than ever before so there will be a flood of people with degrees in law out there. With nursing they always need people and it's one of the jobs that will pay no matter how bad the economy is getting. With the baby boomers getting older in the next 10 years or so we will see a large increase in the need of people with degrees in medicine and nursing. So there will be a market there for sure. Remember many people make more than enough to live comfortably on they just spend to much on little things and useless things. If you can make anywhere around 40 to 70 thousand a year you will be fine. You just have to know you can not always buy what you want every time you want it. That's where most all people end up messing up. Good luck! =)

Answer 4

Become a paralegal if you enjoy law and history.  But work at your law degree at the same time.  Paralegals do all the work for little pay.  You have to have a 4 year degree from college (political science is what most lawyers major in) before you can enter law school.  Then you have to take and pass the admittance test (the LSAT) to get in.  Then a minimum of 2 more years in law school.

My daughter investigated being a court reporter.  It doesn't take much to get certified (less than a year).  There you could watch the law at work and get paid for it at the same time (not bad pay, either).