Im a nurse and most nurses seem to agree 2 years is the mark when you become proficient.
I passed the nclex but there are so many things you only learn by doing and living it, not reading it on a book or on a lecture by a nurse who stopped working with patients 20 years ago.
This sucks because until then your coworkers are not going to fully trust you and, in my case, they want me to do things their way, because otherwise it’s wrong. Add 6 nurses to the mix that feel entitled to this and you’ll understand why Im burning out: every one of them feels entitled to correct me, but the way one works contradicts how the next one does.
I wonder if this is a rite of passage across industries and workplaces and if in some industries it takes way less than 2 years to be proficient.
If this is how life is, how do I survive till year 2?
I see you post questions like this at least once a week across multiple communities. At what point should you consider a change? Either workplace, specialization, or career field entirely? Because it’s clear whatever you’re doing is not working for you.
career: are you paying for my certifications and the financial penalty I’d take? it’s a 3 year minimum for any bachelor.
workplace: how do you know the new place is going to be better?
I know people who quit medical jobs, like nurse in a big hospital, to do another job that’s equally shitty. Quitting by itself makes sense, as most of them won’t be promoted to a manager, statistically speaking.
I think, what they really should consider is to find a better hospital (instead of becoming a massager or a cashier).
Maybe smaller hospitals have less stress. The way I change my job is to contact friends and gather information about their workplaces.
That’s the neat part! You don’t.
You can learn on your own time. Books are cheap or free to read and there’s lots of ways to get free hands-on experience. Get off social media and into your local library!
Spoken like someone who hasn’t tried applying to degree-mandatory industries
No, that sounds like a real pain. Much easier to just have a career where I can advance the way I want. Degrees are pretty portable though.
Then you should know that you can’t just get a degree from reading books at the library, right? You can teach yourself everything, but that doesn’t mean society will recognize it unless you build your own business from the ground up and earn an “honorary” degree.
And if you can afford to do that, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
You don’t need a degree for tons of careers, even well paying ones. There’s also tons of people who get a degree and then do the bare minimum of learning afterwards.