Nursing Not for You? Try This

Nursing is not for everyone. Fortunately, there are many other jobs in the health care industry, so you can easily take advantage of the job security of this field, without doing a job you know you'd hate or not be very good at.

For instance, one variation on nursing is working as a home care provider. Rather than having the stress of many patients and working in a nursing home or hospital environment — two of the main reasons why people don't like nursing — you care for one patient in their home, which is usually a much more pleasant setup.

Working as a home care provider typically requires some training, though it may not require as much training as becoming a nurse does. There are many caregiver training programs, some of them offered (or paid for) by the companies that hire home care providers. In other words, if you get on with the right employer, you may not even have to pay for your training.

You can also increase your marketability by getting training in specialized areas, such as elder abuse training and Alzheimer's training. Not all of this training requires classes, either: For instance, here you can find Alzheimer's training DVDs to give you the special knowledge and training you need to deal with patients who have Alzheimer's.

Health care is a great industry to work in because of the many opportunities it offers, particularly for those who can't afford to get a four-year degree. While nursing — the profession that people usually think of when they think of the health care industry — is not for everyone, luckily there are many other options for those who still want the job security and income levels the health care industry offers!

Chefs and cooks—at least they look cool

Last week, my friend graduated from a local college of the arts. They have a bunch of different schools within the college, just like any major university—graphic design, video game design, sculpture, etc.

If I were to pick my major in that college based purely on the graduation ceremony, I would go with the culinary arts.

Obviously, there are some other factors. I love food and cooking to start. Not to mention, dates are a lot cheaper if you can cook well.

Aside from those outside factors, though, the big wigs in the culinary education department know how to graduate with class. While everybody else wears the standard graduation robes, those who successfully completed their culinary training marched up to that stage in their full chef garb, including hats and knives in their belts.

And the top graduates didn’t just wear an extra tassel or sash. They got different color graduation uniforms, different designs on their hats and the top graduate got a set of knives with his diploma.

At my graduation, the only honor that came with being a top graduate was a declaration of the fact by one of the professors—not even the dean—and the privilege of addressing a large crowd of people, most likely made up largely of people who do not actually respect your accomplishment and/or are more concerned with getting out of the auditorium to celebrate with their friends and family than hearing about your odyssey. Some cool knives might make that a little more worthwhile.

I’m in the Mood for School

I know it sounds a bit ill advised, but I never had any desire to go to school. I guess I didn’t think that far ahead. I was having so much fun going out and dating that I never made time for getting an education. All of my friends enrolled in programs within a year of graduating high school and now they are all on the verge of graduating. In fact, I met a really nice guy who I became seriously interested in because of my friends associations with the college crowd. It was due to him that I began to re-evaluate my academic experience.

When we first started dating I lied and told him I had an associates degree because I felt like I didn’t measure up to his standards. He immediately assumed that I meant that I had gotten as far as an associates but was working on a ba degree. Upon making that realization I started looking online for a degree program and ended up getting an accredited associates degree in paralegal studies.

The funny thing is that our relationship ended up not lasting beyond the semester, however my degree will last me a lifetime. I may not have gotten started for the right reasons but I ended with the same result.