Advantages of Accelerated Nursing Degrees

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• These pro­grams allow com­ple­tion in 1–2 years, sig­nif­i­cant­ly faster than tra­di­tion­al 4‑year programs.
• Accel­er­at­ed pro­grams are gen­er­al­ly cheap­er, with reduced tuition and asso­ci­at­ed costs.
• Grad­u­ates can quick­ly enter the work­force, meet­ing high demand for nurs­es and open­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for spe­cial­iza­tion and high­er-pay­ing roles.

When explor­ing dif­fer­ent career oppor­tu­ni­ties, many look at the usu­al options: doc­tors, IT spe­cial­ists, busi­ness man­agers, and more. That said, one more option holds great poten­tial, espe­cial­ly if you have expe­ri­ence in the health­care sec­tor: nurs­ing. With salaries for reg­is­tered nurs­es increas­ing by 2.5 per­cent and giv­en the nurs­ing short­age, such a career has great promise.

The main prob­lem is that if you want to go around it the tra­di­tion­al way, you will have to attend class­es for at least 4 years. The sched­ule is also quite demand­ing, not allow­ing you to have a job along­side your stud­ies. This makes fast-track nurs­ing pro­grams a suit­able alter­na­tive, as they bring plen­ty of extra ben­e­fits. This arti­cle will cov­er the most notable advantages.

Relat­ed:

• How Do Accel­er­at­ed Nurs­ing Stu­dents Com­plete Clin­i­cal Training?
• Most Afford­able Bachelor’s in Nursing
• Best Bachelor’s in Nursing
• Chang­ing Careers to Nurs­ing with an Accel­er­at­ed Degree
• Pre­req­ui­sites and Require­ments for Accel­er­at­ed Nurs­ing Degrees

1. Shortened Time Frame

One of the most sig­nif­i­cant nurs­ing edu­ca­tion ben­e­fits is that you should be able to com­plete the course in almost half the time. The aver­age tra­di­tion­al nurs­ing pro­gram takes about 4 years to get your BSN, and you might not have that much time on your hands. As a work­ing pro­fes­sion­al, you prob­a­bly want to switch your career as fast as possible.

On the oth­er hand, short nurs­ing pro­grams take around 1–2 years to com­plete. Class­es are also held dur­ing the sum­mer to short­en the time­frame. If you have trans­fer­able cred­its from pre­vi­ous course­work or expe­ri­ence, this could also help reduce the length of these courses.

The short length of the pro­gram makes it a good option if you want to get your master’s as well, as you can often get both in one pack­age. This allows you to enter the work­force much faster, earn­ing a salary ear­li­er than some­one join­ing a tra­di­tion­al program.

2. Cost-Effectiveness

Com­pared to a tra­di­tion­al pro­gram, accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing degrees are less expen­sive in the long run. The entire pro­gram can cost between $40,000 and $80,000, where­as tra­di­tion­al pro­grams could eas­i­ly exceed $90,000. Indeed, you will have to pay more per year with an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram since the time­line is short­er, but in the long run, it can save you a lot of mon­ey on tuition.

Accom­mo­da­tion and oth­er costs are also reduced when it comes to accel­er­at­ed pro­grams. Most of these class­es are held pri­mar­i­ly online, so you won’t have to pay as much for board­ing or trans­porta­tion. You will mere­ly have to trav­el every so often to your insti­tu­tion of choice for prac­tice, but for the most part, you can learn every­thing you need from the com­fort of your home. It is one of the most cost-effec­tive nurs­ing edu­ca­tion options that you could go for.

With an accel­er­at­ed degree, grad­u­at­ing stu­dents could also enter the work­force much faster. Since they start earn­ing an income soon­er than with a tra­di­tion­al pro­gram, not only can they pass off debt, but the nurs­ing degree ROI also increases.

3. Intensive Curriculum

One thing many peo­ple get wrong about accel­er­at­ed BSN pro­grams is their cur­ricu­lum, with most think­ing that you are learn­ing less. The truth is that you are pre­sent­ed with the same infor­ma­tion with such a pro­gram. The only dif­fer­ence is that you have less time to com­plete it. This makes the cur­ricu­lum more inten­sive, as you will have to focus on a large amount of data.

Some might think this inten­sive nurs­ing cur­ricu­lum is bad, but it is actu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial. When deal­ing with an inten­sive cur­ricu­lum like this, you will have less time between class­es and exams. Ulti­mate­ly, you won’t have the chance to for­get what you have learned, as the infor­ma­tion is drilled into your mind.

Accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing class­es have a mix of foun­da­tion­al sci­ence class­es and core cours­es. How­ev­er, unlike tra­di­tion­al class­es, which go into great detail for foun­da­tion­al infor­ma­tion, accel­er­at­ed class­es focus more on the core cours­es. This is done on the basis that stu­dents already have pre­vi­ous knowl­edge, so they don’t need to go through a bunch of poten­tial­ly use­less classes.

4. Career Advancement Opportunities

By get­ting your accel­er­at­ed degree in nurs­ing, you open your doors to numer­ous health­care career oppor­tu­ni­ties. For instance, let’s say that you want to work in health­care, but you have a busi­ness degree. You have some knowl­edge of how to take care of a patient’s basic needs, but your cur­rent degree does not allow you to fol­low that profession.

Con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent nurs­ing employ­ment rates and the high demand for reg­is­tered nurs­es, accel­er­at­ed degrees will like­ly land you a job. With that degree in your hands, you should not have any issues find­ing a job at a clin­ic, a hos­pi­tal, or a long-term care facil­i­ty. Even if it is your first time work­ing as a nurse, the work­force short­age should help you find a well-pay­ing job.

If you are already work­ing as a nurse, accel­er­at­ed pro­grams can help you spe­cial­ize and pur­sue nurs­ing career advance­ment. You can become a nurse prac­ti­tion­er, where you can actu­al­ly diag­nose and pre­scribe med­i­cine to patients, a nurse anes­thetist, or a clin­i­cal nurse spe­cial­ist, who focus­es on most­ly one niche. This type of pro­mo­tion could lead to a big­ger salary.

5. High Demand for Graduates

Accep­tance for accel­er­at­ed degrees has sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased over time – in fact, employ­ees pre­fer it. Tra­di­tion­al degrees are good as they last longer, allow­ing you to absorb infor­ma­tion, but most are the­o­ry-based. On the oth­er hand, accel­er­at­ed pro­grams focus on prac­ti­cal skills, prepar­ing you to take your spot in the work­ing field.

While employ­ees like a good grasp of knowl­edge, they pre­fer expe­ri­ence nowa­days. As long as the degree comes from an accred­it­ed insti­tu­tion, employ­ees should have no issues with whether or not it was accel­er­at­ed. Most of these pro­grams also choose their stu­dents based on pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence. So, unlike a tra­di­tion­al pro­gram, you have a bet­ter nurs­ing career readi­ness than any­one else.

6. Networking and Professional Relationships

Aside from your abil­i­ty to fin­ish the pro­gram faster, fast-track class­es also hold great poten­tial for nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­al net­work­ing. This is because the peo­ple engag­ing in these pro­grams are often going for a career change. This means they already have con­nec­tions and are clear about the paths they want to fol­low in life. More­over, they prob­a­bly have enough expe­ri­ence to help you get past this stage of your life.

Nowa­days, accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing pro­grams are fair­ly immer­sive despite not nec­es­sar­i­ly being held in a class­room. You can con­nect with them via var­i­ous plat­forms, dis­cuss case stud­ies, and share clin­i­cal expe­ri­ences. These con­nec­tions might be main­tained lat­er, and a long-term pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship can poten­tial­ly improve your accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing success. 

7. Adaptability Skills

One thing we know about the med­ical field is that it’s not a very tran­quil world. With patients com­ing and going, just like doc­tors, nurs­es have to deal with a fair amount of stress. Very often, it takes them plen­ty of time until they can get used to the pace and obtain a good work-life balance.

By going for an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram, the fast-learn­ing envi­ron­ment will ulti­mate­ly help you to get on your feet, think quick­ly, and deal with high-pres­sure sit­u­a­tions. The inten­sive cur­ricu­lum should teach you how to mul­ti­task, pri­or­i­tize, and man­age your stress lev­els. You will also learn to adapt to changes in your sched­ule, some­thing that fre­quent­ly hap­pens in the nurs­ing environment.

Accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing pro­grams focus more on prac­tice than the­o­ry, so you will also have access to sim­u­lat­ed real-world sce­nar­ios. Real­is­tic sce­nar­ios can help you bet­ter han­dle a med­ical emer­gency, whether they are part of a sim­u­la­tion lab or clin­i­cal practicum. They can also help you make bet­ter deci­sions while you are put under pressure.

8. Supportive Learning Environment

Accel­er­at­ed pro­grams can be quite demand­ing if you are unfa­mil­iar with them, and it makes sense that insti­tu­tions would cre­ate a sup­port­ive sys­tem around them. Ser­vices such as aca­d­e­m­ic advis­ing helped stu­dents find a per­son­al­ized plan they could ben­e­fit from in the long run, espe­cial­ly when chang­ing careers.

Tutor­ing and exten­sive online libraries also proved to be com­mon nurs­ing stu­dent sup­port options. Should stu­dents have dif­fi­cul­ties grasp­ing the con­cepts in the fast-paced envi­ron­ment, drop-in tutor­ing ser­vices and oth­er resources are offered to improve the aca­d­e­m­ic environment.

Most accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing degrees are also made with work­ing per­son­nel in mind, which means that class­es have a high­er flex­i­bil­i­ty. If the stu­dent can­not attend the class­room lec­tures or join at spec­i­fied times, they could opt for online record­ed class­es. This allows them to study when they have time, such as on week­ends, evenings, or free days. This is a sup­port­ive fea­ture that is high­ly ben­e­fi­cial for some­one work­ing in health­care or who has a family.

The Bottom Line

Accel­er­at­ed nurs­ing degrees are often more advan­ta­geous than tra­di­tion­al ones and there are var­i­ous rea­sons for that. Not only do they take less time to final­ize, but they are also more cost-effec­tive and offer bet­ter flex­i­bil­i­ty for the stu­dents. If you are inter­est­ed in becom­ing a nurse, research the avail­able pro­grams and choose the one that allows you to pur­sue the career goal you have in mind.

Sources:

• Busi­ness Wire
• Nation­al Library of Medicine
• US News