After using up money and time in nursing school and you get the information to get a master’s degree in nursing, you may start to wonder why you need to bother about earning a master’s degree.
However, bagging a master’s degree is the equivalent of adding a second story to the house of your career. With the medical field not being an exception, earning a master’s degree in nursing opens doors of opportunities that are impossible or difficult to open without additional education.
Through the more specialized skills and training, an MSN explains your ability to guide others, manage your environment, and interpret technology. To convince you that an MSN is worth the effort, in this article are its advantages.
4 Advantages of Getting a Master’s Degree In Nursing
Higher Salary
An increased salary is one of the major advantages of an MSN. Similar to several other occupations, getting an advanced degree in nursing is capable of giving your nursing salary a boost.
While better pay is not necessarily a guarantee, an advanced education demonstrates that you have valuable expertise, which nurses without master’s degrees can not claim to have, especially if you choose an area of specialty.
Although the exact pay rate varies between locations and depends on a particular specialization, generally, RNs earn an average salary of about $77,600 annually, while MSN graduates earn more. That is to say; your advanced degree could eventually earn you a $20,000 increase in your income over time.
Moreover, a master’s degree in nursing can help you move into higher-level roles in the nursing field, which are usually better paid. Earning a degree in nursing informatics, nursing education, or nursing leadership can drive you into senior-level positions in a hospital. Meanwhile, these higher-level positions mostly come with higher pay.
Better Hours
Even though nursing can be a gratifying career, particularly when it comes to helping individuals regain their independence, the number of hours to work is not always the best. Even for young nurses fresh out of school, twelve-hour shifts are exhausting. Also, no one ever wishes to work on holidays.
But if you get a master’s degree in the field, you will be qualified for management positions, many of which provide more traditional 40-hour work weeks.
In essence, an MSN degree can aid you in moving to a position as a nurse manager, setting schedules, and leading your nursing team to success. There is a low probability for nurse managers to need to work weekends and nights because they will mostly be in demand during regular hours.
Similarly, an MSN can help you become a nurse educator, which also has more regular working hours. Nurse educators help to train their teams on procedures for the hospital, and that training often occurs during a typical workday.
In addition, nurse informatics is responsible for the utilization of data to work with nurses and hospital administrators for decision-making. This is also typically carried out during the day, during regular business hours.
Greater Knowledge
Indeed, the primary advantage of going back to school is the expansion of your medical knowledge, which in turn, will help you to be better at your job. Research reveals that the higher education a nurse has, the better their clinical skills will be, the higher their success rates and the more knowledgeable they will be in their area of specialty.
Getting your master’s degree in nursing will give you a deeper understanding of things that were merely skimmed over in nursing school. A master’s degree will also give you the privilege to home in on an area you are particularly interested in.
Wider Options
If you are possibly feeling quite stuck in your current role and would like to explore other options in the nursing field, bagging an advanced degree can open you up to a wealth of opportunities.
If you have an advanced degree with more experience, you can choose to move into a leadership role, working to help manage all the nurses in a clinic or a department. You will help track performance, set schedules, supervise all their work, and more.
A higher level of education can help you become a nurse educator, training future nurses and helping to prepare them for the scenarios they could face on the job. You can also choose to work for a hospital or a school in order to help future nurses be prepared for their future.
Additionally, an advanced degree can prepare you for a future in nursing informatics, where you get to utilize your nursing experience and combine it with technology and data to help push decisions for an organization.
There are numerous options for nurses beyond the famous traditional nursing work, and an MSN can prepare you for whatever may be ahead.
The Value of a Master of Science In Nursing
Apart from the advantages of an MSN that have been discussed above, it is essential to also understand the value a nursing master’s degree has.
The clinic or hospital you work will most likely see value in your increased skill. Evidence shows that nurses that have postgraduate studies tend to be better at critical thinking and decision-making processes. The evidence also indicates that they tend to have leadership qualities that help them make significant changes in their organization and are available to take on advanced roles.
Moreover, even nurses will be able to themselves see the value of their master’s degree in their increased opportunities, increased salary, and enhanced ability to help patients thrive.
Ultimately, a master’s degree in nursing will help you create a positive impact both on other nurses and on patients. Whenever you rise to take the lead, you will be able to offer help to other nurses for their growth and development, and overall, you will be able to work as a team for the purpose of improving patient outcomes and saving lives.
