The Difference Between Nursing Degrees, Essay Example

Individuals that wish to enter the field of nursing can enter a variety of training programs. However, different degrees will allow nurses to enter different career paths that will influence salary and overall job satisfaction. Many nurses seek either an Associates of Science in Nursing or a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing, as these degree paths provide students with a quick and thorough education that will allow them to enter practice immediately after they pass the appropriate certification exams. After completing a bachelor’s in nursing, some professionals opt to complete a master’s degree or PhD program to learn how to conduct nursing research. According to “The Age of Social Transformation” and “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave” nursing education has evolved significantly as a consequence of societal changes. When the field was initiated, individuals who wished to enter the field entered apprenticeships to learn the skills of the trade. However, social transformation increased the level of knowledge that nurses were expected to have and degree programs were implemented to ensure that nurses would be accountable for this information. Therefore, a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing program is designed to allow students to achieve a higher nursing mastery that students enrolled in Associates of Science in Nursing programs.

According to Peter F. Drucker in “The Age of Social Transformation”, knowledge workers are those who have obtained their labor skills through a formal education. On the other hand, in “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave” Mac McClelland states that wage slaves are skilled laborers who have difficulty finding ideal jobs due to the amount of people who are able take over the position at any given moment. The modern labor force is primarily comprised of knowledge workers, which marks a significant shift, as a greater amount of manual labor jobs were available in previous years. Drucker reminds us of this significant shift by stating “no century in recorded history has experienced so many social transformations and such radical ones as the twentieth century” (Drucker, 1994, p. 53). The higher degree that an individual has, the greater ability that this person will have to be a knowledge worker. However, in this modern age, even individuals that wish to become skilled labors need obtain some level of formal education in order to be competitive with the other individuals applying for similar jobs. As a consequence, many of these individuals aim to earn associate’s degrees to demonstrate that they are able to offer both knowledge and skills to their employers. This is related to the concept of the hybrid worker, who needs to earn a mixture of experience and education to succeed.

In their essays, Peter Drucker and Mac McClelland fail to note the concept of this hybrid worker, who has achieved both skills in their given field and a formal education. This is an unfortunate exception because many health care workers can fall under both the “knowledge workers” and “wage slaves” categories. Like knowledge workers, nurses at a variety of levels need to achieve a formal education in order to learn the skills necessary that they need to implement in the workforce. Furthermore, like wage workers, there are many individuals who wish to work in the nursing field, so employees have to accept the fact that long hours must be worked. For wage workers, the evolution of the need for knowledge workers is problematic. Drucker explains that “the rise of the class succeeding industrial workers… is a challenge (Drucker, 1994). In the modern world workers who achieve an associate’s degree in nursing can be likened more to wage workers, while individuals who achieve a bachelor’s degree in nursing are more closely affiliated with knowledge workers. Ultimately, a higher degree marks an increased ability to perform one’s job in the field of nursing. Individuals with bachelor’s degrees are given greater responsibilities in the workplace, which in turn indicates that they are provided with a higher salary. Many workers with associate’s degrees enter the field earning a lower salary and often stay at the same salary cap despite their acquisition of skills. Therefore, it is clear that individuals who enter the field with an associate’s degree are not held as equals compared to their peers with higher degrees, despite the fact that the number of hours worked in addition to the tasks performed by both groups of workers will occasionally be the same.

The nursing industry has many parallels with knowledge work and wage slavery. According to Peter McClelland, wage slaves are subject to “rigorous training” and are required to come in on time daily or will risk losing their jobs, and are required to work long hours without additional pay (McClelland, 2012, p. 1). Nurses at all levels are required to long hours and often without breaks to meet the demands of their health care setting. However, the need for nurses to do this changes with the level of education that they acquire. Nurses that hold associate’s degrees are most likely to work long hours and be called into the hospital on their days off, while nurses that hold master’s degrees and PhD’s are more likely to work regular hours due to the differences that these individuals have in terms of their responsibilities. Individuals that wish to further themselves in the field of nursing should therefore strive to earn a higher degree. Unfortunately, the nursing field is biased towards formal education and the preferred jobs will always be given to individuals with a greater extent of formal education. This creates a gap between eligible nursing candidates because a continued education is very costly and many individuals cannot afford to receive higher degrees due to a need to immediately enter the workforce. This is an additional reason that nurses with associate’s degrees could be considered to be wage workers while those with a master’s or above could be considered knowledge workers. Although these nursing jobs are available for applicants with a wide range of education and experience, higher paying jobs with a greater ability to promotions are only available to individuals with more advanced degrees.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, individuals should choose which degrees they pursue based on their individual needs. Since the associate’s degree in nursing is offered by community colleges, this is often the most cost effective options for individuals who wish to pursue a nursing career. This program is also the least time consuming and is therefore the most ideal for individuals who wish to quickly enter the workforce. This resource argues that while a bachelor’s degree program is more costly and time consuming, bachelor’s degree recipients gain a more comprehensive education with regards to the sciences, nursing management, and community involvement. Specifically, the bachelor’s program is designed to provide “the nurse with a better understanding of the cultural, political, economic, and social issues that affect patients and influence health care delivery” (Smith, 2010, p. 1). Furthermore, bachelor’s degree recipients are more competitive in terms of job applications and are therefore more likely to be placed in a desirable position. Individuals who wish to be even more competitive on the field obtain masters and doctorate degrees so that they can engage in research practices on top of their clinical duties. These jobs are generally associated with higher salaries, more respect, and increased responsibilities.

The nursing field has evolved in a manner that allows individuals who have higher levels of formal education to be benefited, while those who have received skills from experience in the field are not treated as equals despite holding a knowledge of the same information. As a consequence, it is clear that knowledge workers dominate the field of nursing in the modern era. While wage slaves have the opportunity to enter the field, they will not be provided with equal treatment compared to their formally educated peers. As a consequence, they will be required to work longer hours and have unreasonable responsibilities for less pay. This appears to be an unfair disadvantage, as formal education is not achievable by all. Therefore, individuals who come from a lower socioeconomic status are typically able to only reach the associate’s level due to associated expenses and the need to enter the workforce sooner to support themselves. Ultimately, individuals who enter the nursing field with bachelor’s degrees have greater opportunities than individuals who enter the nursing field with associate’s degrees. It is therefore beneficial to achieve a higher level of education before entering the nursing field to ensure that the salary and job opportunities will be reasonable with respect to experience earned.

References

Drucker PF. (1994). The Age of Social Transformation. The Atlantic Monthly, 274(5): 53-80.

McClelland M. (2012). I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave. Mother Jones. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

Smith T. (2010). A Policy Perspective on the Entry into Practice Issue. The Online Journal of   Issues in Nursing, 15(1).