Written By Amy Beardsley
This essay is from a winner of the 2019 Student Loan Planner® Scholarship.
Like many SLP readers, my younger self did everything I was “supposed to.” I had a very Catholic, conscientious upbringing and it was impressed upon me early on that my purpose in life was to find my “calling” and serve the world via my career – money being a secondary afterthought.
I went straight from high school to undergraduate school at the age of 17, and graduated several years later ready to “change the world.” In all my 22-year-old wisdom, I decided that law school would be the best means to do this.
Law School and Big Student Loans
I enrolled at a school that fed off of young people like me who were pros at standardized test-taking, anxious to do good and thought nothing about money.
The school’s claim to fame was its public interest law programs (environmental law, in particular) – but it charged every bit as much as other private law schools where students were on track for powerful law firm positions.
My classmates and I had a peripheral awareness that the amounts of loans we were taking out were enormous, but there were two mantras we repeatedly told each other: 1) “The banks wouldn’t give us this money if we wouldn’t be able to easily pay it off once we graduate,” and 2) “Worst case scenario, we can declare bankruptcy and it will go away.”
We had no idea how inaccurate these statements were and were at no point clued in to their inaccuracy.
The Recession and the Law School Scam
I graduated in 2008 with $205,000 in debt, just as the market was collapsing. The recession hit the legal profession very hard right around this time (although it later became apparent that law schools had been accepting more students than the market could justify for some time).
During the next few years, what I had experienced came to be known as “the law school scam” — but it was too late for me. There were very few job openings, and those that came up were flooded with applications from both new and experienced attorneys.
In the west coast city where I lived, law firms took advantage of the desperation of new(ly indentured) graduates to actually post volunteer lawyer positions (i.e. NO pay), the tradeoff being that the lawyer would “gain experience.”
I will not delve too deeply into the nightmare of this situation, but will say that over the course of the next several years I put in approximately 300 job applications and only landed one temporary job that required a law degree. It was in a completely different part of the country – and paid $23 per hour.
The benefit of the dark years following law school was that I was forced to become more practical and to learn about the importance of personal finance.
As it turned out, the world didn’t need highly educated attorneys with good intentions (or at least, it wasn’t willing to pay them). What it needed (as my many long hours surfing job boards made clear), was nurses. At one point, my now-husband suggested that maybe I should consider becoming an RN instead.
Although I detested the idea of starting again from scratch, my loans were still looming and I was desperate not to wait tables forever. I decided to dip my toe into healthcare by taking a 2-month nurse aide course that cost around $40 at my local community college.
From Law School to Nursing
That course immediately landed me a well-paying (for me, at the time) job in the medical field as a medical assistant in a doctor’s office. The positive return on that small investment encouraged me to keep going, and I started taking nursing prerequisites at that same community college, paying out of pocket as I went.
The beauty of taking my nurse prerequisites at a not-remotely-prestigious community college (shout-out to Central New Mexico Community College!) was that it was relatively easy for me to earn one of the limited spots in the nursing program, which at the time used a merit-based entrance system (as opposed to a lottery).
Although I was very weary of school, as a law school graduate I had confidence that I could survive the four-semester intensive nursing program, so I took the plunge.
It was an intense program, and required every ounce of my energy and attention. Much like law school, it reshaped the way I thought and the way I perceived the world.
However, in sharp contrast to law school, I felt like nursing school was actually turning me into a better person – training me to be a more compassionate and caring person who could work in (as we were repeatedly reminded) the country’s number one most trusted profession.
Prior to my MA job, I had no experience in the medical field, no particular desire to deal with needles or body fluids, and a strong fear of accidentally harming a patient.
But once I was in the RN program, I knew that the values promoted by the nursing profession – kindness, standing up for the helpless, doing the right thing – making it a field that was much more attractive to me. I also loved the science and technical aspects which have become equally important in the nursing field.
Nursing isn’t for everyone. It can be very long hours and those hours can be intense and grueling, physically and emotionally.
Patient care can (and does) regularly demand your everything and many nurses struggle with finding the inner resources to give this and still give their families or themselves the care they deserve.
Burnout is high; it is especially high with new nurses who deal with the simultaneous stresses of navigating a fast-paced yet dangerous job (aware that a small mistake or oversight could seriously harm or kill a patient), and the stress of sometimes unsupportive or even aggressively hostile co-workers who are stressed themselves (there is a common saying that nurses eat their own young).
However, positive team environments are not impossible to find and those can make all the difference for a new nurse. Additionally, hospitals are working to address the common challenges that new nurses face because onboarding a new nurse is very, very expensive.
Finding a Job that Actually Pays
But as a lawyer-turned-nurse, I would like to share with SLP readers that the rumors are true. There are plenty of nursing jobs, even for new graduates, and those jobs actually pay!
Incredibly, I started my first nurse job (via a 2-year associate program) making several dollars more hourly than my first law job (which required three years of graduate education).
My pay has steadily increased from there, and I usually receive two raises per year: One at my yearly performance evaluation and one which hospitals often give out as a “market-based adjustment” (i.e. to try to prevent nurses from job-hopping).
In my current job, I am able to have my most valued treasure: Work-life balance.
At my hospital, 30 hours per week is considered full-time, so I am able to work fewer hours than many other full-time mothers, while still (theoretically) qualifying for public service loan forgiveness. However, the income I could be making is limited only by the time and effort I want to put into it.
Nurses are in such huge demand right now, I could essentially work as many hours as I want. If I wanted to work nights or weekends I could make even more. If I had location flexibility, I could work as a traveler and make (as I understand it) almost twice what I’m making now.
And the beautiful versatility of a nursing degree is that if I tire of my current field, there are so many others I could pursue. Some areas make more than others, but all are hiring and almost all accept recent grads.
Don't Be Afraid of Taking a Different Path
Struggling with law school debt has dominated my adult years, and it will remain a struggle for me and my family for a long time to come. But ironically, nursing has become my tool to begin to pay it off.
I decided to write this essay not only because I know first-hand the value of an SLP consult, but because I have wanted to share my story as an example of an alternate path for other people for whom law school (or any other graduate program) became an expensive mistake.
A final thought: Nursing is not only in demand, but it is also an incredibly meaningful profession. As a nurse, I fully believe in the remarkable healing power of simply being present with someone, showing them that you care about them and listening to their story without judgment. Moment by moment, it can change the world. Thank you for the time you have taken to read my story.
CNM has an excellent nursing program and I am grateful to the school for its role in changing my life’s trajectory.
