A career in nursing might be chosen for a variety of reasons. To put it mildly, a nursing job is one of the most flexible, dependable, and gratifying occupations.

But the most difficult part of your journey will probably be applying to your preferred nursing program. The majority of nursing schools demand, among other things, an essay in which you outline your professional objectives and motivations for wanting to become a nurse.
This post will discuss the various nursing careers available to you and demonstrate how to write a career essay.
- Planning Your Essay
Consider your objectives and your career aspirations before you begin to write. Gathering ideas is the main focus of this stage.
List potential nursing career paths.
Registered nurses have the choice of working in clinics, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, clinics, jails, long-term care institutions, and other domestic and international locations.
This is a list of possible paths for your nursing career.
Bedside Nursing
Travel Nurse
Hospice Nurse
Forensic Nurse
Home Health Nurse
Non-Bedside Nursing
Clinical Nurse Educator
IT Nurse
Telephone Triage Nurse
Nurse Advocate
Nurse Instructor
Advanced Career Nursing
Nurse Practitioner
Nurse Anesthetist
Nurse Midwife
Do you know yet what direction you want to pursue your career in? Even if you are unsure, you should have a general notion so that you can map out your career goals more easily in the steps that follow.
Create a Nursing Career Plan
After you have focused your thoughts on a nursing career, it is necessary to consider how you will convey your views.
Consider everything you need to cover in your essay, including:
- Who is your target market?
- a list of the things you find intriguing as a nursing student and why they interest you
- why you made your decision to enroll in a nursing school
- Earlier training is necessary to become a good nurse.
- What distinguishes you? (Test scores)
- any instruction in medicine or patient care
- What qualities do you possess that will help you succeed as a nurse?
- Why you should be admitted to the nursing program as a student
- Which type of workplace do you prefer? frantic and quick-moving? quiet, steady, and slowly?
- What are your professional objectives, and how will you fulfill them?
- What academic actions are you going to need to take to achieve your objectives?
Step 2: Creating an Essay Outline
Typically, an essay’s structure is as follows: an introduction, body paragraphs with the major information, and a conclusion.
You structure your essay and arrange your ideas during this procedure.
No need to worry; step 3 will delve more into the specifics of what you must include in each element.
The components of your essay must be as follows:
Title | Grab the reader’s attention |
Introduction | Powerful personal statement Hook the reader Interesting personal story |
Body | Your nursing career goals Long term goals Short term goals Why you want to be a nurse |
Conclusion | Emphasize your main statement Leave an impression on your audience |
Step 3: Compose an essay about your nursing career
The time has come to put pen to paper. Write your essay, even if it’s just a rough draft.
Title
One of an essay’s most important components is its title. Keep your audience in mind while you write your title. The admissions committee will be your target audience if you are writing this essay to apply to a nursing program.
Put your audience’s viewpoint into consideration. Would you like to read the same book repeatedly? Make sure to stand out from the throng and use a title that is not what they would anticipate. A fantastic title can be made in a variety of ways.
- Create your title as a question (use “Where,” “When,” “Who,” “How,” or “Why” as the opening)
- Use an intriguing phrase from your essay as the heading.
- Rewrite a well-known book or movie title to fit the subject of your essay (keep in mind the age range of your audience and choose a title that will appeal to them).
Introduction
An essential component of your work is the beginning to your essay. It must offer a strong personal statement. The sentence must be original and give a little narrative about the author.
Your readers’ interest and attention should be captured in the opening to entice them to keep reading.
Providing distinct information about yourself is one appropriate technique to go about this. Consider the following:
- What distinguishes you from other candidates?
- Do you have a fascinating or distinctive tale that motivated you to seek a profession in nursing?
Why you desire to become a nurse should come through in one of your responses. The response to this query provides a seamless transition between your professional objectives. beginning and body of an essay.
The Body of the Essay on Career Goals
The body of a nursing school essay should explain to the admissions committee why you want to become a nurse and why you should be accepted into their program. If you have a real-life tale, you can use it.
You want to become a nurse, why?
A prospective nursing student frequently has a personal motivation in addition to the desire to care for people. Typically, the story is depressing, but it gives the student a great desire and determination.
As a nurse, you should be prepared to “handle” with things like blood, bodily fluids, and the deaths of newborns, kids, teens, young adults, adults, and the elderly. Those who have been injured in car accidents are fighting for their lives, sick people may not be able to speak or move on their own, tragedy has struck, and life’s cycle has gone awry.
Hospitals also witness joyful occasions such as childbirth, the discharge of infants and their parents, the healthy and contented departure of patients who have spent weeks or months there, and the return of surgery patients who are no longer in agony to their homes and productive lives.
Make it clear that you are familiar with both aspects of this profession. It demonstrates your commitment to this vocation and your level of readiness for the challenges ahead.
- You can draw from what you saw and add any positive experiences if you have worked or volunteered at a doctor’s office or hospital.
- If you spent at least a few days as a patient in a hospital, you can draw from that experience to recall how you felt as you observed the nurses and physicians tend to you and even other patients. Of course, you’d have to have a good experience.
- Consider the scenario where you volunteered to read to the kids in a pediatric hospital. You may then describe how it made you feel and how the nurses interacted with the kids. You can consider how the nurses handled the child and the circumstances, how that made you feel, and why you desired to be able to provide the same care for a child or an adult when you were older if a child was in pain or upset because their parents had to leave.
Short-term and long-term objectives
Your essay’s main body will be comprised of this. The majority of your essay should focus on your professional aspirations in nursing.
There will be objectives you can accomplish more quickly than others. Setting both short-term and long-term goals is one way to approach the situation.
Short-term objectives are those that you can complete in less than a year, but long-term objectives call for a little more perseverance and foresight. These objectives are typically five-year ones.
It demonstrates your ambition and professional vision that you have both short-term and long-term nursing career goals listed. The influence you hope to have once you join the nursing workforce should be emphasized in these goals. The way to present them is as follows.
Examples of quick-term objectives
board certification and nursing school graduation
taking classes to earn additional certifications like the Critical Care Registered Nurse (CRN) or Advanced Certified Life Support (ACLS) (CCRN)
enrolling in classes to broaden and deepen your existing knowledge EKG, for instance, qualifies a nurse as a cardiac nurse, and mother-baby qualifies a nurse as a labor and delivery nurse.
enhancing interactions with patients and coworkers through communication
Cases of long-term objectives
- Advancement is a fairly typical career objective. Consider working as an educator or a family nurse practitioner if you want a more demanding nursing role or are feeling burnt out.
- Getting an administration role is a wonderful way to advance in the nursing profession. If you want to leave the bedside, this is an excellent choice. Nurses are the best candidates for the positions because they already possess a wealth of nursing-related information.
Your motivation for selecting nursing and your career objectives should both illustrate how you will benefit patients and what kind of difference you will make in people’s lives.
Essay Summary
Because it is the last section they read, this one will be remembered by your audience the most. Therefore, your conclusion should include a summary of your accomplishments and skill.
Giving your audience something to think about at the conclusion of your essay is a great method to stand out.
- Link your individual experiences or stories to your nursing aspirations.
- In order for your paper to reach full circle, go back to the introduction.
- Finish your essay with a thought-provoking query.
- Your essay should conclude with a strong sentence.
Tips for Writing Your Nursing Career Essay in General
- Proofread your writing five times in total, after which have five more people do the same. You won’t be admitted to that nursing program with a poorly formatted essay that is full of spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Plagiarism is prohibited. If you need assistance with your essay, ask your parents, friends, or, if you’re still in school, your teacher; nevertheless, never use someone else’s words without permission. That demonstrates a lack of motivation, desire, and interest.
- Your essay’s (text’s) citations must include a bibliography.
- Selecting the appropriate writing style
- Be sure to adhere to the stated instructions, such as the word count.
- Pay attention to language and tone (when talking about your personal experiences, try to be as descriptive as possible so your audience can empathize with you)