Mid life career change crisis!... how to take the plunge!

Ok so i am talking 30-40's changing careers in a full 180! omg

bascially my career i have been in it for 11 years, and it has been good, and i love what i do
but it often leaves me emotionally drained, and physically exhausted. plus i dont find it family friendly (with shift work and weekends).

I have toyed with the idea of a career change - and supported DH through his at 31 also.

But:

i have no idea what i want to do

another 3 year degree seems to long to do part time and puts me off

Grad entry or post grad sounds good but not sure if any of the courses available excite me enough

i tried distance ed degree last year (llb) and i was enjoying it but had some issues arise which resulted in me pulling out, and scared to tried it again but would like to



what made you take the plunge?
are you glad you changed careers (esp if there wasnt really anything wrong with the one you were in?)

PP - what do you currently do? Is there a field within your profession you can go into? I know in my profession there are lots and lots of different avenues - education, OHS, Health Promotion etc.

hi MG!
I am an RN, there are possibily other avenues but im not sure if i want to stay in health??

What do you want to do? If you have a degree, many skills are transferable, depending on where you wanted to take it.

Could you do community nursing? Or a nurse practitioner? What about a diploma of midwifery and try to be a mchn?

Many gp surgeries employ nurses too.

My sister is an rn and the shift work sent her bonkers. There are more 9-5 jobs in nursing though. Have you contacted an agency?

i dont want to study nurse practitioner and as a casual it is had to be signed off by a governing body to gain admission to the course anyhow.
mid is an option - although i dont want to be a midwife, but understand the importance in my current role as a paed nurse.
however i need to be available for 4 days a week rotating roster for prac for 12 months and with no childcare not an option unti both kids are at school.
gp looked into it - to be honest i think it will bore me and for the pay i could get more money in an unskilled job - its disgusting the why RN's are belittled by the gp system.
i was looking into a masters of child health nursing to get into residental kind of care centres and thats as far as i got lol!

FB - i dont know what i want to do, i have lots of "that would be fun or interesting" jobs i think about - journalism/copywriting/law/ but they are all big education commitments and not sure i am ready for full on uni all over again (on top of kids, and work etc).

and all the things i would like to do dont involve pay lol! ( ie charities, red cross international aid etc) and well.... can pick the money tree in the back yard!

When I enrolled to study in my early 20's I thought I was going be the oldest in the course, but there was quite a few in their late 30's or 40's and they were taking the plunge with a career change. Up until a couple of years ago I was in contact with one (she'd be in her late 50's now) and she was loving it!

This is the way I'm approaching my career change from corporate communications. I've looked at what sort of stuff I think about in my spare time, what I'm passionate about/interested in. I used to spend a lot of time on BB. Why? Because I'm interested in people's lives, interested in how people raise their kids. Also interested in education policy and issues like obesity. I'd like to make a positive difference to people's lives, especially children's lives. I'm not cut out to be a social worker so the best fit for me is social policy. I've applied to do a Masters in Social Policy Research.

What else do I spend my time doing? Real estate porn. I'm always looking at houses online. I'd love to renovate houses but that requires a lot of capital and I don't want to take that financial risk right now. But if the social policy research doesn't eventuate, then I figure I will do a short course in real estate and become a real estate agent. Yes, I know this is a world apart from social policy :) but I'm a Gemini.

Apart from waffling on about myself, my real point is to say ... what d'you spend your spare time thinking about - that will tell you what your passions are. Hone your passions into a career and I reckon you can't go wrong.

And if I can start a new career (at the bottom) with study at nearly 43, then anyone can. You only live once.

Thanks girls... What do I think about in my spare time....
I think about decorating organizing and designing my house, I think about organizing things for people ie I love it when dh emails and says I need you to find out the. Best way to do something... The planning organizing and presenting it.

But I don't know what that means lOl

There's a lot you can do with your nursing without being too health focused (sounds weird but true!). There is ohs, research, policy, education etc etc.

But if you like decorating, why not have a look at an interior design course? Good luck finding something!

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hi MG!
I am an RN, there are possibily other avenues but im not sure if i want to stay in health??

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I believe you can do teaching in 12 months if you are a qualified nurse incase that might interest you.

ive looked into that and the units of the nursing degree so not satisfy the 1 year teaching course

Really? I thought it did? I thought you could go on to do post grad in education?

Post grad in education usually requires a three year degree at a minimum. I know to be registered as a teacher you must have done 4 years of uni (at least that's the case in SA and we changed over in the past 5 years sometime from 3 years of uni so it was inline with national standards)


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If you like organising you can be a planner - events management, virtual assistant, travel agent...... they're all about planning stuff to a certain degree.

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Really? I thought it did? I thought you could go on to do post grad in education?

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I have a friend who is a RN and she was going to do it so I don't know?

I was under the impression that any 3 year Bachelor level course was only 1 year to do a grad Dip.
My brother did a 3 year music course and then a 1 year grad dip ed.

What about school nursing?? nurse immunisor?? community health nursing (more education based).

Good luck its hard to know what is right to do. Doing MCHN now part time and it is full on and massive strain on life at present but hope at end of it hours will make a happier life for all!

I teach Bush Regeneration and Environmental Management at TAFE and we always have a handful of nurses enrolling in our courses each semester. They look tired and a little bit crazy and say “I don’t want to deal with people, I just want to be outside with the plants” :lol: . Nurses make excellent bush regenerators. ;)

All the very best for your new adventure. :hug:

With the education thing I meant you had to have done a three yr (min) degree before attempting the grad dip (usually either a 12 or 18 mth course) sorry it wasn't too clear - blame mid afternoon feeding baby brain for that.


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Yeah if you have completed an undergrad degree, you can complete the 12 month Grap Dip Ed. You could then apply that in some sort of clinical education.
If you like organising and planning, why not look in to nursing management? You could get out of the shift work and earn some better money too.

You could be a professional organiser...no idea how one goes about that, but they are on Hoarders all the time! :D :D

It is a big step and it is daunting, good luck!

hi!
yes i thought his too but i actually applied and was told that a nursing degree doesnt have even points in specific science subjects to be allowed entry into the 1 year program to teach secondary

I trained at TAFE - it gave me skills & experience that made me very marketable in new career stream (library).

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hi!
yes i thought his too but i actually applied and was told that a nursing degree doesnt have even points in specific science subjects to be allowed entry into the 1 year program to teach secondary

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Where/who told you that? My BA has NO science at all, and I can do the Grad Dip Ed....I would check that out further.

it is to do with what subjects you wish to teach in secondary for the 1 year course.
a nursing degree is not specialised enough to knock out the second year of training to teach any subject.
i owul dhave to do further study on top of the 1 year to be able to teacha certain subject.
the closest is science but still not enough core subjects

Any reason you can't do an extra few units as well?

You couldn't take health as a teaching subject rather than science? We have an ex- midwife on staff teaching health type subjects and child studies.


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