I’m a junior in high school, and before I go to college, I want to pick what career I want, so I won’t have to do it at the last minute. The problem is, I don’t know what I want. I want to be a nurse but, I also want to do computer-related stuff like be a video game designer, programming games. I want to be a nurse because I love helping people nursing looks professional and, I want to learn about anatomy. I also heard that some nurses get paid well. I want to be a video game designer because I’ve played video games since I was little, and I love video games. My dream was to work with Electronic Arts and program video games. I’m worried that I might get tired of sitting in front of a computer for a long time, but what if I don’t like nursing. Another thing I’m worried about is, do I have to go out of state to get my residency for nursing or, can I do it where I live? Can you guys help me, please?
I have a son doing CS : Game Design at UC Santa Cruz. I’ve heard from many people that being a video game designer is a very difficult path and the hours are long and grueling. Also, it’s very hard to break into the industry. I told my son his best bet is to make sure he takes a lot of CS classes so that he can be a software engineer if he doesn’t get into video game design,
You should ask yourself how much you like CS in general. Because it’s very hard to land a job in game design. I would imagine there are a lot more job opportunities as a nurse, but I don’t know much about that industry.
I actually have a good friend who works at EA as a game designer. He loves his job, but it sounds like he works very hard, all the time.
CS generally has decent job prospects now, but occasional industry downturns can be bad. The game sector is a small one, and hours can be very long when pressed up against hard deadlines for game releases.
Nursing generally has decent job prospects, but hours can be long and unusual (hospitals need nurses at all hours), and job satisfaction does not seem great (many are in unions that seemingly threaten to strike every few years, often about working conditions and staffing levels). Note that nursing is a somewhat physical job that can get hectic when there are lots of patients needing somewhat urgent nursing help.
Both CS and nursing are commonly more selective than their host colleges. There may also be secondary admission processes (requiring high GPA and/or competitive admission) after enrolling. Some direct-admission nursing programs have high GPA weed-out requirements to stay in the major.
As a practical matter, a student heading to a four year college after high school needs to decide between the two when applying to colleges, since there is little commonality in course work even in first year.
A student starting at a community college may be able to start in an ADN/RN program, with intent to later go to an RN->BSN program at a four year college (but the ADN/RN will allow access to some nursing jobs after two years), but could switch to CS at the cost of extra year(s) at community college before transfer to a four year college. But ADN/RN programs at community colleges can be competitive to get into.
Can you explore them both now?
Can you volunteer at a hospital to get exposure to nursing? (not sure if that is possible during Covid)
Can you take a CS class in HS or do some programming of your own to see how you like it? There are websites that allow you to practice programming.
ALso ask yourself: Would you like a job where you are helping people directly? Or helping to solve problems?
Are you extraverted and gain energy by being around people? or are you introverted and would rather work more on your own?
Both types of jobs can be fungible…that is you can take your skills to a new city and more easily get a job.
Computer Science (and the easier IT) will guarantee a job, as will Nursing. As for gaming, etc - forget it. How are your math skills? That will lead you one way or the other. In the meantime, maybe try a robotics class in high school.