Nursing Program Experience

I’m a high school student (junior) looking to go into nursing and ultimately become a DNP. At the moment the Pitt nursing school is my #1 choice, but I have been looking at various stories of people’s experience in the program. Many praise the experience and ability to get a job after, but I’ve also found many scathing reviews on the inflexibility of the program and the lack of caring from the professors.

If you could reply with your experience that would be awesome!

Just a personal background, I’ve taken or will take almost every AP class offered at my school (Calc, Stats, Chemistry, Physics 1&2, American Lit, US History, Modern European History, Economics, Gov) as well as honors bio and chemistry. I’m also involved in sports and multiple clubs. So the workload in nursing is not a concern, but please let me know if it would be much more difficult than what I have taken so far. Thanks!

Just curious. Why do you want the DNP? The rumors about it “being required” are not quite true. They’ve been saying that for years and years and so far nothing has been done to make that a reality.

The DNP is good if you know you want to do research or teach. If you want to practice in Internal medicine or family practice, etc. you absolutely do not need your DNP. You will not be paid more. In fact, a lot of offices look at the DNP quite skeptically because those grads seem to feel they should be paid more.

Some schools now only have the option of the DNP and if so then of course you have to do it. But you could save a significant chunk of change if you go for an MSN.

The whole DNP isn’t set in stone. I assume as I go through school and learn more about the ‘next step.’ I’m not sure exactly what type of NP I want to be but from shadowing experience I’m 90% sure I want to be a nurse practitioner.

I am a FNP and ACNP both board certified. If I did it over I would have just got the FNP.

Thanks for mentioning that, I didn’t even know those existed!