I really like both of these careers and am having a hard time choosing between the two. I want a career where I will be able to help others. However, my main priority is my health. I suffer from a couple of autoimmune diseases and suffer from long ailments. I want a career that won’t burden my health. I know these two require standing for a long time but that won’t be a problem. I also like these careers for the time(teacher:summer breaks/Nurse:3 shift weeks). Which is better for the future job opportunities? Also, which field of nursing would you recommend? Thanks for all your help!
Nursing is better for future job opportunities, quite frankly - and as a nurse, you can also be a teacher. There’s actually a shortage of nursing teachers in the country right now. As a nurse with a bachelor’s degree, you can be a preceptor, which means that when nursing students come to the hospital to do their clinicals you can supervise and educate them. And if you get a master’s in nursing, you can then teach nursing classes at a college or university - either full-time or part-time while you work on the floor.
Don’t worry about fields of nursing yet - you won’t get to pick up front, really. If you become a nursing major, you will be exposed to different kinds of nursing as you do clinical rotations through a hospital. That’ll give you a feel for the different kinds of nursing jobs that you can do. But even then, after you graduate as a new nurse, most likely you’ll do general medical/surgical nursing - which is your generic floor nurse at a hospital. Usually you have to have a few years of med/surg under your belt before you can go onto specialty areas like labor and delivery, intensive care, oncology, etc.
Do note that if your autoimmune disease involves fatigue, those 3-shift weeks are made up of 12-hour shifts. That’s 12 hours of basically being on your feet the entire time responding to patients and doctors.
Teaching is an awesome job too, of course, and certain areas of teaching - like bilingual education, math, and the physical sciences - have better job opportunities than others. However, in some regions of the country teaching jobs are difficult to find, particularly in English and history.