Future Road Map
Abstract3
Career Portfolio4
Section 14
Section 2 9
References..11
Abstract
I grew academically and personally a lot while working for this assignment about the future career path. A lot valuable skills were acquired for me, such as hard work, patience and willingness to produce a paper of a good quality. I chose nursing because of personal interest in nursing, and professional knowledge and skills that I’m gaining right now at the Houston Community College where I’m currently a first year student. In order to proceed on and to become a good specialist, I am planning to keep studying in university to get my degree after graduating from Houston Community College and to start a nursing career.
Fort Lauderdale in Florida and Atlanta in Georgia were compared with Houston in terms of cost of living. Houston was chosen as the destination for pursuing my nursing education and career. The detailed explanations of the reasons why I chose nursing and why Houston was chosen are provided in the rest of the report. I am looking forward to grow as a nursing professional in Houston that provides all the necessities and opportunities to develop as a professional. I believe that my personal qualities such as responsibility, empathy and willingness to work along with academic knowledge will make me a good nurse. Nursing salary will totally satisfy me in the future. According to the research, it is more than 30 dollars per hour and more than 65000 dollars per year for registered and experienced nurse.
Personally for me it is better to live in Houston, because I already know the city and its surroundings, and Houston is more affordable compared to Atlanta and Fort Laurderdale.
There are three places in Houston -“Encompass Hospice of Houston”, VITAS Healthcare of Houston and Houston Methodist Hospital” (Nonprofits, 2015). It is great that the city has the places where I can contribute to the society.
Career Portfolio
Section 1
This first year college semester was fruitful and interesting where I came to study for my nursing associate degree. It was memorable and responsible semester where I grew and matured a lot. I did benefit from the course EDUC 1300 not only from academic knowledge that I was lucky to get in this course, but personally where I did my best to improve myself in terms of managing time, being more patient and putting my priorities first as a first year student in college. This semester gave me chance to improve myself from many point of views. I know my weak sides better and willing to work and improve them. To become a better student next semester, I still need to learn how to organize my time in order to be more productive and to gain as much knowledge as I can. I am a mature person, so starting from the next semester, which will be very important for me; I will keep my activities and must do things, as homework, reading academic literature and social life in a special notebook. I believe it will help me to be as much organized as I can. This idea will save me time, and during free time, I am going to read nursing literature books. Knowledge is power nowadays and using knowledge and dedication, anything can be achieved. Second, I will be involved in volunteer organizations in order to be more helpful to the society and to practice my theory skills gained at educational institutions. The reason why I chose nursing among any other career options is that nursing is something that truly interests me and is something that I am passionate about. I believe that nursing is beneficial for the society, because it helps people and society as a whole. My nursing knowledge that I will gain in college upon graduation will help me a lot, because it will be not only about basic foundational knowledge, but also about the principles of nursing. Based on my research, nursing is not only respected profession, but also is quite a demanded profession according to many official sources of information. “If you are a nurse and looking for a job, it’s pretty easy to get a new gig” (Turchi, 2015) according to the official source of information found on the internet. While there are more business administration graduates than business administration jobs in the market, there is the opposite situation with nursing. The United States of America has a deficit of nurses (Ledbetter, 2015). This is a bad thing for the country, because the more there are patients for one nurse, there is higher possibility of “patients’ risk of death, infections, complications, falls, failure-to-rescue dates and readmission to the hospital” (Ledbetter, 2015). According to the article from New Yorker, not many people choose nursing due to extensive studying, specific knowledge required, threats for their own health deterioration because of hour shift and patient attacks (Ledbetter, 2015). Besides these reasons, nowadays there is “aging baby boomer population” (H, 2015) and over the years there are more and more patients who have “chronic medical conditions” (H, 2015), and as a result there is more and more nurses are needed across the country. Most of the nurses are satisfied with their job and tend to leave career early (Ledbetter, 2015). In order to attract more students into a nursing program, according to “American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) (Turchi, 2015), some nursing schools and programs to their best in order to attract more students by providing scholarships, funding help, getting more “facility members” (Turchi, 2015) such as professionals and teachers, and so on. Following the plan, “the Bureau of Labor Statistics” (Ramachandran, 2014) predicts a growth of more than 15 percent of employment rate for nurses until 2020 (Ramachandran, 2014). Despite the predicted growth and given opportunities for nursing, many people find it challenging, because according to nurses themselves, “it will really push you to your limits no matter how huge your efforts were to deliver the best nursing care, it is never enough” (Saavedra, 2015). In my case I am not scared by extensive studying and time that it takes to practice nursing career, the most important thing is that I love it and I consider myself very lucky that I have the ability to choose the career that truly interests me.
In order to find out the annual salary needed to maintain a desired cost of living, Texas Reality Check website was checked out. According to my mandatory (housing, electricity, transportation) and desired expenses (clothing, entertainment, eating out), I would need an annual salary of “$33,153” and monthly expenses of $2,402”, where taxes expenses are “$4,324”. Based on the “Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for nursing profession for those who have bachelor degree was “$66,640 per year in 2014 and $32.04 per hour” (Registered, 20150. When it comes to the job outlook, there is “16%” (Registered, 2015) in nursing that is faster than the national average. If I do my best in academically and practically, there are job opportunities for my future profession that will allow me to keep my desired living standards and also some extra financial stability in Houston, Texas.
Houston is the city that is familiar and beloved by me, I know its surroundings, I met great people there and I am getting unforgettable educational experience as a college student in Houston. In order to be sure that Houston is the right city to live in the future after I finish my bachelor degree at university, the comparison between Houston in Texas, Fort Lauderdale in Florida and Atlanta in Georgia were compared in terms of cost of living. As a result, Fort Lauderdale is more than 20% more expensive in groceries, more than 35% expensive in housing, 21% more expensive in transportation, more than 6 % expensive in health care and only 2 percent less expensive in utilities (Cost, 2016). Therefore, out of Houston and Fort Lauderdale I would choose Houston, because it is definitely more affordable, and affordability will be very important for me when I will finish my studies and will fully depend on myself while building my nursing career. Comparing Atlanta with Houston, Atlanta is less affordable in many ways. First, Atlanta is more than 20 percent expensive in groceries, more than 13% expensive in transportation, more than 11% expensive in health care and only more than 5% affordable in housing and utilities (Cost, 2016). The difference in terms of cost of living between Atlanta and Houston is not the big difference. Out of three cities, Houston is the most affordable in terms of costs of living. Based on the information that was gathered about the cost of living in Houston and my predicted and desired salary, I would be able to live a comfortable lifestyle in Houston upon graduating and finding a job as a nurse. As it was mentioned before, the cost of living in Houston is better in terms of prices, and familiarity, as in Houston I know people and the city. When I was gathering about the information of cost of living, I would say that most important expenses to me where groceries and especially housing expenses. The fact that Houston is more than 35 percent affordable in housing and more than 20 percent affordable in groceries compared to Fort Lauderdale, Houston was chosen at once as the destination for my career path. In terms of Atlanta, it has the same grocery expenses as Fort Lauderdale; however, it’s a little bit cheaper in housing expenses than Houston. However, Houston was finally chosen, because I have the opportunity to develop my networking while studying, and I would like to use my networking for my future career possibilities. In regards to volunteer and charitable organizations in Houston, there are some of them Houston where I will be willing to contribute to the society. “Encompass Hospice of Houston, VITAS Healthcare of Houston and Houston Methodist Hospital” are one of them” (Nonprofits, 2015). The aim of all of these organizations is to provide the benefit for the society and to focus on the health issues of the different kinds of patients. I believe it would be great to contribute myself as a volunteer, as I would acquire very valuable skills for my future career. First, I will be able to practice my theory knowledge, second, I will learn patience, hard work, and empathy and working with different people, third, it will be great for time management skills. Time management is what I should improve in order to be a better student, and in my opinion, being a part of volunteer team in health charities and organizations is a great tool to improve it.
In the conclusion, I am looking forward to my further educational path and career path at nursing. Choosing nursing was based on solely my decision and interest. After analyzing three cities, Houston was decided as the place where all my further dreams will be achieved. The part of these dreams is of course to develop as a nursing professional who loves her job and can afford a desirable lifestyle in the city of Houston, Texas.
Section 2
Resume
Telephone/ email
PERSONAL QUALITIES:
Responsible
Team-oriented
Organized
Attentive
Easy-going
Initiative
EDUCATION
Houston Community College
Nursing Associate Degree
PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
Quick learner in new situations
Good teamwork, communication and problem solving skills that can be used while working with clients and coworkers
EXPERIENCE
Volunteer at Turning Point Center Houston
Assisted with clothing, food and support to senior homeless citizens
Gained responsibility and patience
Typefocus results
Based on the typefocus results, I am the right person with the right personality for the future
nursing position. My strongest points are responsibility, patience, empathy, good level of
organization as well as the ability and the desire to work hard. The great interest along with
passion and academic background will definitely make me valuable and successful worker upon
References
Ledbetter, J. (2015, November 03). Why Is the U.S. Perpetually Short of Nurses? - The New
Yorker. Retrieved February 13, 2016, from
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-is-the-u-s-perpetually-short-of-nurses
Turchi, M. (2015, February 6). Is Nurse Actually the Most In-Demand Job? Retrieved February
13, 2016, from http://www.boston.com/jobs/news/2015/02/06/nurse-actually-the-most-
demand-job/CCJzhAQSzkKc5yhBzN2jiP/story.html
H. (2015). The Nursing Shortage: Where Are We Going to Find 1 Million New Nurses in the
Next Five Years? Retrieved February 13, 2016, from http://www.healthline.com/health-
news/where-are-we-going-to-find-1-million-new-nurses-in-the-next-five-years-092815
Ramachandran, V. (2014, May 07). The new nursing shortage. Retrieved February 13, 2016,
shortage/8807937/
Saavedra, S. M. (2015, October 14). 6 Hard Truths You'll Face Once You Become a Nurse.
Retrieved February 13, 2016, from http://nurseslabs.com/6-hard-truths-youll-face-become-
nurse/
Registered Nurses. (2015, December 17). Retrieved February 13, 2016, from
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/registered-nurses.htm
Cost of living: How far will my salary go in another city? (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2016,
NONPROFITS. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2016, from
https://www.volunteermatch.org/search/index.jsp?r=msa
