Modern poetry has the unfortunate reputation of being “difficult” – as in “I have multiple graduate degrees in English and an IQ of 130 and I still don’t get this.” Some poets only other poets can read; some poets no one can read. But that’s not all there is to modern poetry; in fact, there are many poets who combine technical skill, formal experimentation, and scholarly learning with accessibility and character.

This is not a list of your boring, safe Poet Laureates and sophomore English anthology-approved poets (though some are, or should be, both of those things). They are poets who write about life, sex, sadness, joy, and even food, with wry, real voices and personality that comes through every word. They are poets with something for everyone, and knowing them and their work will not just help you become a well-rounded Super Scholar – it will help you see the world through new eyes.

Sherman Alexie (b. 1966)

Sherman Alexie is a literary one-man-band – a novelist, short-story writer, essayist, young adult author, screenwriter, and director. He’s also one of the funniest, most enlightening lecturers you’ll ever hear. But he made his name as a poet, and no matter what the project, that poet peeks through, turning phrases in sharp, unexpectedly resonant ways.

source

Alexie is not a Romantic or a Modernist – he’s a storyteller, and the stories he tells run the gamut of human experience: love, loss, dignity, humiliation, heartbreak and exhilaration. Some of his narrators are recognizably himself, especially as he has aged and writes more of his personal family life; some are characters, richly, deeply realized characters with their own hearts and souls. His knowledge of human complexity is deep, as in “Dangerous Astronomy,” in which he ruminates on his newborn son’s preference for his wife:

A selfish father, I wanted to pull apart
My comfortable wife and son. Forgive me, Rough
God, because I walked outside and praised the stars,
And thought I was more important than the stars.

Alexie’s voice can be prickly, sarcastic, self-lacerating, and even brutal as he writes about the oppression of his people (the Spokan/Coeur d’Alene Indians) and the slow horrors of poverty and addiction on the reservation. But even these stories are often delivered with a sardonic wit, as in the poem “Good Hair”:

Hey, Indian boy, why (why!) did you slice off your braids?
Was it worth it? Did you profit? What’s the price of braids?

Did you cut your hair after your sister’s funeral?
Was it self-flagellation? Did you chastise your braids?

Has your tribe and clan cut-hair-mourned since their creation?
Did you, ceremony-dumb, improvise with your braids?

But no matter how righteously indignant, Alexie is never cynical. No matter how devastating the story, Alexie’s faith in the power of joy and love illuminates it

Significant Works:
The Business of Fancy-Dancing (1992)
Face (2009)

More Information:
Sherman Alexie on Wikipedia
Sherman Alexie’s homepage

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

A notorious perfectionist, Elizabeth Bishop’s Complete Poems: 1927-1979 runs 276 pages. Those aren’t magnifying-glass, two-column type either – they’re generously laid out, each poem to itself. That’s not much for a 52-year career. But their small volume makes every word precious to Bishop’s devoted fans.

source

Bishop was fortunate to inherit money from her father and spend her life traveling, and her poems are filled with precise, vivid images of the places and experiences of her life. Bishop writes what she sees and thinks with a crystal-clear, unaffected voice, as in the opening lines of “At the Fishhouses”:

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.

There is never a wasted word in a Bishop poem; every word is carefully inspected, turned from every angle, and placed precisely where it is needed. Bishop’s poetry is of the utmost craftsmanship. Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box, a collection of Bishop’s manuscripts and unfinished poems, includes sixteen distinct drafts of her best-known poem, “One Art,” and some of her poems spent decades in revision until she was satisfied to publish them. And still, through all that refinement, her poems retain a sense of powerful emotion and worldly wit that never seems forced or overworked, always fresh. Her lines describing a fish she catches, in a poem simply called “The Fish,” reflect this perfect detail:

Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.

The intensity of Bishop’s gaze and the character of her voice inspire great devotion. When her unfinished poems were published, an outcry among her followers raised a literary controversy usually reserved for the desecration of religious figures or Founding Fathers. Bishop, they argued, would never have wanted her unfinished poems published; it would be like going out undressed. But, for others, having a little more of Bishop’s jewels, even unpolished, was worth any embarrassment.

Significant Works:
The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 (1983)
Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments (2006)

More Information:
Elizabeth Bishop on Wikipedia

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)

There are, in a way, two Allen Ginsbergs. There’s the pop-culture figure, the bearded, proto-hippie whirling and chanting, hanging with Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and trying to levitate the Pentagon with the power of love. That Allen Ginsberg is ripe for parody, and hard to take seriously. Even Ginsberg’s fans have to admit – trying to levitate the Pentagon is just ridiculous.

source

But behind that Allen Ginsberg, there’s the other one, the one who made pop-culture Ginsberg possible, and the one who gets lost in his embarrassing twin’s shadow – the magnificent, funny, heartbreaking poet of Howl, Kaddish, and smaller poems like “America” and “A Supermarket in California.” Inspired by William Blake and Walt Whitman, Ginsberg made himself a prophet for his age, the turbulent post-WWII America, and wrote in long, confident lines that were at once plain-spoken and Biblically-weighted. His expansive vision could combine Jewish tradition, British Romanticism, and American pop music in just a few lines of Kaddish, the stirring eulogy for his mother:

I’ve been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph
the rhythm the rhythm—and your memory in my head three years after—And read Adonais’ last triumphant stanzas aloud—wept, realizing how we suffer—

He was also capable of the sly satiric humor of “America”:

America when will you send your eggs to India?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?

Allen Ginsberg, the pop figure, is hardly obscure, but Ginsberg the poet needs continual rediscovery. A poet who wrote for all America, in a voice that could only be his, deserves to be read and heard as a living voice rather than a cultural artifact.

Significant Works:
Howl and Other Poems (1956)
Kaddish and Other Poems (1961)
Collected Poems 1947-1997 (2005)

More Information:
Allen Ginsberg on Wikipedia
Allen Ginsberg Project

Robert Hayden (1913-1980)

Robert Hayden’s troubled childhood is often cited as a foundation for his poetry – taken in by a foster family whose abusive marriage turned into abuse toward him, still living next door to his emotionally-disturbed birth mother – but Hayden’s impeccable voice and insight into the depths of the human heart are his own ingenious creation.

source

A formalist poet of the greatest technical skill, Robert Hayden wrote poems that combine poetic refinement with fierce emotional power. As a student of W.H. Auden at the University of Michigan, Hayden developed a uniquely controlled voice and an eye for precise details that could speak volumes. In his best known poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” for instance, he writes of his father, who on Sundays

with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

Hayden’s facility with such simple, evocative images, as well as an ear for sound (say “cracked hands that ached” without feeling the pain yourself), allowed Hayden to craft poems that a reader inhabits more than reads.

While Hayden considered himself an American poet, rather than confining himself to the label “Black poet,” Hayden’s poems, such as “Frederick Douglas” and “Middle Passage,” delve deeply into black history, and Hayden wrote unapologetically political poems such as “El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X),” his elegy for the assassinated radical, and a series of poems on the Vietnam War. Whether inciting political ire, or depicting his own troubled childhood and neighborhood in poems like “The Whipping” and “Those Winter Sundays,” Hayden brings to each topic, no matter how different, an honesty and wisdom only the greatest poets master.

Significant Works:
Collected Poems (1985)

More Information:
Robert Hayden on Wikipedia

Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)

source

Like his friend John Ashbery (a notoriously difficult poet, who wrote poems designed to confound and frustrate critics), Frank O’Hara wrote some challenging, demanding poems in his time. But those are not the poems he is remembered and loved for. O’Hara’s best, most memorable poems are the poems of walking and talking in New York City, poems of everyday experience best encapsulated in the Lunch Poems – poem literally written about, and during, O’Hara’s lunch breaks. Like this one, simply called “Personal Poem”:

I walk through the luminous humidity
passing the House of Seagram with its wet
and its loungers and the construction to
the left that closed the sidewalk if
I ever get to be a construction worker
I’d like to have a silver hat please

O’Hara’s poems are exuberant, enthusiastic lists of experiences, feelings, objects and people, with subjects as simple as picking up a new watchband or reading a movie magazine. Often addressed to friends, O’Hara’s poems speak to the reader as an intimate, dropping names and places the way you do with someone you’ve known forever. These poems, dashed off during free moments on scrap paper, typed on store display typewriters, or improvised in personal letters, usually ended up stuffed away in a drawer or even lost in sofa cushions. O’Hara’s books were often composed of whatever he could scrape together digging through his apartment. But their deliriously excited voice captures a poet in love with life, with things, and most of all with people, and their warmth and personality have ensured that, even if he dismissed or forgot his poems, no one who reads them ever will.

Significant Works:
Lunch Poems (1964)
Collected Poems (1995)

More Information:
Frank O’Hara on Wikipedia
Frank O’Hara Homepage

Sharon Olds (b. 1942)

source

A feminist poet known and revered for her unflinching honesty, Sharon Olds draws on her abusive upbringing and family dramas to create raw, daring, vulgar works of searing intensity. But Olds is no wailing, self-absorbed misery-wallower; her incisive humor and eye for surprising images sparkle in the darkest subjects. Imagining her parents just before their terrible marriage, she considers warning them, then decides to bring them together herself:

[I] take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

In “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party,” Olds takes what could be a maudlin subject and tweaks it:

They tower and
bristle, she stands there smooth and sleek,
her math scores unfolding in the air around them.

While Olds’ unfiltered language and euphemism-free descriptions of bodies – hers, her lovers’, her children’s – may sometimes be shocking, they reveal a startling tenderness and surprising emotional innocence, as if Olds has learned to take life as it is and love it anyway. On seeing her children sleeping, Olds writes of her son’s “dry dirty boyish palm / resting like a cookie,” and of her daughter’s “face like the face of a snake who has swallowed a deer, / content, content,” and such unexpected freshness and rightness in those phrases reminds a reader of what poetry is supposed to do – show us life anew.

Significant Works:
The Dead and the Living (1983)
The Father (1992)
Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002 (2004)

More Information:
Sharon Olds in Wikipedia
Sharon Olds Homepage

Wislawa Szymborska  (1923-2012)

Born in Poland in 1923, Wislawa Szymborska was relatively unknown in America until her 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature. Living in Poland during the Nazi occupation, Szymborska witnessed the darkest depths of the human heart; a lifetime spent under that nation’s Communist regime further impressed upon her the degradation of oppression and totalitarianism. But Szymborska’s poetry, against all odds, is clever, insightful, and fearless, written in such a precise and recognizable voice that, no matter the translator, Symborska always sounds like Symborska.

 source

Her understatement and delicious irony allow her to confront the great horrors of the 20^th century, and human depravity in general, with a wit that needles as it consoles. To read Szymborska is to cuddle with a porcupine for protection against the winter. Only Szymborska could state, so matter-of-factly (in “The End and the Beginning”):

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Szymborska is the master of the ironic twist that turns a poem on its head at the very last moment. In “True Love,” for instance, she voices the cynic’s case against true love – “Is it normal, / is it serious, is it practical?” – with line after line of condemnation, only to turn in the last lines with a devastating refutation:

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there’s no such thing.
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

But for all the horrors of her poetry – war, atrocity, loneliness, fear – Szymborska remains a humanist. Her poetry has given light and boldness to generations of Polish and world readers, and her voice is likely to last for ages more.

Significant Works:
Monologue of a Dog (2005)
Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997  (1998)
View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (1995)

More Information:
Wislawa Szymborska on Wikipedia
Wislawa Szymborska on NobelPrize.org

Natasha Tretheway (b. 1966)

One of the most promising, acclaimed poets of her generation, Natasha Tretheway uses her poetry to examine southern and American life, often using her own life as a microcosm. Biracial, born to a black mother and a white father in Mississippi (where interracial marriage was still illegal), Tretheway’s life experience provides a cross-section of contemporary life. Coming from two races, experiencing both acceptance and bigotry, Tretheway’s poetry explores people on the margins of mainstream white culture: a New Orleans prostitute in Bellocq’s Ophelia, poor working-class people in Domestic Work, and the black soldiers of the Civil War in Native Guard.

source

But perhaps Tretheway’s most affecting work is the poems describing her own experience as a child pulled and torn between identities. Writing with a fresh, straightforward voice that disguises its tight craftsmanship in a companionable, conversational style, Tretheway finds sly metaphors in the everyday play of light and shadow, white and black, as in “The Flounder”:

A flounder, she said, and you can tell
’cause one of its sides is black.

The other side is white, she said.

Or, as in the quietly devastating “White Lies,” when she passes for white:

But I paid for it every time
Mama found out.
She laid her hands on me,
then washed out my mouth
with Ivory soap.

Through such idiosyncratic metaphors, so plainly yet painstakingly delivered, Tretheway almost magically transforms her individual experience into everyone’s story. The accidents of birth made her a perfect symbol of America; her own brilliance recognizes her symbolic potential, and turns it into art.

Significant Works:
Domestic Work (2000)
Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002)
Native Guard (2006)

More Information:
Natasha Tretheway on Wikipedia
Natasha Tretheway Homepage

Kevin Young (b. 1970)

Inspired by blues, hip-hop, graffiti and film, Kevin Young makes poetry that crosses genre and style, that incorporates the common voice and innovative experiments, and that sings, sings, sings. Young is a prolific poet – seven books since 1999 – and each collection further cements his status.

source

While his debut collection Long Way Home showed promise, Young announced himself as a major contemporary voice with To Repel Ghosts, a book-long series of poems about Jean-Michel Basquiat. Weaving together phrases from Basquiat’s paintings with playfully experimental forms (telegrams, newspaper headlines, trailer voice-overs) and startlingly imaginative phrasing, Young creates a funny, intellectual, and harrowing story that finds the common ground in poetry and graffiti. This imagined telegram, for example, captures Basquiat’s reputation:

FOUND A SAMO TAG COPYRIGHT HIGH

ABOVE A STAIR STOP NOT SURE HOW YOU REACHED STOP
YOU ALWAYS WERE A CLIMBER STOP COME DOWN SOME
DAY AND SEE US AGAIN END

With further genre experiments like Jelly Roll: A Blues (incorporating the language and rhythms of jazz and blues) and Black Maria (a “film noir” full of atmospheric language effects and a sharp, witty voice), Young proved to be a master of genre and tone.

Since this trilogy of genre exercises, Young has taken on history, both those of his people and himself, in For the Confederate Dead, Dear Darkness, and Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels. These works too share Young’s bright voice and simple, economical language. In “For the Confederate Dead,” the title poem to his collection, Young imagines his own Civil War:

In my movie there are no
horses, no heroes,
only draftees fleeing

into the pines

With his career still new, and seemingly endless energy, Kevin Young looks prepared to take his place with his idols, every bit the force of nature Langston Hughes or Basquiat inspire him to be.

Significant Works:
To Repel Ghosts (2002)
Jelly Roll: A Blues (2003)
Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (2011)

More Information:
Kevin Young on Wikipedia
Kevin Young Homepage

At SuperScholar we are about connecting people to ideas and opportunities that will help them lead smarter and more successful lives. That’s why we’ve put together our first annual Smart Choice ranking of the best online MBA programs.

The Value of an Accredited Online MBA Degree

An MBA has become increasingly important for career advancement and success in today’s ultra-competitive global business environment. For many companies it is a requirement when hiring or promoting for management and leadership positions. Although it may require a considerable sacrifice of time and money in the short term, earning an accredited MBA from a reputable business school is generally a good investment value for the long term. We researched all of the AACSB and regionally accredited distance MBA programs in the United States in order to come up with the most objective and comprehensive ranking of online MBA programs based on quality, marketability and affordability.

The Popularity and Credibility of Online MBA Programs

The popularity of online MBA programs continue to grow. With an increasing numbers of students unable or unwilling to sacrifice their jobs or family responsibilities to earn an MBA, many are turning to online and distance learning MBA programs that allow them to earn an MBA from home and on their own time. It is estimated that there are currently over 11,000 students enrolled in an AACSB accredited online MBA degree program. To keep up with the growing demand and the possibilities opened up by advances in internet technology, several nationally ranked business schools have developed online programs in recent years. This has led to significant growth in the prestige and credibility of online MBA programs which is only expected to continue in the future. Continued…

At SuperScholar we are all about empowering people to make smart choices by connecting them to great ideas and the best colleges for achieving their dreams. That’s why we’ve put together our first annual Smart Choice ranking of the top colleges and universities for online bachelor’s degrees. We researched all of the regionally accredited online colleges and universities to come up with this list of what we consider the very best online schools for bringing great minds like yours together with a great online education.

Why Online Degrees Are A Great Idea

The knock against online colleges and universities has been that they don’t provide the same level of academic quality and rigor as traditional brick-and-mortar schools, that they subordinate quality to profit, and that they aren’t respected in academia or the job market. While this is no doubt true for some online schools, it certainly isn’t the case for all of them. Online and distance education classes continue to grow in popularity and credibility. More schools are putting classes and degree programs online every year and employers are more willing than ever to hire graduates of high quality, regionally accredited online degree programs. The flexibility and affordability of online college and university degree programs has opened up educational opportunities to students who before were unable to imagine earning a college degree due to family, work or other responsibilities. For this reason, we think online education is one of the best ideas in the world! Continued…

There Are Some Great Jobs You Might Never Have Expected from an Online Nursing Degree

The current serious shortage of nurses is expected to continue, partly due to medical advances. Put simply: people who would have died now live, but need nurses to continue to recover. Registered nurses (RNs) constitute the largest healthcare occupation in the United States, at 2.6 million jobs—only 60 percent of which are in hospitals.

According to a recent report by the American Association of Community Colleges,

There will be 581,500 new jobs for registered nurses by 2018, representing a 22% increase in employment. The number of available jobs will soar even higher when factoring in retirements, resulting in 1,039,000 available jobs that will need to be filled by 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Employment and Training Administration.1

A million jobs ….

There are several schools of thought on the subject of credentials in booming fields like nursing: One is, get the best degree you can right now, for a chance at the top job offers and career growth potential. The other is, if you get in at the start of the boom with any available credentials, you will be carried upward by your experience and can upgrade later — while getting paid, maybe even with financial assistance from your employer. You must decide which is the best strategy for you.

Another consideration: It is much easier to get in at the start of a boom; if we wait until demand levels off, we may find entry barriers such as formidable, expensive credentials, whereas before the system would accept and train a hardworking, sensible person of good character. Currently, many stepping stones to advancement are in fact certificate programs that can be taken as adult education or online. That’s important because early career nursing usually involves shift work, so you need flexibility for your education (and online schools offer more flexibility for working professionals).

Most nurses graduating in 2005 or later (nearly 57%) have associates degrees from nursing schools. Certain specialties, of course, such nurse anesthetist, nurse midwife, and nurse practitioner, need a master’s degree from an accredited nursing school. If you are interested in a a specialty that includes serious risk as a normal part of the job, you should want these qualifications for your own protection, of course.

Due to nurse shortages, you may be able to get attractive financial assistance to complete any nursing degree at an accredited nursing school, and can often apply your certificate credits toward more advanced degrees. You certainly needn’t worry much that you won’t find a job that will enable you to pay back loans. You may not even need to borrow much money. As one source puts it,

In order to encourage more students to enter into the nursing profession to help fill the shortage, numerous organizations, private sources and the government are now supplying scholarships, grants and other gifts of money to help pay for students educations. The HRSA or Health Resources and Service Administration, which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, offer numerous valuable grants either tangentially or specifically applicable to nursing in the United States.2

Check out these scholarships; your name could be on one of them.

Compensation for nurses is quite promising; the main factors that determine salary are, of course, level of qualification and need. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average annual salary for a registered nurse as $62,450, with the top 10% making over $92,000 a year. Also, because most nurses work for institutions (hospitals, government health care programs, schools, agencies, et cetera), the benefits are usually attractive.

You may hear references to “diploma” programs in nursing; these usually older programs have typically been offered by teaching hospitals; the trend today is toward degree or certificate programs based in educational institutions.

The most remarkable thing about nursing is how varied it is. Below we’ve listed different types of nursing jobs and nursing degrees you can get in no particular order. Instead, we’ve taking a look at some nursing specialties in relation to the strengths of the particular online schools:

(Note: Degree Wizard , below, means that you can find a convenient online degree program toward this career in the Wizard box at left by selecting “Certificate Programs”, then “Health and Medicine/Nursing”, then “Nursing”. For best follow-up results in any research, note your university choice.)
I can’t decide between …

“ … nursing and teaching.” Be a Nurse Educator (certificate) (Kaplan University, Degree Wizard) With your Bachelors or Masters degree in nursing, you can complete an online certificate program in nursing instruction, and can also use the credits toward a Masters in Nursing. Here, as with all teaching, some experience as a nurse is expected. This career offers regular hours in a field where many other careers require shift work.

“ … nursing and teaching, but I want advancement as well” Consider a Graduate Certificate in Nursing Education (Degree Wizard: U Mass Online, Lewis University). After getting a Masters in Nursing, you are well placed to help set up programs as well as teach.

“… nursing and teaching, but must I get a Masters first?” Consider a Certificate – Contemporary Nursing (Degree Wizard: Drexel University) You need a Bachelors of Nursing for this program. From Drexel University Online. Courses are chosen from the MSN in Contemporary Nursing Faculty curriculum. Upon completion of this online certificate program, the student will have 12 graduate credits from an NLN/CCNE approved Masters in Nursing Program, which can be used towards a Masters at Drexel or any other university, so it should be easy to get a Masters later.

“ … nursing and police work.” Nurses can get a Certificate in Forensic Nursing (Degree Wizard: Kaplan University). Get your RN first, then study to become a crime solver and victim counselor. Your focus would be collecting evidence (of criminal or auto accident injuries, for example), giving testimony, and supporting survivors of violent crimes and accidents. You would work primarily with medical examiners, crime scene police units, or hospitals, which usually means you get standard government benefits. In addition to acquiring some experience as a nurse, you can earn recommendations through volunteer work at shelters, a good place to learn about the variety of patients you will be working with.

“ … nursing and law, but there wasn’t money for law school.” Consider the Legal Nurse Consulting Certificate (Degree Wizard: Post University Online, Kaplan) After you’ve got your RN and some experience, you can work with lawyers to help determine whether a patient received adequate care. You need some knowledge of law and health care regulations as well, so consider online paralegal courses (Degree Wizard, 5 offers) on your own schedule. You are in line for a well-paying, highly regarded career where you probably know more than the lawyers about the “balance of probabilities” (the key civil law concept) as to what happened in a health care situation.

“… nursing and human resources” Because of the sheer number of nurses in the work force and constant innovation in health care, human resources for nurses is a growing field. You’d need an MA in nursing, but not necessarily in Human Resources. That’s because you can get a post-Masters certificate in Nursing Leadership and Management (Degree Wizard: Walden University), for example. It would be a challenging job, as you are responsible for work force development, resource management, integration of technology, and the maintenance and improvement of quality care.

“… nursing and administration.” So do both. Consider the Certificate – Nurse Administrator (Kaplan University, Degree Wizard) This online certificate helps prepare nurses for advanced positions in hospitals, community health, long-term care facilities such as nursing homes , and other health care systems. Contrary to what some may suppose, one can rise to high administrative rank starting as a nurse, and it is a great advantage to know what conditions nurses face. Also, a quiet move into administration may be convenient when starting a family.

… nursing and Masters in Administration (for career advancement) Consider a Graduate Certificate – Nursing Administration (Lewis University, Degree Wizard) This certificate requires a Masters in Nursing and is aimed at those who are either currently practicing in nursing management or interested in a career change to this specialty.

“But Ireallywanted to be a doctor …” Are you sure? If what you want is to do what some believe only a doctor can do, look at these nursing careers before you decide:

Nurse obstetrician (sometimes called “nurse midwife”) While having a nurse midwife is considered trendy in some circles, the profession was established as a discipline of scientific medicine in the 1920s. The nurse midwife cares for the mother and child during the pregnancy, and during and after childbirth. Most nurse midwives deliver babies in hospitals, but, with appropriate backup, some deliver at home. You need to be an RN, then a course (degree or certificate) acceptable to the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM), and must write a certification exam. Some worry that the outlook for midwifery is poor due to declining birth rates, but keep in mind these facts: The United States’ birth rate (two children per woman) is much lower than it was fifty years ago but has changed little in the last decade — and the population is much larger now than it was back then. In census year 2005, 4,138,349 babies were born. In addition, many older mothers are now choosing motherhood, and statistically, they often need more help than the average. So obstetrics staff are hardly going out of business.

Obstetrics nurse Here, you do everything except the actual delivery – which means getting everyone and everything ready, keeping everyone calm no matter what, and helping out with baby’s first peek at the world. You could be a Licensed Practical Nurse or an RN, with special obstetrics courses as part of your education, and must pass a licensing exam. You may not need to work at a hospital; obstetrics nurses also work in clinics and doctors’ offices. (Note: The comments regarding the birth rate, under “Nurse obstetrician,” apply here as well.)

Neonatal nurse This is a newer specialty for a stark reason; neonatal intensive care became available only in recent decades, and is associated with a decline in infant mortality. As a neonatal nurse, you look after babies in the critical first twenty-eight days (the point at which trouble, I any, will usually show up). You may need to do anything from encouraging breastfeeding to rescuing infants who have stopped breathing. You’ll need your nursing degree, followed by some certifications in neonatal care. (Note: The comments regarding the birth rate, under “Nurse obstetrician,” apply here as well.)

Pediatric nurse Here, you not only look after young children in medical need, but you play a key role in helping their parents understand and adapt to their needs. You are their advocate as well as their nurse, because they often do not understand clearly what is happening and cannot explain things for themselves. Many are frightened, angry, and confused to a degree beyond what most adults would experience. After your RN, your best bet is to qualify as a Certified Pediatric Nurse. (Note: The comments regarding the birth rate, under “Nurse obstetrician,” apply here as well.)

Intensive care unit (ICU) nurse You’ve seen life and death medical drama on TV. Are you up for it in real life? Consider being an ICU nurse, trauma nurse, or triage nurse (decides which ER cases are most urgent). These are rewarding careers in all senses, but not easy ones. Your observations and actions may spell life or death for a medically unstable patient, or you may need to help a family come to terms with very difficult decisions following an accident or medical emergency. After your nursing degree,you may wish to consider some course work in counseling, to give you a head start in dealing with such issues. You’ll be well paid, but it can be high stress work.

Cardiac nurse This field is booming partly because older people have more heart problems and partly because today’s medical science can do much more about them. The American Heart Association notes, for example, that, among the more than 1.2 million Americans who have heart attacks each year, 460, 000 die – of those, 300,000 could not get medical treatment in time.3 In short, most people who get treatment live, and most people who do not get treatment don’t. As a cardiac nurse, you will work with the cardiologist (heart doctor) to care for patients with congestive heart failure, angina, and similar problems. Part of the job is routine pre- and post-operative care, but another part is working with defibrillators, cardio revert, and life support (your patient is made “clinically dead” for treatment purposes but can be brought back). And another part is encouraging the patient to team lead the recovery after discharge. After your RN, try to get jobs in cardiac units, especially those that help you keep up with the latest treatments and technologies. You’ll need that because, for certification, you must log 2,000 hours working as a cardiac nurse as well as attend continuing education.

Surgical nurse Not only do you assist the surgeon before, during, and after the operation, but you’re often the one who must explain matters to patients and families and sometimes advocate for the confused or inarticulate patient. For best career chances, after your nursing degree, get certified as a Certified Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse (CMSRN) offered through the Medical-Surgical Nursing Certification Board. Note: If you are uncertain about the level of stress this may involve, cosmetic surgery is also a growing field; it offers regular hours in a low stress environment.

Oncology nurse In this career, you specialize in helping the oncologist (doctor) care for cancer patients treated, usually, by surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. You prepare patients, help administer treatments, and help them recuperate. Our society is making progress against cancer: The Centers for Disease Control says that in 2007, 11.7 million Americans had a history of cancer; but in 1971 it had been a mere three million4 (principally because a much greater proportion back then had simply died). Your challenge is to care no matter what the outcome, but not take it personally, so you are ready for the next battle for a patient’s life. After your RN, you should seek certification as an oncology nurse.

Hospice nurse (sometimes called palliative care nurse) If aggressive medical treatments are simply not reversing a patient’s decline, and death appears inevitable, the medical goal is too make their last days as comfortable and meaningful as possible, using many available methods. Hospice nursing is a newer field; although there are specialized hospices, many hospitals provide palliative care services, sometimes discreetly choosing to describe them another way. Some patients prefer to spend their last days at home. The hospice nurse needs to know how and when to administer treatments, supervised by a palliative care physician. The nurse must also act as the patient’s advocate when faced with a variety of the patient’s friends, relatives, and other caregivers in a stressful emotional situation, and here your distance learning psychology courses may help. You have a great advantage if, after your nursing degree, you have oncology credentials, as many hospice patients are suffering from cancer. You should also work for certification from the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association, for best career results.

“This is a bit off the wall, but …”

“I love the caring aspect of nursing, yet I love computers too! A computer can alert the cardiac nurse six rooms away if a patient goes into arrest.” You may wish to consider the Nurse Informatics Certificate (Degree Wizard: Kaplan University) after your RN (Bachelors). You could go on to the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Informatics Nursing certification exam. The integration of computers into health care has been increasing steadily for several decades, and nursing shortages will drive future growth.

“To combine nursing and computer science, I would hang in there for a Master’s” Consider a Post-Masters Certificate – Nursing Informatics (Degree Wizard: Walden University) Nurses can learn to integrate data and information to support decision-making processes for patients and practitioners.

“I’m reallyinterested in helping people with medical challenges live in the community. How does this fit with nursing?” Consider a Certificate – Life Care Planning (Degree Wizard: Kaplan University). If you are a registered nurse who wants to help people with significant disabilities or chronic health problems live as independently as they wish, the Life Care Planning Certificate can help you to the CLCP credential. You don’t in fact need to be a nurse; a variety of professionals gain entry. However, if you choose to specialize in issues around chronic illness, nursing might be the best entry career.

“I have a great idea for much-needed health care changes in my community, but everyone says, just be a nurse …” Consider the Certificate – Innovation Entrepreneurship (Degree Wizard: Drexel University) after your nursing degree (Bachelors is best here.) Essentially, you learn how to make changes effectively within or beyond an organization. It could be a good start to running your own health care business.

I’d be happy as a nurse except I don’t like hospitals, operations, etc. Is that a contradiction in terms? Forty percent of nurses do not work in hospitals or, if they do, are mainly providing counseling, etc. Here are some non-hospital nursing careers:

Public health nurse Here you work mainly with education and sometimes with intervention, to prevent or remedy disease, disability, or injury in your community. After you receive your nursing degree you can probably just seek work as a public health nurse, especially if your ambition is to work in an exissting program in a community challenged by chronic health problems such as alcohol, obesity, or illicit drug use. However, if you acquire enough experience to dream of designing your own program, look at graduate certificates to build your resume and make the contacts who can get funding for your ideas. The trend toward prevention in health care, rather than treating existing disease, should mean more positions in public health.

Private duty nurse Working through a service provider such as a hospital, hospice, or social agency, you provide in-home care for patients who prefer that option. Sometimes, you are the patient’s private nurse at a hospital (for example, if the patient is a prominent person, publicity might otherwise disrupt the regular work of other staff). If the patient is not especially demanding medically, you could be a Licensed Practical Nurse or Licensed Vocational Nurse (starting with a high school diploma). But for seriously ill patients, you may need your RN, especially if certain treatments may only be legally provided by RNs in your state (injections of scheduled narcotic painkillers, for example). This is a well-paying field because those patients who choose this option are paying only for your time and supplies, not for a hospital’s maintenance. However, you must be prepared to deal with your patient’s friends and family (or fans) tactfully, with limited institutional backup.

Mental health nurse Caring for people in a fragile mental state, you could, of course, be working in a hospital, but increasingly, such care is provided in the community on an outpatient or day patient basis, or in the home. Although care can be provided at all levels from high school diploma on (as in Licensed Practical Nurse, high school diploma), your RN is key to advancement. At higher levels of responsibility, you may need to administer mood-altering medical drugs, sign legal paperwork, or testify in court as a skilled professional. A promising newer area is geriatric psychiatry: At one time, older patients were considered only marginally treatable, but today, many treatment approaches are offered to seniors.

I want adventure! Show me some! Your RN can be a ticket to adventure too.
Frontier nurse Have you considered nursing in an adventurous, but still American, locale? Try Alaska, where there is a persistent shortage of nurses, due possibly to the fact that nursing has traditionally primarily attracted women and as of the 2000 census, there were 109 Alaskan men for every 100 women. Alaskan RNs are well paid and, and can easily find help getting a job and getting settled in a unique American environment.

Flight nurse If a seriously ill person must be transported by air, the flight nurse steps in. Starting with an RN, you had best work up to nurse practitioner because, in flight, you are the medical team. Because more people who have health problems travel by air these days, there is a growing need for flight nurses and they are well compensated. It’s also a great way to travel, if you don’t mind being surprised by your next destination – perhaps so exotic that your travel agent has never heard of it.

Military nurse Are you up to this much adventure? You may not be a battlefield nurse, of course, you could be working with wounded veterans or helping deliver babies at a US Forces base hospital. The Armed Forces will pay for you to get your RN,/BSN through ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) and for any further courses you need while serving. Demand is high, and benefits are great. However, be aware that as a military nurse you have a rank in a vast hierarchy and must play the game by the rules.

The central question for any job is, “What is it doing for me?” It could be a dead end for someone else, but valuable experience and leverage for you. Perhaps you’re thinking: How can that be? The pay is lousy, advancement is nil, and I won’t learn anything useful! Never take a dead end job just because it’s there. Take the job when it is a stepping stone to something better for you, not necessarily for the world at large.

Continued…

If you don’t have a paid maternity leave, or don’t want to just go back to your old job after a paid maternity leave…

You’re a new mom. You want a job that doesn’t leave you feeling exhausted and guilty all the time, even though you are doing your best on all fronts. You want to keep your key relationships safe and enjoy raising your children without creating chaos both at home and at work. Everyone’s situation is unique, but if you’re looking for a suitable career down the road, here are a few non-negotiables to consider: Continued…

When choosing a career, one of the starting points that many people use is to look at which type of jobs pay the most. Figuring out which jobs are the highest paying isn’t as straightforward as seems. So we decided to clear up a lot of the confusion by putting together this guide to the 25 best paying jobs in America. But before we look at the jobs themselves, let’s consider why some careers pay better than others.

[Browse our list of online degree programs]

Continued…

Deciding on a career, you want to be where the action is.

But, more than that, you need to be where the action is and will continue to be. You know what you don’t want: Work hard to qualify for a job, work hard every day, work harder, work hardest, then pfftt!! lose the job for reasons that don’t include you. You’ve heard the (mostly true) stories: Obsolete, outsourced, overseas … The big O’s.

[Prepare for the future. Browse our list of online degree programs]

Continued…

What should you look for in an entry level job? The company is hiring you to be their employee, at a time in your life when you are full of promise and willing to work hard to prove yourself.

But — in a way, you are also hiring them to be your boss. So think about what you want from the relationship, as well as what they say they want from you.

[Browse our list of degree programs to kickstart your career]

“Say they want”? Yes, because we must read job postings carefully. What does a phrase like “show initiative” mean? It could mean that the company recruits potential management from the shop floor. Or it could mean that the company’s managers abandon employees to make decisions with no preparation, authority, or backup. You will probably sense which scenario is more likely from your job interviews.

But for now, let us assume that the offer looks promising. Then you must ask what you want from the job: Here are some questions to wrestle with:

Continued…

Do you look at your age and think, “But I don’t feel that old”? No surprise there. In 1950, life expectancy for Americans was 68.2 at birth; by 2003, it was 77.5.

Not only are Americans living longer, but they living vigorously enough to continue to work longer. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found in a 2003 survey that 80 percent of baby boomers expected to keep working after the traditional retirement age of 65. Anyway, the work force may still need you: More than half of workers are 40 or older, up from 33 percent in 1980.

Senior Living (about.com) tells us that the four basic reasons people want to keep working later in life are money (to maintain a standard of living), love (of the work itself), fear (of having to adjust to a diminished lifestyle), and friends (your colleagues are a key part of your social life).

One approach to choosing a retirement career is to rate yourself from one to ten (least to most) on each of these four factors, and keep the scores in mind while assessing opportunities.

Continued…