Nurse Park

With headlines that proclaim the woes of working-class America, and Michigan’s state unemployment rate reaching record highs, most Northern graduates are looking at a dismal job market. But as other graduates scramble to find a job within their majors, NMU nursing students will find themselves well-suited to locate work in this ailing economy.

“Health care is always a great field to get a job in (during) economically hard times,” said Kerri Schuiling associate dean and director of the School of Nursing. “Nursing offers a good job at a decent salary. It lets you support a family.”

And though nurses are always needed, a national nursing shortage has ensured that most students in NMU’s nursing department will graduate with confidence that they will find a job in their field.

According to statistics compiled by NMU’s Career Services Office, since 1998, 96.6 percent of people who graduated from NMU’s Bachelor’s of Science Nursing (BSN) program are currently employed, with 75 percent of them working in Michigan.

Schuiling said that usually the only people who graduate from Northern with degrees or certificates in nursing who don’t procure jobs as nurses are people who don’t wish to go into the profession anymore.

“(Our employment rate) is virtually 100 percent,” she said. “People aren’t employed (as nurses) because they didn’t want to be.”