Three years ago, Sam started studying to become a nurse practitioner. “I can't be 50 and doing this job,” Sam says.
He’s worried about his long-term career, especially since nursing is a very physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding job. I can't imagine graduating with this much debt and then struggling to find work," Sam says.īut while the money in nursing is pretty good, Sam says financial security alone is not enough to satisfy him at this point. "I am one of the 'lucky few' who is doing well enough to pay my loans. He estimates that overall, he’s paid more than $118,500 in student loans though-thanks to interest rates as high as 12% on some of his private student loans. Sam's paid off his private student loans and is down to about $11,000 in outstanding federal student loans, and he's continued to make payments during the pandemic pause. I've never missed a meal, or a mortgage or loan payment,” he says.Īnd he’s aggressively worked to pay down his student loans. “One good thing about nursing is that I've had a steady paycheck. As a night nurse who floats between units, Sam earns over $100,000 annually. He knocked out his prerequisites at a local community college in New Jersey, then transferred to Drexel University and graduated in 2014.Īlthough he had to take out roughly $80,000 in student loans to get his BSN degree, the shift into nursing has been worth it-at least financially. In 2009, Sam went back to school to pursue his Bachelor of Science in Nursing. While loading a cart for a customer, she turned to him and said ‘You should be a nurse.’ It was a “lightbulb moment,” Sam says, but it was a few years before he made the change. He spent his early 20s working odd jobs, including at Lowe’s in the flooring department. “We’re seeing this massive redefinition of ambition.” An unusual career path to financial stabilityĪfter high school, Sam attended Rutgers University for two years, but when his campus closed for a couple of days following 9/11, he just never returned because he hated his engineering classes. But she argues things changed during the pandemic, when people finally looked up and started prioritizing themselves. Prior to the pandemic, many Americans were in this kind of “hamster wheel” of the hustle culture and the “always on” pressure, Rodney says. This includes the desire to work anywhere except an office: A survey earlier this year found that even in New York, office workers planned to reduce their time in the office by nearly half-and as of mid-April, only 8% are back in the office five days a week. But many Americans are also setting firmer boundaries around their time, demanding more flexibility from their employers, and rejecting the “always on” mentality. That’s showing up in trends like the Great Resignation and “rage quitting,” where workers are actively trading up for better job opportunities. There’s this kind of “awakening” that Americans are having now where they’re realizing that making money is no longer the most important thing for them, she adds. “There's a great reassessment happening,” says Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll.
The shift among younger workers was even more dramatic: 74% of millennials and 68% of Gen Z are reassessing their lives and goals. Nearly two-thirds of Americans said their idea of a happy life shifted during the pandemic, according to a new survey by The Harris Poll of more than 2,000 U.S.
Americans are reevaluating their priorities when it comes to work and how it impacts their overall satisfaction. “I’d probably have less money, but I bet I would be happier,” Sam says.Īfter two years of a life-altering pandemic, it’s not just Sam who’s rethinking his goals. He’s feeling burnt out and disillusioned about the health care industry. But there’s something to the idea of hitting a reset button, especially after the eight years he’s spent working as a nurse.