Recently, Indiana released the Top 50 jobs in Indiana.

Though many may think that a political job or a manager position would be number one, it turns out that registered nursing is the job to have in this state.

A registered nurse job has an average salary of $57,370 a year. The education needed to become a nurse is either an associate’s or a bachelor’s degree, along with a background in health science.

The employment rate is 59,265 with a 17.69 percent projected growth rate over the next four years. With the growing number of jobs opening for nursing, Ben Davis alumni Hannah Drummond describes her experiences about becoming a nurse.

Drummond came to Ben Davis during 2006 and graduated in 2009. During her time here, she began to have an interest in helping people. She wanted a career which fulfilled her interests, but did not leave her stuck in a lab. So, she decided on a career in nursing.

To help her better prepare herself for her career, she took multiple classes here at Ben Davis. She took Anatomy and Physiology with Mark E. Montgomery, AP Biology with Grace Schmitt and AP Chemistry with Ashley Owen. Though she did not take any Career Center classes, she graduated from Ben Davis following her ideal career.

In 2009, she went to Indiana University. There she took Anatomy and Physiology, Microbiology and Chemistry. Because her field was nursing, most of her classes involved a biological background. She graduated in 2013 with a major in nursing.

Though her time there may have seemed easy, there were many difficulties while she was there.

“The program was small,” Drummond said. “To get into these classes, you have to have a good GPA. Some of them required volunteer work or experience too. The hardest part was probably adjusting and getting used to the new environment.”

After IU, she applied to IU Bloomington Health Hospital as a nurse. There she was introduced to five different areas of nursing. There were sick unit nurses, illness unit nurses and surgical unit nurses, just to name a few. After careful consideration, she decided to be a medical surgical unit nurse where she takes care of patients 18 and up who are coming out of major surgeries.

“It’s not just work,” she said. “I am able to promote health in an interesting way. I recently went to a convention and talked about tobacco.”

After reaching her dream job, she has this advice for anyone looking at nursing as a career.

“Take a lot of science classes,” Drummond said. “Job shadow people and take career center classes. The more experience you have, the better prepared you are.”