“My sister is going to college and she’s going to major in nursing. She is smart, she did so well in high school. Excelled in calculus, chemistry, and biology, and now she’s becoming a nurse. What a waste.”

“Think of the nursing majors you know. Not very smart are they?”

“Her major was too hard for her, so she switched to nursing.”

I went to college and wasted a year of my time and money on a major that I hated because I believed these stigmas. I am smart. I did very well in high school and I graduated with potential -- too much potential to be a nurse.

I always knew I wanted to work in health care, but as I got closer to choosing a career path, I realized I did not want to spend my life in school. I wanted to have time to do things, not devote my entire life to my career, which would be the case if I pursued medical school, so in my mind, everything health related was out of the question.

I applied to college as a nursing major simply because I was undecided and received encouragement from my dad to go into nursing. But as soon as I decided on a university, I changed my major to bio-medical engineering. Then I changed again and started my first year of college as an economics major. I hated every minute of my year-long education in business. I ended up a year into college with nothing to show for it.

So I took a moment to stop and look around. My sorority sisters are some of the most intelligent and most involved women on campus and a large portion of them are nursing students. A look at my family and many of my relatives are nurses. And an unbiased look at a career in nursing told me that it was everything I was looking for and more.

Rather than a major for the stupid girls, or the pre-med failures, nursing is a major for students who are passionate about health care. It is for students who want families, or to travel, or just have no interest in spending the rest of what is left of their youth in schooling.

I get so frustrated when I think about how much easier my life would have been if I hadn’t constantly heard how stupid you have to be to choose nursing or how sad people are when they have to be a nurse because they couldn’t make it in another major. You hear people like Joy Behar and her "doctor's stethoscope" comment, and the condescension directed at the nursing community. There is nothing stupid about being a nurse. We need nurses.

What’s stupid is choosing a career because society finds it impressive, not because it is your passion.