Nurses are the largest single group of healthcare providers in the United States, and over the years, professional nurses have become caregivers on the frontlines of healthcare. Purdue’s four-year, direct-admit baccalaureate nursing program prepares you to excel as a registered nurse, working with diverse patients and teams in any setting. Purdue’s BSN program combines a passion for helping others and a love of science to offer real-world experience practicing interdisciplinary healthcare in clinical settings. In the Nursing Center for Education and Simulation, you’ll participate in real-life situations using state-of-the-art simulators that respond to prescribed treatments and learn from award-winning faculty with a range of specialties. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in a variety of clinical experiences in the School of Nursing’s Family Health Clinic as well as many other clinical agencies, including hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities and more.
Baccalaureate Program Goals
- Provide safe, quality, client-centered, evidence-based, compassionate nursing care in a variety of healthcare settings.
- Use critical thinking/clinical reasoning consistent with that of the registered nurse.
- Contribute to quality improvement for the purpose of optimizing patient outcomes.
- Identify the impact of personal strengths, challenges, and values on the intra- and interprofessional teams and care of individuals, families, and communities.
- Use information and technology to communicate, support, and provide quality care across the health care continuum.
- Demonstrate leadership to improve outcomes in a variety of settings.
- Assimilate professional, ethical, and legal principles consistent with that of the registered nurse in a dynamic healthcare system.
Baccalaureate Program Goals (beginning August 2025)
- Integrate clinical judgment into nursing practice, actively incorporating knowledge from other disciplines, including a foundation in liberal arts and natural and social sciences.
- Provide holistic, person-centered, evidence-based, compassionate, developmentally appropriate nursing care to patients and families in a variety of health care settings.
- Engage in health promotion and disease management in partnership with communities, industry, academia, health care, local government entities and others for the improvement of equitable population health outcomes.
- Apply nursing knowledge in the implementation of evidence-based care to improve health and transform health care.
- Utilize established and emerging principles of safety as core values of nursing practice to enhance quality and minimize the risk of harm to all people through system effectiveness and individual performance.
- Participate in intentional interprofessional collaboration with care team members, patients, families, communities and others to optimize care and enhance health care experiences and outcomes.
- Coordinate resources to provide safe, quality, equitable and cost-effective care to diverse populations.
- Use information and healthcare technology to gather data, drive decision-making, communicate and provide quality care across the health care continuum in accordance with best practices and professional and regulatory standards.
- Cultivate a professional identity that includes accountability, integrity, inclusivity, a collaborative disposition and behaviors consistent with the ethical standards of registered nurses.
- Participates in activities and self-reflection that foster personal health, resilience and well-being, contribute to lifelong learning, and support the development of leadership characteristics.
Note: Purdue’s BSN program is a highly competitive and selective program with limited space. Students interested in applying should submit their application early in their senior year of high school and no later than the Nov. 1 early action deadline.
Career Opportunities
- Work in the emergency room of a large metropolitan hospital.
- Help people in underdeveloped countries as a nurse in the Armed Forces or Peace Corps.
- Deliver home healthcare to older adults or lower-income families as a community health nurse.
- Work in hospitals all over the world as a nurse employed by one of many traveling nurse agencies.
Learning Experiences
Gain clinical experience one of the more than 200 agencies with which the School of Nursing has arrangements. In addition to hospitals and clinics throughout North Central Indiana and Indianapolis, examples include:
- Lafayette Transitional Housing
- M.D. Steer Speech and Language Clinic
- Roudebush VA Medical Center
- Riley Children’s Hospital
96%
NCLEX pass rate
98.3%
successful career outcome
$64,851
average starting salary
Explore more outcomes for HHS majors >
“I chose Purdue because of the excellent nursing program; being able to stay at home, in Indiana, and obtain a degree that I knew would be recognized with distinction anywhere I took it was important to me. I also wanted the “big school experience,” and Purdue has that feel while still offering countless ways to be involved in smaller communities and create intentional relationships with others. Best decision ever!!
— Morgan
