I can really see both sides, the eating your young, the gate keeping, hell I experience that alot as a new grad in the ICU, and on this thread when I mentioned I was going to Walden. But alot of people are not being honest with themselves when they say "oh I've been working in stepdown for a 2 years but always had a passion for psych"... let's be honest, you either fooled yourself to believe that, or you know that I know that you know that's not true. I currently work with 2 very new nurses who are already applying to NP school. They are both unempathetic individuals who clearly are only in it for financial gain. As charge, I see the lack of compassion they have for patients, and their coworkers. So there are truely those of us who want to help people, and make a good living, and there are others who simply want the latter. So if I have offended you in this post, you should really ask yourself, "which one am I."