The first year of experience in nursing

How important is it to get the first year of experience in bedside nursing for your career?
If you do not have experience in an acute care setting, is it difficult to become a NP?

I am asking because I am currently trying to choose between being a case manager (CM) and a nurse in an acute care setting (Stepdown unit). I unfortunately cannot do both, and my manager at the CM maintains that you do not need bedside nursing experience to become a NP.

He stated that being a CM is the much better choice for experience and will help me to be admitted in NP programs. Any opinions in this?
From what I gather, you don't need bedside nursing experience to be admitted into an NP program. If you want my humble opinion though, I think the bedside experience would be a boon. I think having direct patient care in that role would really help you. To use a different example: many RN programs in my area require that applicants, or rather not require but "strongly recommend" that applicants work for at least a year as an LPN/ CNA/PCA. According to the instructors, they've witnessed better outcomes in the students who have had some sort of patient care experience, some sort of bedside expereince to build a foundation. That's my humble opinion.

Do you need beside experience for NP programs? No, not for a lot of them.Will bedside experience help you become a better NP? IMO, most definitely. I don't think it's impossible to become a good NP without the experience...but having the experience could only benefit you. Because as I've learned in my first few years of practice as a RN that nursing is quite different than it's depicted in the textbooks

That's what I was thinking...Experience makes a big difference in a NP, and you do learn a bunch in the first year of nursing in a bedside setting! But I was a bit rattled by what he stated! Thanks for your opinions

he says that because he needs a cm. and he's wrong. there is no area of nursing, including np, that does not benefit from greater clinical experience.