Experience working a nurse a student nurse

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I need some advice, I would like people to share their experiences working as a student nurse in the hospital. I have an interview coming up for a student nurse position but I have a few concerns. I have been told that student nurse positions may not offer a lot of hours, I have some finaicial obligation and may require almost 30 hours of work a week. I tried to get a job as a tech that would give more hours but they don't want to hire me for that since I'm not too far from graduation and they're looking for long term employees. Did you have to work another job while working as a student nurse or were you able to get the hours you needed? I'm also thinking about work at 2 different hospitals as a student nurse, have anyone tried that? Please leave your comments below.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

The logistics of working 30 hours a week while maintaining your school schedule & adequate time for study are pretty daunting. The job would have to have a very flexible schedule. There are some real wizards here on AN who can offer many different suggestions, but the most popular one is to try to pare down your living expenses to the absolute minimum so that you can decrease the amount of income you need while in school.

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The reasons student nurse/tech positions don't offer many hours is a very practical one: if you're at work, you're not studying. If you're not studying, you risk not being able to complete the program. In which case, hiring you as a student was a waste of time.

I'd be careful about how far you can reasonably stretch your schedule to accommodate the hours you need; I'm sure someone here can help you better than I, I'd just like to offer that bit of caution, as HouTx did.

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

The only time my hospital offered those was over the summer when we didn't have classes. I did 3 12s. First time in Cardiac step-down and the second in a cardiac ICU. It was single handedly the most valuable time in nursing school period. I learned more those 2 summers than in any class. Pay was comparable to the other job I had, but since it was field specific I of course jumped at this opportunity instead

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Thanks guys for your concern. I will be living down to bare minimum just spending money on necessities like food , gas and shelter. I have one year of nursing under my belt, so I have learned how to manage my time. For example, If I worked 3 12s on my days off from school, then that will leave me with 4 days to study which is more than enough time for me.

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