St. Mary's MN- Do you need to have a car?

magno79 · Jun 25, 2008

I will be starting at MSA in August and know the city pretty well. While public transportation is pretty good, I think that you will still need a car. I know that your clinical sites are spread out through out both Minneapolis and St. Paul. They are in the process of completing a light rail section to St. Paul from Minneapolis but it will only get you so close to a hospital. I am sure that a bus line could get you much closure if not to the front door of most hospitals but you would have to be on their schedule. I know that after 12+ hours of clinicals, I don't want to be on anyone's schedule but my own. Bottom line, a car could and would make your life a lot easier.

magno79

NurseHerms · Jun 25, 2008

Hey there. I am in St Marys program right now and I live right in downtown (about 1.5 miles from the campus) and i rarely ever use my car. The last time i put gas in my tank was in the middle of April. I usually ride my bike to school and back, granted that it is not raining that day. About the only time I use my car is to go to the grocery store, because the only place downtown is a target and they don't have ALL the groceries that you need...plus, I wouldnt want to walk down the street holding 15 plastic bags..lol. You could probably survive on one car. The main clinical site..Abbott Northwestern is about 2 blocks from the campus...so i will probably ride my bike to clinical, granted that it is not raining/snowing cats and dogs. The other clincical sites are in St Paul and also there are ones that are much further away, so that might pose a problem. It would all depend on how flexible your husband is. Like previously stated.....there is also public transportation which is pretty decent. There is a train that goes from downtown to the mall of america with a slew of stops along the way....none that would really benefit you as a St Marys student...unless for some odd reason you went to the VA...cuz im pretty sure we don't go to the VA. Also it depends on where you live. In my situation....the campus is a mile and a half from my front door....so it makes it much more convenient to never use a car unless i absolutely have to. If you live outside of the city in one of the suburbs...it might be a tad longer bike ride and would be a bit more difficult with one car.....granted I don't know what your husbands situation is. Sorry to be long winded...haha. What im trying to say is that it all depends on where you live and how flexible your husband is with the one car, if you happen to need it to go to school (Monday-wednesday....thursdays are test days) Hope this helps you. Let me know if i can clarify anything for you

coffeeluvinRN · Jun 26, 2008

Thanks NurseHerms for all your help! It is much appreciated! My husband and I are hoping to live close to campus, and I love biking, so as long as I can get by with my bike and an occasional car ride, that would be great. How often do you rotate through hospitals?

Also, could you explain more how the first part of the program works.. you said you go to class Mon-Wed and then have tests on Thursdays? What's Fridays? Do you have anything on the weekends too? Just curious!

NurseHerms · Jun 26, 2008

Yeah...we have classes on monday, tuesday, and wednesday. On Thursdays, we have our chemistry/biostats tests....IF there is one scheduled for the week. They run from 9am-12pm. Im not sure how often we rotate through clinicals, since we wont be doing that until January.