Posting in the General Nursing Student forum because I want to direct this to students who are enrolled and currently taking classes in the nursing program.
For my school, before applying to the ASN or LPN programs, we're required to attend a seminar where a director from the programs speaks to us about requirements and general questions.
When it came down to clinicals, she said that they cannot work around everyone's schedule 100% of the time, but if you knew of something recurring (such as not having a babysitter every Wednesday, for example) they would try to work with you on that. I raised my hand and stated that I work normal business hours (Monday-Friday 8-4) and asked if that would be doable and she said absolutely not (even though I'm open [grudgingly] to doing overnight clinicals and skipping sleep when needed).
I understand it varies by school and the times of the classes/clinicals offered, but I'm just wondering if anyone else here works the same hours and are able to do it?
I don't know anyone who attends nursing school and works normal hours also. You would have to specifically find a program that had classes on nights and weekends.
Nursing school is a full time program, a lot of people don't work at all and those who do, do so on weekends and evenings.
In my program, you have to be there when they schedule you. There's no wiggle room. However, they do offer a night program (ADN). I go 5-8 and 5-9 two nights per week, for lecture and lab, and then clinical is 4:30-10. The only tough part is that the open lab, for practice, is in the afternoon. I go in early on Tuesdays and work in the lab from 2-4:15, then eat before lecture.
In the clinic that I work in we have quite a few LPNs who are working towards getting into the ADN program at our community college. Our work hours are either 8-4:30 or 8:30-5. Last semester one of the LPNs got into the ADN program and she had worked it where she would be absent one day and then work half a day on another day depending on her school schedule. Our place of employment encourages us to continue our education so they worked it out with her so she can still work and go to school. I am not sure how much support you have from your job to continue education, but you should talk to them about seeing if you can arrange a schedule agreement for school.
But I will tell you, that nurse ended up dropping out of the ADN program after she was about a month in a half in because it was too much for her to handle going to nursing school full time and working full time.
I'm not a current or recent student, but I am in contact with students regularly, and what you are seeking is something of a Holy Grail.
You were told that the program you're interested in can work with you on exceptional circumstances, or maybe regularly-occuring but only involve a small adjustment (such as not being able to take a class on a Wednesday morning).
Thing is, while it's reasonable to expect that you can do a night clinical for a rotation or two, or a Saturday clinical IF they are offered, you cannot expect that ALL of your classes (lectures and labs), skills labs, clinical assignments will ALL be able to be accomodated in this manner. And even those students who are now being told that there won't be a problem with being unavailable on Wednesdays for most of the day may just find that later in the program, they had BETTER locate a babysitter, because they have a mandatory class that can ONLY be worked into the schedule by taking place on Wednesdays at 1pm.
Many people do take nursing courses on a part-time basis, or an alternate-schedule type of basis, but the bottom line is it IS a college curriculum (or if LVN, not a college curriculum but still a regimented program of study) and one cannot expect 100% accomodation. Or 50%, etc.
You're lucky the program is accommodating at all. Many programs won't even take into consideration if someone can't get a babysitter every Tuesday. I agree with RNsRWe: you are looking for a Holy Grail of nursing programs where you can get your cake and eat it too.
Your job will need to accommodate your nursing school schedule and not the other way around if you're really serious about nursing school.
I think it would be helpful if you understood how this works. Nursing schools make arrangements with hospitals to allow students to do clinicals-most schools have more than one hospital that they work with. The school then hires nurses who work the individual floors to work as preceptors. Students work the same shifts as the preceptors, and cannot be on the floor without a preceptor. So the accomodations must be within those parameters.
SO- for example if hospital A always has the preceptor working Mon-Tues, and hospital B has her Weds and Fri, the program may acoomodate someone who needs Weds off by placing them in hospital A all the time. If there are no hospitals with preceptors working the night shift (in my program there wasn't) then you aren't going to get that sort of accommodation.
Please also remember that you are going to have classes as well and those most likely will be during the day.
Please note that I do understand that I may need to adjust my job around school, this post was merely to see if anyone else was able to work similar hours and attend school at the same time. I am fully dedicated to nursing school and am prepared to have to find a new job if needed.
As far as working less hours go and only working part-time, unfortunately this is not a luxury I am able to have. I am 22 and fully independent. I moved out of my mom's when I was 17 and moved 12 hours away when I was 19 on my own so I have no way to cut back on hours (aka, lose money).
Again, I appreciate everyone's input. I have a little time before I may need to figure things out, but I know that I will do whatever it takes to get there.
When do you expect to attend classes? In my program, every class was offered only once/semester and you had to take the classes in the order you were told to. So, if Anatomy and Physiology was offered on Tues/Thurs at 9am, you needed to be there Tues/Thurs at 9am. And btw there's only one professor who teaches each class and the class is at the same time every semester. Clinicals were offered max 2 days/week, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays. Often you were expected to go in to get your patient assignment the day before. Doing nursing school while working full time Mon-Fri is simply not doable. I've never seen night clinicals offered to anyone other than a senior doing her preceptorship and that's only because that student works the preceptor's schedule. If the preceptor works nights, the student works nights. Preceptors are rarely assigned based on the students' needs though. The school contacts the hospital and says "we have this many students we want to place at your hospital for their preceptorship." The contact person at the hospitals gets in touch with the nurse managers who ask their staff if anyone would be willing to precept. Those who say yes are assigned a student. The student needs to work around that nurse's schedule to get in the required hours. It's kind of a "you get what you get and you don't get upset" situation.
mirandaaa
589 Posts
Thank you!