How can I balance nursing school and working full-time?

Dear Nurse Beth Advice Column - The following letter submitted anonymously in search for answers. Join the conversation!

Published  

Im planning to start VN program next year in January 2025 and work full time so that I will be able to pay the bills. VN program is Monday through Friday from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm. Can you help me with ideas of how I can balance well work and school, please?

Share this post

+ Add A Comment

9 Answers

Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

Congrats on choosing Nursing! Becoming a nurse is life-changing, and I hope you have a wonderful career ahead.

I also started as an LVN, and even though I'm a good student, it was more difficult than I anticipated. I believe that's because most of my learning was the first exposure to new information. For example, medical terminology did not build on my previous knowledge. Because of this, I found the LVN program even more demanding than the RN program, which I took later.

Your program sounds accelerated if it's 10 hours/day, 5 days a week. That leaves no time for work. Even if you work every weekend, you will have to work evenings/nights if you intend to work full-time. That leaves no time for studying. It's not realistic.

Don't work full-time if at all possible. If you must work, consider a traditional program, perhaps a community college, that takes 17-18 months and leaves you more free time. Some community colleges offer excellent programs for a fraction of the cost of for-profits.

Here are some tips for balancing work and school:

  • Rally your support. Prep your people ahead of time that you are not going to be the full-time friend, aunt, daughter, or whatever you usually are for the duration of the program.
  • Ask for help. Be prepared to have tangible requests when friends or family offer to help. They can take your pet to the groomer, gas up your car, pick up a prescription, mail, and bring you food.
  • Be prepared to give up everything else for the duration. Put your hobbies on pause. School and studying are #1.
  • Scale back on holidays. Attend holiday gatherings but do not host them.
  • Give gift cards. Shop more online. Anything can be delivered.
  • Lower your standards. You can deep clean after you graduate. Use paper plates. 
  • Study all the time. Quiz yourself mentally while driving or sitting in a doctor's office.
  • Be focused and smart. Teachers will literally tell you, "This is important". It is. Get out your highlighter, highlight it, and learn whatever it is.
  • Be good to yourself. You are doing a big thing; you are improving yourself and your life. 
  • Maintain perspective. However intense it gets, this, too, shall pass.

Accreditation

You didn't ask about accreditation, but for-profit nursing schools have cheated so many nursing students in recent years that I wanted to add a few words.

Is your LVN program accredited? You must understand accreditation because you may want to transfer to an RN program someday. Accreditation is tricky, but you owe it to yourself to have a good understanding. Read What to Know About Accreditation.

Institutional vs Specialized 

Institutional and specialized accreditation are different. It is possible that a school/institution is accredited  (institutional) but that their nursing program (specialized) is not. An example of institutional accreditation is the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC). It's also a national accreditation and not a regional accreditation.

National vs Regional

Regionally accredited institutions do not always accept transfer credits from nationally accredited institutions, and nationally accredited schools are often for-profit schools.

Approval is not Accreditation

Your program must be approved by your state board regulating agency, the State Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians in California. While approval is necessary to qualify for licensing, it is not the same as accreditation. 

Consequences of attending a non-accredited LVN program

  • You may not qualify for admission to further your nursing education.
  • You may not be able to be licensed as a nurse in some states, either initially or by reciprocity/endorsement.

The Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) 

So, what accreditation should you look for in an LVN program? ACEN is the accreditation for vocational nursing programs. You can find a list of accredited schools using the link.

In conclusion, I hope this helps you and wish you the best moving forward!

Nurse Beth

 

 

Specializes in Emergency Department.

Going to school 10 hours/day, 5 days/week and trying to work full time is going to be basically impossible to balance. You're asking yourself to work and go to school 90 hours per week NOT including travel time, NOT including study time, NOT including family time, NOT including sleep time, and there's only 168 hours in a week. So, you have maybe 78 hours per week to do EVERYTHING not directly doing work or being in class. Yes, that appears to be 11-ish hours per day to do this, but that's still 5-6 hours for sleep and the balance for studying and doing EVERYTHING else on average. The reality is you'll get maybe 4-5 hours sleep during the week and have to make up for it on the weekends. This is 100% a recipe for burnout. I've been there. I know I'm resistant to burnout but I'm not burnout proof. I had to sacrifice a lot of family time just to give me enough sleep time to function acceptably and even then that wasn't quite enough. I was pretty decently burnt going into my 3rd Semester and made some mistakes that nearly got me excused from the program. I even had to sacrifice my grades a little bit to allow for sufficient sleep to allow me to get all the way through. If I didn't have to work during school, I could have graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I still managed a quite-respectable 3.5 and graduated Cum Laude. 

My recommendation is to try NOT to work as much as you can if you're doing a program that is as intensive as what you're proposing. I was in an traditional ADN program that was 4 days/week from 730am to 2 pm and worked 3-11 pm 5 days per week. Yes, those days had some overlap, some days only had school or work. Every day had lots of studying. I don't have many memories (good or bad) of my kid growing up for those years and I rarely saw my wife during that time either. Effectively it was like I was a ghost that paid for stuff...

If I'd had the ability to secure decent loans and still have a way to have health benefits for the family, I would likely have chosen PA school or an ABSN program as I already have a BS degree. Being a PA would have generally meant leaving behind ambulance work as I do enjoy that too... I was a Paramedic and I am now a ground transport RN. 

Specializes in all around.

Essentially....you will do what you have to, to do what you want to.  It will be challenging, annoying, and draining, but....it can be done. Best wishes to you for strength, patience and resolve. 

Specializes in School Nursing.
akulahawkRN said:

Going to school 10 hours/day, 5 days/week and trying to work full time is going to be basically impossible to balance. You're asking yourself to work and go to school 90 hours per week NOT including travel time, NOT including study time, NOT including family time, NOT including sleep time, and there's only 168 hours in a week. So, you have maybe 78 hours per week to do EVERYTHING not directly doing work or being in class. Yes, that appears to be 11-ish hours per day to do this, but that's still 5-6 hours for sleep and the balance for studying and doing EVERYTHING else on average. The reality is you'll get maybe 4-5 hours sleep during the week and have to make up for it on the weekends. This is 100% a recipe for burnout. I've been there. I know I'm resistant to burnout but I'm not burnout proof. I had to sacrifice a lot of family time just to give me enough sleep time to function acceptably and even then that wasn't quite enough. I was pretty decently burnt going into my 3rd Semester and made some mistakes that nearly got me excused from the program. I even had to sacrifice my grades a little bit to allow for sufficient sleep to allow me to get all the way through. If I didn't have to work during school, I could have graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I still managed a quite-respectable 3.5 and graduated Cum Laude. 

My recommendation is to try NOT to work as much as you can if you're doing a program that is as intensive as what you're proposing. I was in an traditional ADN program that was 4 days/week from 730am to 2 pm and worked 3-11 pm 5 days per week. Yes, those days had some overlap, some days only had school or work. Every day had lots of studying. I don't have many memories (good or bad) of my kid growing up for those years and I rarely saw my wife during that time either. Effectively it was like I was a ghost that paid for stuff...

If I'd had the ability to secure decent loans and still have a way to have health benefits for the family, I would likely have chosen PA school or an ABSN program as I already have a BS degree. Being a PA would have generally meant leaving behind ambulance work as I do enjoy that too... I was a Paramedic and I am now a ground transport RN. 

I don't think I'd be so discouraging. I went back to school for my BSN, and was working 1 full time job and 1-2 part time jobs at any given time. I had no choice but to work as much as I could, and successfully made it through. I took every opportunity, every minute of down time to work on my studies. 

Specializes in Emergency Department.
beachynurse said:

I don't think I'd be so discouraging. I went back to school for my BSN, and was working 1 full time job and 1-2 part time jobs at any given time. I had no choice but to work as much as I could, and successfully made it through. I took every opportunity, every minute of down time to work on my studies. 

While I'm being both discouraging, I'm also trying to be challenging too, though probably not as well as I'd like. I think the point I'm making is, ultimately, there is no way to really balance EVERYTHING while doing school on the schedule that was given. SOMETHING has to give and OP will have to figure out what that will need to be in order to make it work. I had to work full-time and go to school full-time too. I too studied during my downtime at work. I was lucky to have a job where I was able to do this. What was sacrificed was most of my family time. I mostly went to school, then directly to work, to home to bed... My one day "off" was spent studying. So while I was in school, I mostly saw my family about once a week. That was not ideal... 

Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

With those hours working full time will be near impossible. First barrier is there is simply not enough time in a week to put in that many school hours, study out of classroom hours,  get decent sleep and work.  Second barrier is those hours, they take up an entire day shift and a good portion of a traditional afternoon shift so you would likely be limited to working nights  or a weekend only position. If you count on getting some studying done while you work, well that may be possible but believe me if you do that you will not be popular with your co-workers who will have to pick up your slack while you are getting paid to study instead of work. 

Specializes in Occupational Health.
akulahawkRN said:

Going to school 10 hours/day, 5 days/week and trying to work full time is going to be basically impossible to balance. You're asking yourself to work and go to school 90 hours per week NOT including travel time, NOT including study time, NOT including family time, NOT including sleep time, and there's only 168 hours in a week. So, you have maybe 78 hours per week to do EVERYTHING not directly doing work or being in class. Yes, that appears to be 11-ish hours per day to do this, but that's still 5-6 hours for sleep and the balance for studying and doing EVERYTHING else on average. The reality is you'll get maybe 4-5 hours sleep during the week and have to make up for it on the weekends. This is 100% a recipe for burnout.

This...

I worked full time my second year of my ADN program, full time during my bridge program (RN to BSN) and full time for my MSN and DNP. You can do anything you set your mind to. LVN school is not that long, find a job you can do on weekends. And, honestly, I have not heard of a nursing program that is 40 hours a week in class. Usually you have days of lecture, days of lab, and then days of clinicals and those days vary in order to be able to fit everyone in to the experiences. I would get some clarification from the program about what the classroom times are as well as lab times. Clinicals you can often do on weekends and evenings. Best of luck!

I went to Nursing School in my 40's at my local Community College where they had a preschool program for my little one to attend.  I also worked nights to pay for our school.  It was tough on my marriage and I only got around 3 hrs of sleep q/24 hrs but I did it when no one thought I could.  My son was born with serious kidney defects and my husband had developed a heart condition so I went back to school to become an RN.  I'd worked in business management for many years which helped me succeed as I had no medical background as the other students who were either LPN's or CNA's.  

+ Add a Comment