How far do you travel?

SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP · Mar 3, 2014

It takes me 7 - 15 minutes to get to school, depending on traffic. However, there are several students in our class that travel over an hour each way. They use the commute time to listen to the replay of the lecture they recorded. It's good at reinforcing what you learned.

Clinicals, so far, have been local. I've heard we may have to drive up to an hour and a half away for Peds or Mental Health, depending on where we're placed. Luckily, it's only for 8 weeks :)

RN9742 · Mar 4, 2014

I live like 15 mins from school, but I would travel further to school. The only thing I would look into is where those schools do clinicals, and if you would be willing to travel even further for those?! Our school has clinical sites that are nearly an hour from the campus, I know a few people who live about an hour from campus already so they have to drive for 2 hours for clinicals if they get assigned there. Not always bad, but we have had a brutal winter and the school has not always called off, leaving them forced to drive there in that mess, or miss a day (which you are only allowed to do once a clinical rotation!)

Sparrow91 · Mar 4, 2014

When I was going to a community college it was about 30 minutes away. My school now is 4.5 hours away so I had to live on campus. Because it was in a rural area most of our clinicals were an hour to 1.5 hours away. I actually enjoyed the commute. On weeks that I had exams at the community college it gave me 30 minutes of relaxing without studying. I would plug in my MP3 or flip to my favorite radio station and have a legitimate excuse for not studying for 30 minutes. Honestly I am NOT a morning person, so on days I had clinical (leaving at 4:30 in the am) the load music and strong coffee on my hour + commute helped me get energized for my day.

My advice to you would be to invest some time/money into loading/creating an awesome play list on your MP3, or find a great radio station, and find a drink/snack of choice to bring or leave in your car and take advantage of a little bit of "me" time. We so do not get enough of it in nursing school. Good Luck on your new journey! :)

Ladyt03 · Mar 4, 2014

I live out of state. I live in NY and attend a school in NJ. I go to school evenings and weekends... This semester I have lecture Wednes nights and clinicals 7am to 8pm on Satur. I work full time, Mon-Fri, 8-4. I take the train, which is like 1hr20mins with connection. On a Satur i wake up at 4 to be at the train station by 5. On a Wednes I leave work at 3.

The great thing about this semester is God has helped me. I have a classmate who lives in my state so she gives me a lift from class, as she drives. I always say, God help those who help themselves. My commute seems like a lot but I look at the bigger picture. I know it will be worth it....as Im doing this for me! So, if all the schools you are getting are far from your house and you're able to get there, I say DO IT! It will pay off in the end. If I can do, others do it, you can do it too and you wont have any regrets!