Indecisive about nursing school

[britthoch1]

Hello everyone, I'm needing a little bit of advice. In the next year or two, I would like to go into nursing school at the South Bend, IN Ivy Tech campus. I'm not too concerned about getting in because I have good grades in the prerequisites and feel confident that I can do well on the TEAS test. I plan on taking all the classes I can before actual nursing schools. For example, I already have the communications class out of the way, sociology class, and I plan to get my microbiology and advanced physiology out of the way. My biggest concern is that I have 3 kids, ages 3-9. My husband works from 4 in the morning until about 5 Monday through Friday. I'm trying to figure out how much time will get taken out of my week. When it comes to being out of the home, I can do the semesters where it looks like it will be 20 hours, but I'm mainly concerned on whether this goes to 40 hours or beyond that. How many hours per week is in the typical semester, even if I get those extra classes out of the way before nursing school? We honestly don't have any help with the kids. Both of my parents are deceased, my husband's dad is deceased, his mom is across the country, and there really isn't anyone else around to help. I know I will probably have to get a babysitter for certain times, of course, but I'm trying to get a realistic pictures on what nursing school is like at Ivy Tech. Thanks in advance for the replies!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Moved to our Student forum...good luck to you.

[SaltySarcasticSally, LPN, RN]

I do not go to Ivy Tech but I do have 3 kids under 8 myself and am about to graduate in April with my RN. I did as you planned, took every single pre-req and co-req before entering the program, that way I only have nursing classes to focus on. My program is hybrid though so take this into consideration because I only attend four hours of face to face class time a week and then one 8 hour clinical day each week. I did not need daycare to the final year of nursing school but my program is only a year because it is an LPN-RN program at a community college. My classes before the program I was able to arrange in the evenings and online around my husbands work schedule. I would start saving now to be able to either hire a sitter for your kids or do daycare once your in the program because if your doing a traditional, face to face set up, you could very well be in class 3-5 days/week.