Laptop for CRNA school?

Erin RN · Oct 29, 2003

I am not in CRNA school but I am a workers comp CM and I love my lap top..I have a dell. I can do my reports in the park, in my car between MD visits etc. From what I have heard CRNA school is pretty intense. I bet you would find that having the laptop would be beneficial ..I use it if I only have 20 min of down time..it is amazing how much I canget done that would have had to wait for the PM...Erin

mack · Oct 29, 2003

I am in my first semester in CRNA school and I also have 2 small kids at home. My advise is save your money, there will be plenty of opportunity to spend that money elsewhere. . . unless of course you do not have a home computer. If this is the case, you will not be able to survive school without it. As far as the laptop goes, No one in my class brings one to class. Computers are very abundant in the library. If you need to do research, the library will suffice. Something else to keep in mind. Some of the schools require or recommend you purchase a PDA. This will set you back several hundred dollars, but is something you can take into the OR, unlike a laptop. Hope it helps.

Jrnalist2RNinOR · Oct 29, 2003

I am not yet in nursing school but recently graduated from a univ and found that the lap top that I have was well worth the money spent. I found that taking it to the library and the commons area of campus was wonderful especially since most of my campus had wireless access now.

My advice if you choose to get a laptop

- make sure that it has lots of space for any programs that you will need since some take up soooo much room

- make sure that it has wireless capabilities

The laptop I bought was a Dell (as are all my cpus) and I have been very happy with it - it was NOT one of the expensive models, but rather was one that was on the low end for laptops and does just fine....it is exactly what I needed

If you choose to get one - customize one for your needs and make sure you get what you want - and there are some great packages out there!!!!

mack · Oct 29, 2003

I know I am in the minority, but here is another way to look at it. Having a family is costly enough. Whether or not your wife will be working, will still feel like financial suicide. Will you pay in-state tuition or Out of state tuition? Can you justify spending $1500 - $3000 on something you may or may not need? Talk to graduates of the program you will be attending. Ask them, to see if the purchase is necessary now or whether it can wait. I highly recommend waiting until school starts to see if you really need one. If you decide to get one, then Dell can probably have one on your doorstep within a week.

In my program, we do not start our research until after our first year. There are no papers we need to write. We surf the internet and check email in between LONG, LONG . . .LONG hours of studying as a form of suicidal preventitive maintenance.

If you want to spend money, then buy a good printer. With nationwide tuition increases, universities are making their students absorb the cost of printing out material. In one of my classes, I average printing out about 30 - 50 pages a week.

Just remember, Graduate Nurse Anesthesia school is NOTHING like undergraduate. The work load is enormous!! The impact to family life will be burden enough. Everyones financial situation is different. But with all the stress of school, not seeing family as much and being gainfully unemployed for the next 2.5 years, can you really afford it? or can you wait and see?

sweetdreams · Oct 29, 2003

Traumanurse,

As the previous posts have said, you will definately need a computer of some sort. I am a first semester SRNA and we are writing quite a few papers, (mostly reviews of Journal articles).

I already had a fairly good desktop and couldn't afford a laptop in addition so I just got a keyboard for my Palm. This allows me to type my notes in class,(the keyboard is quite; won't be distracting to classmates), then refine and add to them from our assigned readings without having to rewrite them; has been a real timesaver) and I can work on papers during breaks on campus (we have 2 hours between classes on most days). The hard thing about my school is the time crunch. The classes if taken individually would still be challenging, but taking them all at once can turn your life into a "cluster" if you ever get behind, so any time I can save is very important to me.

You will probably need a palm for clinicals (drug handbook, math, textbooks, careplans can all be loaded to it.)

I would advise you to talk to your program's director and find out what programs the students are using and then play around with those so you don't have to learn to use the programs during school.

I have one classmate that didn't buy their computer until after school had started, then had to learn how to use it. School is already very fast paced so anything you can do in advance really helps.

sweetdreams · Oct 29, 2003

OOPS.

sweetdreams · Oct 29, 2003

OOPS

sweetdreams · Oct 29, 2003

OOPS

sweetdreams · Oct 29, 2003

For those wondering.....my computer froze for a bit so I tried to repost....when I refreshed I had posted the same message 5 times....deleted the text out of four. Sorry!!

sweetdreams · Oct 29, 2003

OOPs

gaspassah · Oct 30, 2003

if your kids are anything like mine, buy a laptop. i just got a gateway, i do alot of work at school on it. i get little to no work done at home, my kids are 3 and 4.5. functional time is a short commodity, when i'm at home i try to spend time with family. so i'll stay late or go early and do powerpoints, type papers etc. i suggest it.

david