Possible to work full time and go to nursing school?

[rbk8]

I graduated in 2010 with a B.S. in business management with a specialty in health care. I've always wanted to go into nursing and have now realized a lot of leadership positions in health care require clinical experience. I currently work for Northwestern and I really like and they really like me so I don't want to lose my job. Would it be at all possible to work full time (38-40 hrs a week) while attending nursing school on Friday's, Saturday's and Sunday's? I work 11 hour days Monday and Tuesday so I get off of work Friday by 11 a.m. I already have most of the pre-reqs out of the way and would only have to take 1-2 bio classes to have everything done. So my question... would it be impossible to go to nursing school while working full-time, and is it worth it to go back to school soon to expand my career opportunities?

[KellyP78]

The night section of my nursing program was designed for the working student and a majority of my classmates did have full time jobs. Most of them had families as well. It can be done but you will have to be able to make the sacrifice on your personal time. I ran into several issues with my work schedule conflicting with some clinical start times. I ended up using a lot of PTO days to make it through scheduling conflicts. If you have an understanding boss and are able to manipulate your work schedule if needed then it could work for you...

[rbk8]

The night section of my nursing program was designed for the working student and a majority of my classmates did have full time jobs. Most of them had families as well. It can be done but you will have to be able to make the sacrifice on your personal time. I ran into several issues with my work schedule conflicting with some clinical start times. I ended up using a lot of PTO days to make it through scheduling conflicts. If you have an understanding boss and are able to manipulate your work schedule if needed then it could work for you...

thats what id be doing is night classes... 2 a semester except one semester with 3... i have an understanding boss and i get a lot of PTO (5.5 hours per pay period)... As for clinicals I work for the hospital where I hope to do them so maybe that will workout.. I can also change my hours around for work too (I work short days wednesday and half day Friday) so if I need to do clincals in a morning I can extend my hours those other days.

[Noimanurse]

I did it by working full-time friday, saturday, and sunday...then going to school through the week. Its not easy, but the mortgage, car payment, and food had to come from somewhere. Luckily my employer was very understandable occasionally because nursing school was not very understandable. My employer at the time had nothing to do with healthcare. Good luck.

[zbb13]

Truman offers quite a few different options for clinicals, but they are not flexible at all, and as far as I know, there are no weekend ones (I will stand corrected if I am wrong). I was told I would spend approximately 20 hours a week simply reading to keep up with class expectations.

[katybeto]

I know that this is kind of an old thread, but thought I might be able to help a little! I will be attending Truman in the fall. I work 45hrs a week and will continue to do so the first year. I will have classes Monday and Wednesday evenings. The evening classes have clinicals on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Very doable! I have taken all of the corequsite classes though, so if you still had to take anatomy and physiology, microbio, etc, there would be a lot more class time. I have spoken to other people in the program that have worked full time and did well. Hope this helps!!