Average School Schedule Requirements

[broughden]

Im an older non-traditional returning student. Retired military.

I am the primary stay at home parent for my 5 year old daughter, with a spouse that generally works out of town Monday through Friday. I have applied to two BSN programs for this Fall, UNF and JU.

Since I am the primary parent for my daughter I am trying to decide:

1. Do I really have time to devote to nursing school? Am I being realistic?

2. What are the typical class times? Will I need morning care, before she typically leaves for school? Will I need afternoon care typically after her dismissal time?

3. Which semester do clinicals start? Because I have read that some students are having to be at the hospital by 0430 for days they have clinicals. Is this true?

Basically for the first year or so, what are the typically class times each day?

I've asked both schools but only gotten vague answers thus far. I need to have my childcare situation set and ready to go for this fall when the school starts.

[Christian96]

i believe traditional child care will work for you. i attend a school in south Florida and the hours are reasonable. We have class 9-1 twice a week. We have 2 options for our clinicals, weekdays or weekends. See if the school you will attend has different clinicals hours. My school tries to accommodate everyone. If you happened to do weekend clinicals, maybe you could find someone to watch your daughter, or enroll her in a weekend program.

[shasta13]

One school told me to "reserve" Monday-Friday 0800-1700 for lectures/labs and Saturday-Sunday 0700-1900 for clinicals. They said I would not be in class/clinical that entire time, but the schedule wouldn't be set until just before the semester started. My current school pretty much said the same thing except they guaranteed Sundays off. Unfortunately, we have 1800-0600 clinicals as well.