BSN program hours (for non-RNs)

Consider school to be equivalent to a full-time job. I spent roughly 40-50 hours per week on school and school related activities in my ABSN program. I would be very, very hesitant to have a young infant right before starting such a program.

I can't imagine purposely getting pregnant right as I was starting an ABSN program. I had an unplanned pregnancy in the middle of my traditional BSN program, when I already had a toddler. It was very difficult. My husband's business does not allow for a lot of daytime help from him. It was incredibly stressful.

I'm applying to accelerated and traditional BSN programs (I'm not an RN and have a Bachelor's in psychology). For those in either program, what are the hours you spend in class and studying? I'm looking for hours on both programs. I'm dealing with a lot of anxiety over this because I have a two year old and plan on having another around the time I'd be starting nursing school (June 2019). Is it even possible to care for an infant and toddler (with my husband's help) and do well in nursing school? My expectation is it's going to be near impossible and I'll be seriously focused on school for roughly 12 hours a day. Is this realistic? Should it be helpful, I'm applying to Stony Brook and Molloy with my heart set on the former.

Good luck getting an answer to this question. And I mean that sincerely, but I highly doubt you will get a straight answer.

I applied to two BSN programs in my area. Explained to both that Im pretty much a single parent with full time custody, that my attendance hinges on being able to arrange care for my 6 year old when I am in class (45 mins away) or at clinicals.

I ended up picking one school over the other as they appeared to have a better culture and warmer/supportive atmosphere, but even with them I still havent gotten a straight answer to my question about days and hours.

I have been told I wont know days and hours completely till I show up for orientation which is only 4 days before the semester actually begins. I will have a whopping 4 days to figure out my child care situation.

Frankly Im nervous as heck and worried sick, that I might end up having to withdraw after jumping through the hoops to get there because they seemingly still dont know or wont tell us what our schedule will be 30 days from now.

The fact that a major university cant or wont give their students a schedule more than 4 days out, seems utterly batty to me.

Good luck getting an answer to this question. And I mean that sincerely, but I highly doubt you will get a straight answer.

I applied to two BSN programs in my area. Explained to both that Im pretty much a single parent with full time custody, that my attendance hinges on being able to arrange care for my 6 year old when I am in class (45 mins away) or at clinicals.

I ended up picking one school over the other as they appeared to have a better culture and warmer/supportive atmosphere, but even with them I still havent gotten a straight answer to my question about days and hours.

I have been told I wont know days and hours completely till I show up for orientation which is only 4 days before the semester actually begins. I will have a whopping 4 days to figure out my child care situation.

Frankly Im nervous as heck and worried sick, that I might end up having to withdraw after jumping through the hoops to get there because they seemingly still dont know or wont tell us what our schedule will be 30 days from now.

The fact that a major university cant or wont give their students a schedule more than 4 days out, seems utterly batty to me.

WEll the reason is likely that the hospitals often do not provide the clinical space information until then. Trust me, nothing would make me happier than to tell my students and faculty clinical.schedules many weeks in advance. But I cannot because I simply don't know. Students are guests - and as such are subject to the whims of the schedulers and their timelines- not ours.

Many times the school does not know if a clinical site is going to come through at all much less any of the details. If the school does not know until the last minute, you can't expect them to be able to guess and give that information to the students.

I can understand the difficulty with getting the clinicals arranged with area hospitals. However, we don't do clinicals until the latter half of the first semester.

So why they seem incapable publishing our standard lecture and lab class schedule for the first part of the semester is beyond me.

And while specific days at specific hospitals may fluctuate based on the needs of the hospital, they do already know that our clinicals will be on one of three days. So they should still be able to give us our schedule, again of lecture and lab classes, for the full semester.

There seems to be an obstinate and willful attempt to scare us into believing that nursing school will consume our lives 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and they want to weed out anyone who will not commit to that.

Nursing school clinical schedules are a logistical nightmare for the hospital coordinator. You may three different schools with three RN clinical groups each that all want time on a Med/Surg floor. Then you have the LPN clinical groups that also want clinical spot for their students. All of these groups need to have times that don't conflict with lecture time for that class and other lecture classes the students have, plus other clinical times the students have. It is not as if your class is the only class that has clinicals at that hospital.

Nursing school clinical schedules are a logistical nightmare for the hospital coordinator. You may three different schools with three RN clinical groups each that all want time on a Med/Surg floor. Then you have the LPN clinical groups that also want clinical spot for their students. All of these groups need to have times that don't conflict with lecture time for that class and other lecture classes the students have, plus other clinical times the students have. It is not as if your class is the only class that has clinicals at that hospital.

Ive already explained and responded to this..........

they do already know that our clinicals will be on one of three days. So they should still be able to give us our schedule, again of lecture and lab classes, for the full semester.

There is absolutely ZERO reason that they cannot release the dates and times of our lecture and lab classes at the beginning of the semester BEFORE clinicals start. Those classes have ALREADY been scheduled to work around the three preset clinical days.

There is absolutely ZERO reason that they cannot release the dates and times of our lecture and lab classes at the beginning of the semester BEFORE clinicals start. Those classes have ALREADY been scheduled to work around the three preset clinical days.

We had to sign up for classes a month before the next semester started, so I knew the days and times of both my lecture classes and clinicals well before the semester started except for the start of the program. They gave us very short notice that we got accepted into the program, 5 days notice.

We've signed up for classes. Im registered. But we have been told we won't know the "real" day and times of certain classes, such as practical lab until we get to orientation.

And this is the more friendly of the two universities in my area.