University of Washington DNP Fall 2014

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I'm starting the FNP track at UW this Fall- anyone else? I'm trying to consider how much I should work while I'm in the program. Can I get some opinions on that?

Also what are people here doing with their FNP? I work at a hospital that uses nurse practitioners for just about all of their specialties and it seems like you can be trained into any of them!

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I'm commenting mostly to follow, but I'm hoping to start in the fall 2015 class--Working on my app/stats class now! Looking at the hours it looks that it's not recommended to work full time during the schooling process, but I was hoping to try myself. I think if you have a hospital job (12 hour shifts, weekends only) you could probably do full time but I'd think it'd conflict with a regular 9-5 schedule.

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Specializes in CICU, Moderate Sedation, Cath Lab.

Hi there and congrats!

I'm headed into my last year of my BSN-to-DNP and some of us have been able to work, but those that are have been going pretty crazy. I was working part-time day shift about 2 days/week for the first semester, then cut back when I accepted a 50% teaching assistantship and had to quit my RN job altogether almost a year ago - it was just too much. We've only got about 8-10 in our full-time cohort and I'd say it's pretty much split down the middle. I know two people who are both working 12-hour night shift and one of the has been able to work pretty much full-time throughout the program. Several in my cohort quit their RN jobs the same time I did - it just got to be too much. This summer I decided to take the summer "off" and I'm not working at all. I've been doing a lot of clinical rotations and putting the hours into my practice transformation project and I don't know how anyone is working this summer - I still feel very behind.

We also had about 4 people drop during the first semester because they'd been out of college for 10+ years and just couldn't do it. If you haven't been out of school for very long, you should be okay hanging on to a part-time job at least at first. Our program tended to switch our required days around quite a bit which messed with lots of work schedules, so make sure you get firm answers from your adviser and program director on what days you'll be required to be on campus. Work doesn't get much priority, I've found - no matter how much a program advertises that they'll work around your schedule :)

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Hi There, I am applying to UW DNP program for fall 2015. I would love to get some insight on your experience. Please let me know how it is and if you are able to keep even a part time position. Would love to hear some insight. Thank you. dsab

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