What is the max. amount of credits you'd recommend while in nursing school?

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Hey all, I'm new to this forum so please let me know if I should redirect this question to another area on the site.

Back in February I applied to a 2 year Associate's program for Fall 2011 entry (still won't here anything until the middle of June). If I get in, what is the maximum amount of credits per semester you'd recommend while in nursing school? I've finished all of my pre-requisites as well as co-requisites but this past semester I decided I will go for my BSN (RN-BSN program at a local university) after I complete my 2 year degree; The extra classes I would be picking up are relevant to the RN-BSN program I wish to apply to.

I am a young student with no obligations to children or a husband. And if I do wind up picking up some extra classes, I will more than likely quit my job and focus on school.

Any and all advice is welcome! Thanks in advance for your advice :)

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

Really would depend on the structure of the nursing program. IE how many hours are you in lecture, lab, and clinical. How many credit hours are the nursing courses. Normally I'd suggest focusing strictly on the nursing courses and pick up the BSN Gen Ed courses over the Summer. That is if the ADN program has summers off. The BSN Gen Ed courses aren't really going to matter if you don't do well in the ADN nursing courses.

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The BSN Gen Ed courses aren't really going to matter if you don't do well in the ADN nursing courses.

Thanks for pointing that out, I guess I never thought about it that way, haha!

The program I have applied to does let you have summers off (phew!). First semester is 11 credits of core nursing classes, second semester is 8, third semester is 9, and fourth semester is 13.

I'm kind of a control freak so I made a sample schedule of what the next two years might look like (lol) and I've made it so that, besides the nursing courses, I will take 1-2 GenEd class (depending on the credits of the core nursing classes) and I am already going to school full-time this summer (15 credits) as well as 13 credits next summer.

I also forgot to mention that I am going for an AS in General Studies because there is an agreement between my community college and most other schools in VA that guarantees admission if you have an AS/AA in General Studies and an awesome GPA, haha.

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the semesters you spend in nursing school may seem to be under-credited. this is common, as nursing credits require more work to achieve than gen-ed credits. do not stack more work on yourself because a semester is "only worth 8 credits". you will be busy meeting the goals for those 8 credits.

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Okay, thanks for the advice! I appreciate it :)

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