WOrking full time as a CNA and starting school With baby!?!

HippyDippyLPN · Jun 8, 2013

I work full time with two toddlers, a husband, and am starting my bridge full time in the fall. Anything can be done if your willing to work your a s s off for it.

ixchel · Jun 8, 2013

Here's the thing - you need to get As in the pre-reqs. Maybe some programs are more forgiving than others with this, but most, if not all, programs are highly competitive. That said, I did it. I should disclose that I do not and did not have a job, but I did have 2 kids that were 2 and 4 when I first started. I went full time every semester including summers. I was taking classes for a BSN, which required all of the typical bachelors degree gen eds. It was okay, but stressful. I took as much as I could online so that I could work around their schedules. My first year of school, they were in pre-k in the mornings for only 2.5 hours, which was actually more of an interruption to my time than simply keeping them home would have been, but, it made them happy to do it. The first summer was brutal. I took 4 classes over a 10 week semester, the kids weren't in school, and the school I went to had just "upgraded" their school software that you use to access classes (it was a disaster! Lost assignment, 10 minute loading times for discussion postings, DISASTER!), but, I did it with a 4.0.

If you found school easy when you did it in the past, this might not be too much of a challenge for you. If school was hard for you in the past, you may want to wait until baby is in school, or have a regular baby sitter for a few hours each day to make sure you have the time you need to be successful. If you are doing a BSN, you'll probably find a lot of the initial classes to be easy. If you're doing an ADN, some programs will just toss you into the science classes, and that can be challenging if you don't remember some biology and chemistry basics.

Overall, though? Totally doable. I have several friends with varying difficulty in their day to day life experiences and several kids, and they do it. Not only do they do it, they ROCK IT. From my own personal experience, I would recommend pacing yourself so that baby is in full day school by the time you have your first semester of nursing school so that you know most days you wont be scrambling for a reliable sitter. It is also nice to have predictable hours when I know I wont need to worry about what my little ones are up to, and how high maintenance they might be that day. (That probably doesn't sound all that nice, but honestly, lets face it - kids have high maintenance days and they have low maintenance days!) My husband works evenings, which has been helpful on snow days and sick days for them, since missing even one clinical day can cause me to fail, if my grade in that particular class isn't that stellar to begin with.

Set your eyes on the prize, work your butt off, and know you are completely capable of making it happen if this is what you want.