Quitting work to become a full time student

tomtontom

OP I would look into the realities of nursing before going any further - I fear you may be shocked

snake_charmer

tomtontom wrote: »

OP I would look into the realities of nursing before going any further - I fear you may be shocked

Spoken from experience? I'd be interested to hear if so!

tyler2027

I have experience.......its not intended to entice you to do it nor put you off..........others experiences will differ.

I qualified as a nurse just a few years ago. At that time student funding was more generous...around the 6k a previous poster mentioned. I worked shifts as a health care assistant to pay the bills (known as bank work). It can be done, I did it...but it was bloody hard going!! When I was doing bank work I could pick and choose my shifts.....for many hospitals that's no longer the case - theres a shortage of shifts and a lot more competition. of course you can do other work than HCA shifts, as long as its of a very flexible nature.

Whats good about the course? There is nothing so great as having a uni placement, going in for a few lectures and having some quality "me time", socialising etc. Or getting a mon-fri placement :T with friendly hours that allow for doing work on the side.

On the other hand, theres nothing worse than having crap shifts patterns (earlies, lates, long days, long nights)... on a crap shift rota (8 days in a row early, late, early, late etc) or four long days (as in 12-14hours) in a row Friday thru Monday. The worse your shift pattern the harder it is to find bank work that fits in.

please note that some placements may negotiate with you on your placement hours/days....I believe they do exist though I never had one, nor did any of my fellow students. I liken it to the monthly winner of premium bonds...they exist but no ones met one :rotfl:



Like I said, I have been qualified a while now....I have been a staff nurse in a few different areas. In some respects nursing is pretty much like most jobs that people want to escape from....the hours are long, you give a lot of hours gratis in order to get everything done. Higher management are on your case all the time. You drown under the demands of paperwork. Shifts are rearranged all the time due to absence/sickeness. Its hard going when you turn up for your night duty, and the other nurse is off sick and your one hca has a health problem limiting what they can do. Management find you an agency nurse...they don't know where anything is, they don't know the paperwork.........stressful? you bet your !!! it is. During a day shift I really appreciate it when visiting relatives can see how busy you are....and they give their mum a drink of water, or wait to ask you a question when your less busy. The reality of nursing is I have been bolloxed by demanding relatives for not removing a blanket when the patient said they were too warm (doesn't matter that the thermometer said their core body temp was too low and my clinical decision for the benefit of the patient was to keep the blanket on - but then its hard to reason with idiots

But then you have to contrast it with the times where you give an elderly lady a proper bath, its been weeks since she had one due to her injuries. You wash her hair. She cries shes so happy. Her relatives visit...they shake your hand and go and buy the ward a big tin of chocolates. :T

Your five hours into your shift, not had break, so dehydrated you don't need a pee....you get five minutes to open the choccy tin, eat one (ok I lie, eat several) and chat briefly with other team members who have descended on said tin like a pack of locusts....at same time some relative comes in and makes a comment about nurses standing around doing nothing


I am happy in the area I work in (hospital based, but not a ward). I have good management (makes all the difference)....my shifts are long, but arranged fairly (you'd be surprised at the favouritism in the nhs). We are well staffed ...that's nhs speak for running on adequate staff most of the time. and morale is generally ok. I am happy to stay as a qualified nurse if I stay here.

Im sure many nurses are happy on the wards that they work in, or the community area they cover etc. But in my experience,
if you think your current job is bad......try working on a 30 bed ward, where you have a mix of highly dependant immobile patients, several "wanderers" with dementia who need constant supervision, pressure to discharge patients and your chasing up doctors for paperwork, pharmacy for drugs, hospital transport...for transport ......three emergency admissions, two patients going down to theatre, three post ops coming back.......and your short staffed, and your staying at least an hour after work just to catch up with the bloody paperwork.



Am I glad I did my nurse training? from where I am now, I would say yes. The pay is ok but believe me I earn it. I have more good days than bad. But if you think that your going to be "making a difference" that you have time to console that tearful patient, to attend to all the needs of those in your care......that your going to get so much out of on a personal satisfaction level.........you may well achieve that, just don't expect it to happen on a regular basis :rotfl:

What is being a nurse REALLY like.......take your current crappy job, bung on a uniform, and be personally responsible for everyone you work with right now and everything they do. If your happy with that, you'll cope just fine

HTH
T

Adora-Bell-Dearheart

Hi snakecharmer thanks for your initial post as it is something I'm also thinking about doing and Tyler for the practical experience info! My issue is that I'm worried about going back and being a student then I will compromise my plans to have kids, my undergraduate degree is social work and I work in a hospital at present but I worry about having to 'start again' as been in this role for over 9 years. I'd like to gain some practical experience of nursing role by working as hca somehow but again worry that my current employer would forbid this! Best of luck to you snakecharmer!

iSlideOnItConstance

I have a friend who left the hospitality industry to pursue a career in nursing; he now works as a CAMHS practitioner nurse within the community, mon-fri, 9-5 on a decent wage. Go for it

nimbo

I went back to uni and am now at the end of my three year degree...

Social work rather than nursing but similar in the fact you will be run ragged on placement (at least I knew i'd never get nights).

As far as I remember you have very little chance of getting a place in September (sure my application had to be in by Christmas) and you'll have to do the access type thing you have enrolled on any way...

Start saving now - but back as much as you can in preparation - if you're earning 50k you may be able to save quite a bit...

Do a statement of affairs - and be a bit harsh with yourselves - it will be depressingly tight when at university so get used to not having the sky packages / nice hair dresser / nice holiday now... Cutting back means getting something you want.

Could you downsize to one car - or down grade from a tank to something smaller???

What universities will you be applying to? What happens if you get into different ones? I would say have a look in the library for example - I applied for one uni that had about 1/2 a shelf of books dedicated to social work and I kind of figured there would be a struggle on at assignment dates if there were three years of 60 students plus the two years of masters students...

Apply for student finance that will tell you what you would get. I did the year before I started as I knew I was going to apply through clearing - and did not want to have no finance in place when I started. You only actually get the cash when you get a place. (The electronic form will also save you details so you can just tweak them next time)...

Also maybe worth posting in the student section as there are people who understand numbers and may be able to actually do maths that would require more fingers and toes than I have...

good luck

flea72

Nhs bursary is about £5k, maintenance loan is just over £2k. So £7k in total

depending on where your placement site is (not always commutable, so have to stay away) you have to pay for accommdation upfront and claim it back, so you will need money to do this. Again if commutable, you have to pay travel expenses and claim it back. Depending on how quick your uni process payments, it can take weeks to get your money back. Im sure that as a couple, the uni would not put you on placement together, so you need fo find two lots of money for expenses

Do you already have necessary qualifications to get into uni, or will you need to do additional study first? Does a uni near where you live offer nursing? If so, which field do you want to go into adult, paediatric, mental health, midwifery? How will you and your OH cope with studying together, working same/different shifts, etc. Access to computers at home, if you both need to use it at same time, etc.

I agree with others, the logical thing to do, would be take it in turns to study, whilst the other is the financial support

tyler2027

may I just add something re travel expenses as its been mentioned a couple of times but an important bit of info needs to be added.


you cannot claim expenses for your travel to uni. As uni time is half the course, that's 1.5 years your funding yourself.

you can only claim travel expenses to/from placement if it costs more to get there than to uni. uni will tell you its based on distance..ie if its further to travel to placement only then can you claim expenses. not true! if you drive then its automatic that a further distance will qualify, as it will cost more. But public transport is all about the cost.

When it comes down to working out costs its not how you would like to travel...but its done on the cheapest option available. So if they work out you can take 3 buses to get there but they take twice as long as say the train....you have to take the buses and supply the tickets to get the money back, or pay your own train fare.

Allocations at my uni at least did their utmost to ensure they minimised claims. I got sent to one placement that was half a mile more than uni. I drive so it was a case of I qualified...my mileage proved the distance. My uni used only one route finder as there gold standard of distance and therefore cost...and theirs (AA) said it was X miles....mine (RAC) said it was Y miles. I never got paid back.

If you budget for all your own travel costs for the weird and sometimes far out places they can send you to then any expenses will be a bonus

T

Annisele

Would you consider a part time nursing degree? Effectively you work part time as a healthcare assistant or similar, and do the degree the rest of the time.

It would end up taking about the same time as having one of you giving up work to do a full time degree while the other works, then swopping - but you might prefer that way.

Plus, are you certain that it's nursing you want to do? Rather than, say, medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy, etc etc? If you're not sure, then maybe see if you can volunteer or get work experience doing some healthcare related thing.

PasturesNew

What about a specialism? I know somebody who is a radiographer - went to Uni etc etc ... now in a cushy job, very well paid, fairly regular hours then paid fabulously for overnight shifts (e.g. gets a bed to kip if there's nothing going on; gets time off in lieu (might even be 1.5x time off) and gets £100/shift ... and, when not busy, sits and chats online to me/her friends). And, she said, there's a shortage of them.

She does the X Rays when people randomly turn up with broken arms/legs etc.