Nurses/student nurses can you help me please?

[MishMashMosher]

Im currently doing an access course online and hoping to send off my ucas soon!

I'm not oblivious to the struggles nurses are facing and how hard their job is, but it's something I really want to do.

Can you tell me how about your lifestyle? How do you juggle everything? I am lucky that my husband works set hours and the wrap around care here is very flexible. My dc will be 6 and 8 if I get into uni.

What work experience did you have before you started? Any personal statement advice?

Thank you!

I’m a first year student nurse. I did an access course last year too. So far it’s been about the same level of work as access but obviously they expect it to be more academic. I’m about to start my first placement and I’m doing 3/4 13 hour shifts a week which will be hard as I have two young DC. As long as you have support from your family it is manageable. Good luck!

Just to add I had 18 months experience as a support worker before I applied.

Thanks for replying. Really pleased to hear it's a similar workload to access as I'm finding it very manageable. I work so I'm doing the access course online with very little support from the course provider.

Do you mind me asking what marks you got in your access?

I got full distinctions in access. I worked 2 days a week and went to college for 3. This year I’m at uni 3 days while doing theory and doing maybe 2 shifts a month at my job. Sorry to hear you’re not getting much support. The main thing is to always stick to your learning outcomes and refer back to them within your work to keep yourself on track!

I have a nearly 12 year old and a 7 year old and I'm just finishing my second year of nursing.

Basically when I'm on placement I try to only work one paid shift a week.
When I'm at uni I try and work 12-20 hours a week and try and keep that money aside a bit so I can cover the less paid working hours during placement time.

I have a childminder who is flexible. She does the wrap-around school care.

I'm now 8 months pregnant so will have to juggle a baby in my third year as well.

Sorry I mean one paid shift per fortnight.
Especially if it's a 32 hour placement.

I do private care work so the money is really good.

Studentnurse, that's actually really helpful about going back to the learning outcomes. I'll make sure to do that from now on. We'll done on getting full distinctions! Did you find it hard to get distinctions?

Congratulations on your dc3 onehurt! You'll have your hands full next year. I'm quite impressed that you work on top of your degree. I was under the impression it was near impossible to fit a job in too.

MishMashMonster I don't know one student in our cohort that doesn't work.

It's near on impossible to survive without working unfortunately.

If your partner earns well then it effects your bursary (I appreciate that you won't be going down the bursary route) so to not work you need a partner who earns enough to support you both fully.

When looking up financial help, Ive seen that I'd be able to get a maintenance loan and help towards childcare.

I will have to look into it more but I think we will be okay. If not, I know my current employer would happily keep me on for a shift or 2 a week.

I get maintenance loan and child care as well.
It's good that you have a fall back option of work just in case you need it, but hopefully you won't.

Are you doing adult, child or mental health nursing?

Which Unis are you applying for?

I'm applying for northumbria and Sunderland. I'm so worried I won't get in to either. Which uni are you at if you don't mind saying?

In the other end at Brighton uni.

I’m a MH nurse. I’ve got a 2.5 year dd (who I had during my training - got a years mat leave and came back with the cohort year below). I found the juggle of training really hard, not helped by the fact my uni was a 1.5hr commute either way from home.

We didn’t get any childcare support or extra funding as my DH was earning above the threshold (which was really low, I think 12-14k mark) so I received a bursary of £387 and a student loan which was I think £3300 first and second year and then £2700 third year. This was the standard bursary and maintenance loan for nursing in Wales.

I used a mix of nursery, childminder, my parents (who were a god send for the wrap around times) and my DH swapped his days off to Tuesday and Wednesday. We wouldn’t have been able to manage other wise but it meant I was always off sat and sun without him, which was really tough and meant I couldn’t do any uni work at the weekend. Also meant it was pretty impossible to fit in any bank shifts as the weekend was my only time with DD and I had exhausted childcare options by then! Placements were generally great, and all but one was accommodating to childcare issues, however that was luck and can’t be relied on. Most placements were also great in that during a quiet afternoon they would send me home to work on an essay, although this happens much less on ward placements and being MH I had quite a lot of different community team placements.

I went to Swansea uni and there you have uni blocks, of say 5-6 weeks (one of which is usually a reading week) and then placement blocks of 7 weeks. These blocks alternate. When in uni blocks some weeks would be 5 days but quite often it would be more like 3-4 days and I would use the other day or two to work on my assignments. This tended to work but needs advance planning and leaves no room for procrastination!

I think my experience of training was certainly made more difficult by my commute to uni, so definitely train somewhere close if possible! Make sure you have wrap around care to accommodate shifts and get organised with assignments as soon as you get them. The vast majority of my cohort had a child or more, it’s definitely doable. Just brace yourself, it’s a degree like no other!!!

I didn’t do access course, I got in as I already had a degree in Psychology. Experience wise I had worked in MH as a support worker for around 1 year prior to training and had some volunteer experience with the Samaritans.

Things I found helpful at interview:

• research the 6 c’s of care and drop that in somewhere.
• Know about current nursing issues, I was asked and spoke about the crisis of more nurses leaving the profession than joining.
• Be able to link some previous experience to nursing skills, doesn’t necessarily have to be care experience.
• Have questions to ask them at the end.

I’m doing adult nursing in the midlands.

Also the bursary no longer exists in England so I get a maintenance loan. My partner works full time and I get 10700 per year. 3500 in sept, jan and April. HTH

Thanks so much for all the responses, really helpful and appreciated. I have tried to include the nursing c's into my personal statement. The interview advice is really helpful to. Hopefully I will get one!

On the student finance calculator, it said I could get just over £6k maintenance loan which isn't a lot less than what I earn from my part time job and totally manageable to live on for us.

Unfortunately the two closest unis are still about an hour away from me so travelling is a must.

Just bumping this 😊

I've just sent off my ucas. I'm so nervous!