To pack in my uni course?? [hmm]

[HongkongDreamer]

Hi
Im about to go into my 3rd year at uni out of a 4 year course that ive felt up and down about through out. I cant see me being able to stick it out another 2 years even though it will give me loads of opportunities at the end. At the end of the 4 years i'll just end up with a degree that i have no interest in making a career out of. However i do know what i want to do instead but the uni application deadline for this year has already passed which means i wouldnt start another degree course till aug 2014, which would be the last year of this course. I know i should really just stick out the 2 years and complete it then do a post grad in the area i want to work but i absolutely hate the course im doing just now.
WWYD?

OP, I've just read back through my posts and I think I might be a bit evangelical about nursing

What aspect of it is getting too much for you?

The 12 hour shifts, just making me really down lately. Ive never been like that before with it. And working 48 hours a week as well as everything else

HongKong I did a law degree prior to my post grad primary. I too figured out law was not for me half way through, but I decided that I had already put in such a lot of work that I would stick out my degree. It was the right choice for me.

Over my final two years of the law degree I volunteered at a school and got a part time job as a playground assistant. I appreciate this may be very difficult whilst juggling a nursing degree but experience in at least one school setting is essential for entry into post grad primary.

Also, I'm sure you didn't mean to sound flippant about wanting anything 9-5, but I will warn you teaching, and the post grad in particular, are very far from 9-5. Think up until 2am doing huge amounts of paperwork, followed by a 6am start to get into placement for 7:30am, to be all prepared when the class teacher arrives at 8am. And you'll often be in school well after 5pm.

Finally, my sister wanted to be a nurse all her life and worked in care homes etc from 15 years old. She had a terrible time on the nursing degree and found all the essay writing very hard. She excelled when on placement though. I'm sure it crossed her mind to leave as the essay writing got her down so much. She stuck with it and is now an excellent nurse in a busy hands on department. It's certainly not 9-5 but she has good holiday entitlement and truly loves her job. Make sure you access any support you need, esp. if there's something in particular you're struggling with.

If your determined to move on I suggest speaking with the careers advice service at your uni, they helped me a lot when getting into the post grad primary. Good luck.

Sorry for the late response, I meant the pharmaceutical industry. There are nurse advisor jobs. An evening meeting or so a month and about 3 conferences a year. Not too bad.

Being totally honest here, I did nursing but did not undertake placement until the end of second year. Discovered then that I hated (bedside) nursing. Was told by parents to continue onwards and finish "because it was only two more years and it would look terrible if I didn't finish"

I have been working as a nurse nearly 2 years now and guess what? I still hate it. And let me tell you, it's damn hard to put up with a job like this if you already don't like it much to begin with. You have to be there 100% for your patients, this is a job which demands your full attention all the time and your patients wants and safety NEED to come first. Your coworkers will either be wonderful or completely useless depending on the ward culture. As a graduate nurse you get all the unwanted shifts and crap allocations so you're going to miss birthdays, Xmas, friends gatherings etc and get the most difficult, heavy patients. It is heavy work- literally. If you work with adults in an aged ward/neuro/medical you are going to go home with a backache all the time. I don't get this "no lift" policy they like to tout to students- because you WILL be lifting and pushing and moving people who may be actually twice your body weight a lot of the time. You will see people suffer in horrible ways and be unable to do much to help them. Conversely, you will sometimes see the best in people and your coworkers. But you have to put up with a lot of shit in this job (both literally and metaphorically) and unless it's genuinely your passion and vocation I would not do it.

Some people are suited for nursing and absolutely adore the job, and I think that's great and God bless them. But I'm burnt out already and I'm only in my mid twenties and am now retraining to get out. I wish I hadn't wasted 6 years of my life on this.

As far as I know you need a good honours degree to do a post grad certainly in my field. Check out the financial implications regarding your bursary if you leave the course early.

If you won't be able to do the postgrad if you quit, stick with it.

Teaching is not a good option if you want something 9-5. The only free time you get as a teacher is when you sleep, and that includes a large chunk of the 'holidays'.

what about nurses in a gp surgery or doing the hv course as hv. Is generally 9-5?

This is why the one year experience in care work the government are talking about bringing in is such a good idea. I start my nursing degree in September and am fairly sure that none of the actual placements or shifts will put me off, having worked in care since I was 17. I am now 45.

Maddening - not many GP surgeries are only open 9-5 these days, but Practice Nursing is very competitive, precisely because of the no weekends/nights appeal. They tend to be part time/job share in lots of places too. I have never heard of a newly qualified nurse getting a practice nurse job, although I'm sure it must happen in some places. Health Visiting is a further 12/18 months at uni, and they will also require some post graduate experience before you start the course. I'm not trying to be a prophet of doom here but really although there are a few 9-5 jobs in nursing they really are very rare these days, as even the traditional ones now have to cover extended hours.

What Olyphin says about loving the job you do applies to most fields. (Maybe except things like supermarket shelf stacking. No one can love that right)? As a software engineer, I have to get up to day with new technologies all the time. This is done on non-work hours, by reading blogs, playing with languages at home, etc. You have to love it to stay relevant.

By the way, a mum I know was a nurse who worked in an NHS hospital. She's now training to be a HV because of the non-shift appeal. I'm not sure how 9-5 it is, or if you need any nursing experience to get into it. And maybe all HVs are mums already?