Cany anyone tell me about nursing degrees?

[adamschic]

DD has always wanted to be a doctor and whilst up until recently that looked possible, she may have to rethink. Her school 6th form teaching is terrible and she probably won't get good enough A level grades in 2 years so is thinking about nursing instead.

Can anyone tell us about doing a nursing degree. Do you go to a Russell Group University? What finanical assistance is available from the NHS in bursaries? I know there are no tution fees. Any advice would be great.

The majority of nursing degrees these days are funded through student finance and not full busaries. Pretty sure there are fees too.

A look on Unis your DD likes will give you all the info she needs. Or direct gov.

Suggests she gets some Care experience - eg part time work with Care agency. Places are very competitive.

Thanks, I've just had a look at the website for a good Russell Group that she is visiting tomorrow (with a view to an unlikely medicine place). They do the 3 year nursing course, which is great.

I'm just unsure about the finances. It will be for 2012 or maybe a deferred 2013 place. I can see that there are no tuition fees which is great and she will be entitled to all the bursaries/grants because of my income, but it's not clear what the NHS are offering. It doesn't seem fair to get saddled with student loan debt for nursing, somehow, but perhaps that is inevitable nowadays.

Voluntary work in a care home is already underway.

Sorry just re-read, fees? Oh dear, suppose it's the same for teachers aswell.

Im being saddled with student debt because of a similar professional degree- do think its inevitable.

No one really knows about the final details for 2012 yet.

She has to really want to do nursing as I think it is one of the toughest degrees out there. Lots of academic work but also you are on placement 6 months a year, where you are expected to work as much and as hard as the trained staff.

Care experience is important.

NHS bursaries are means tested, so will depend on your household income. You can also apply for a student loan.

What else do you want to know?

OK so the lack of info about finances is because they haven't sorted it out yet.

She has always wanted to be a doctor or nurse if not.

A couple of thoughts: firstly, if you really think the A level teaching is to blame for her not getting the grades then has she considered transferring to a different school/college and starting her A Levels again? Did she get excellent GCSEs? If medicine is what she really wants to do then she should pursue this if at all possible. Nursing and medicine are very different careers and (generally) with very different incomes in the long run (!!) so she needs to be sure what she wants to do and not just do nursing because she can't get into medicine (IMO). Alternatively it's not unheard of for people to do nursing and then go on and do graduate entry medicine.

If she does want to do nursing, then IMO it's less about which university you study at and more about which part of the country you want to live and which hospitals you will be placed at. Lots (possibly most) nursing courses are run by non-Russell group unis but may offer placements at very good teaching hospitals eg. Anglia Ruskin places students at Addenbrookes, UWE places at Bristol Royal Infirmary etc.

HTH

I trained in Wales where it's slightly different. Here nursing students pay no tuition fees and get a non means tested bursery, which was £110 a week when I trained but that was 8 years ago so I assume it's gone up. However, we had to work 45 weeks of the year, at the time in England those doing the degree pathway were in uni for the same terms as other students. I'm not sure how that has changed now with it being an all graduate profession though.

As said earlier though it's a tough course, if she's not 100% sure of it she won't enjoy it. Also I'm a little insulted that you appear to think of nursing as a consolation prize to be honest.

if she really wants to be a doctor, look into that a bit more, or other professions , nursing isnt really an alternative to being a doctor.good luck

Also, as you probably know, nursing is also a very difficult course to get onto (remember Laura whats-er-name who couldn't get on with 5 As at A level?) so she needs to have much better reasons prepared than 'because I couldn't get into medicine'.

MissTina, I didn't mean to offend. My sister is a nurse and trained for it in her 40's and I'm extremely proud of her as I would be of DD if she goes into the profession. It's just a bit of a disappointment now that it looks unlikely she will get to apply for medicine as it's always been her dream. She might not get the grades for nursing either as I can see that most courses want high grades too.

GCSE results were very good, certainly good enough for the medicine courses that are hot on GCSE results. The nearest 6th form college is 40 miles away, other than that it would be another school 6th form, she could repeat this year but again for medicine they won't allow resitters as undergraduates.

DD wants to work in a caring profession and that is why she is looking at nursing as an option. She has been looking at life sciences too but isn't sure about working in a lab without patient contact.