anyone completed nursing as a mature student?

Joshua5

Hey all,

I'm wondering if anyone has completed nursing as a mature student? Or just nursing in general?

Pardon my ignorance, my other half is considering her future and she mentioned it last night. I believe it's a 4 year course, first two are classroom based and then year three is 50-50 and you can be sent anywhere? Same for year 4?

I'm just curious as we have children could she actually be deployed annywhere without a choice? We live in Drogheda so I'm thinking Dublin, Louth, even Meath is fine but imagine the commute to Athlone or the likes...

It wouldn't be a deal breaker but I'd be interested in hearing about peoples experience of the travelling to places and how frequent it is. Just so I'm prepared....

paperclip2

As far as I know the college that you do your training in determines where your student placement is. You can get a list of these in the booklet Nursing & Midwifery, a Career for You : http://www.nursingboard.ie/en/careers.aspx See pages 12-13.

Colleges in a city usualy means that your placement is in a city hospital but with colleges like Athlone IT you can be placed in hospitals across the midlands, the same is true for Dundalk IT, placement can be anywhere across the Dublin North East HSE region.
It also depends on what branch of nursing you are doing.

Details of the programme structure are on page 14 of the booklet also.

Usually years one to three are a combination of theory and practical placements with the 4th year fully practical.

The nursing careers centre is also a very useful source of info on nursing as a career.

Hope this helps

WildRosie

I'm a third year student nurse. Your placements depend on the college you go to, hospitals are affiliated with certain colleges. I'm in UCD and the affiliated hospitals are Vincent's and the Mater for general, crumlin for children's, holles st for midwifery and St. John of gods for psychiatric. You do placement in every year starting from first year. I did 15 weeks in first year, think it was 12 in second year and 12 in third year. In fourth year, we are in lectures till Christmas and are on placement after that, 36 weeks for general/mids/psych and 52 weeks for children's and general. In UCD, for general you have a choice between Vincent's and the mater. During second and third year you can be sent further afield, the furthest I have been sent was Newcastle, Co Wicklow which really wasn't that far. Some hospitals have free/low cost nurses accommodation.

If you're in drogheda she's probably be looking at Dundalk or DCU. I'm not sure about Dundalk but for dcu for general the hospitals are Beaumont or Connolly.

It can be hard but it's doable, there's a lot of mature students and many of them have young children. It's not really a case of being sent anywhere, you know the sites associated with the college and you'll only be sent to those sites. I think the midwifery students are more likely to be sent further afield than the nurses. The way the colleges work out theory and placement time varies, some colleges might send you on a short placement in semester 1 of first year and then bring you back in for lectures. Others like ucd tend to do it in blocks, so you do all your lectures and then head out on placement. But the total placement and theory hours are the exact same across the different colleges, they're just structured differently.

youandme13

My son is 4 and starting Junior Infants in September so I'm hoping to be fingers crossed studying nursing in 3-4 years (I'll be 30 then) hoping I won't be too old doing it just wondering on other mature students with children, how did it affect home life.. Were you able to get study and assignments done and still have the weekend family time.. Is there any help with funding, I'll be off the One Parent payment as my son will be nearly or around 7, unless is there a way I start when he's 6 and keep on BTEA for the duration of the course, or stay on Lone parents and get the grant... Any info so grateful for really want to be a children's nurse