Mature nursing..

youandme13

Looking at either childrens/general or psychiatric nursing at UCD. My son will be 5 in school then any advice about studying this with a young child, how doable is it really?? What are the college contact hours like every week etc?? As need to work out roughly for childcare / after school care first before applying!! Many thanks for replies!!

WildRosie

I'm 4th year C&G. In first year you'll be in lectures for all of semester 1, you'll have Mondays off IIRC, then it's more or less 9-4/5, exams before Christmas. After Christmas you're on placement, 5 weeks in Crumlin, usually 3 days a week 7.30am-7.30pm, then back in UCD for 4 weeks, then back out on placement, either Vincents/Mater/Crumlin then switch to either your general hospital or Crumlin depending on where you were last. You'll have exams in the middle of your last placement and you'll be finished mid June. C&G do more placement than general/psych/midwifery so finish later.

There's lots of students with kids doing nursing and they manage. The hardest part seems to be arranging childcare during placement because of the long hours and on some placements you won't know what days you're working until the week before and some places are less flexible than others. But there's no nights til 4th year. C&G is more work than the other disciplines, you'll have exams every semester and more placement but if you want to be a children's nurse it's worth it.