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questions for student nurses....
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
any one here study nursing? what uni are you at? do you do the dip or the degree?
Post edited by JustV on
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my sister does it too, so i might be able to help?
:cool:
Part time course starting in january, ive only recently applied though, so am still waiting to hear back.
I've just finished my first year at Lancaster (well the Nursing/Teaching offshoot of it) Uni and whilst I would wholeheartedly recommend Nursing to you, I wouldn't recommend this dump! Lancaster's a lovely, lovely place and the college itself is pretty nice...and I hesitate to say this in case anyone reading this is offended, but they let pretty much all the rabble in. I don't know how common that is, maybe all Unis do it - and I'm no Einstein myself - but it kind of pisses me off. Especially since they all look down on me because I'm doing Nursing, when I'd hedge a bet that I'm as intelligent as any of them. Sadly, I am a stupid-head, and followed a man here! Least I've still got 'im I suppose
Anyway, to try and answer your questions, to the best of my knowledge Northumbria Uni is the best in the country for Nursing (at least that's what they tell you anyway, ha ha!) and my parents' neighbour is one of the senior Nursing lecturers there, and he does know his stuff. Plus you'll be within a good area for both hospital and community placements. I also believe Nottingham (esp. the Derby campus) is great because several of my friends have gone there and highly recommend it. I've still got the league tables saved on my hard drive, from when I was looking around for the right Uni, so let me know if they'd be of use.
As for the diploma/degree choice...I'm doing the degree, and whilst I was positive I was making the right choice at the time, I think it's possibly more sensible to do the diploma. Although of course this varies from person to person, due to finance etc. The obvious (and huge) benefit of the DipHE is the bursary, which obv. you don't have to pay back and is not means tested (so all Diploma students get it, regardless of income etc). There are bursaries for the Degree but they're means tested, and I don't know many people who get one. I get a loan in the same way as most students. You may see the disadvantage of doing the Diploma to be the fact that you don't come out with a degree at the end of it...but you can actually top-up your Diploma afterwards (either immediately or later on) in (I think) 6 months. So it does seem sensible to do the Diploma being funded and then top it up in a short period. However, it's up to you entirely. There's a small difference in the workload, and the Degree is slightly more academic (so they say, although this year my cohort has been mixed degree/diploma students, and they split it this coming year) therefore you need A Levels or equivalent, just as with any other degree. For the diploma you need the minimum of 5 GCSEs A-C or Higher GNVQ (are they called that still? or are they AVCE?) Of course, for mature students they take other things into consideration...such as life experience, access courses etc.
Good luck in making your decisions, I really can't recommend it highly enough. It's hard worth, make no mistake, but worth every second...although ask me again in 2 years and I may say differently Get as much info from all the Unis you are interested in, they'll practically throw it at you as they're so eager to get students in. Make an informed decision and you'll never look back If you need any more info, feel free to ask me or PM me...not that I'm an expert or anything, but I was going through this last year, and I'm pretty well-informed about it!
Also I only have the 5 GCSEs, and If I wanted to do the degree, id have to do a years access course first, which wouldnt be funded at all, I couldnt afford that, plus you still go into nursing at the same grade whether youve done the degree or diploma, so its the same pay.
Im going to do my dip in adult nursing because then you can specialise later and get seconded to do other things, whereas if i specialised in child nursing or mental health nursing for instance, its not as easy to do other things later.
All in all, I think the diploma course seems to be a much better option for me. Its a newer course, so there are a lot of benefits to it at the moment, as theyre trying to encourage people to do it.
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