I'm a student nurse at Plymouth university, AMA!

Hi - i see you're currently a nursing student at Plymouth Uni. I am in the process of applying through Clearing for Nursing at Plymouth, but Mental Health - and based at Exeter campus. I would be a mature student (44 atm) - do you come across other mature students in your studies? I have had a place to do this course 4 times, but always put if off - partly as I am a single parent, though she is now nearly 15. But the other part because I have so much anxiety of starting again in life! I also am nervous about placements and feeling new and all the things that come with that.

Any encouragement / reassurance would be much appreciated! This is probably my last chance to apply, due to funding (once my daughter is 18 I would get no additional finance), so I really have to take the plunge now or accept that this isn't my path...

Many thanks in advance,

Kate

I am in the same boat as you are. Not a single parent but starting my life at 43 and scared no one will want to hire me, especially since I have not worked before. But I believe when one wants something very badly you will make it happen. So go ahead with your plans and do that course.

You will get hired as a nurse whether you're 20 or 50, it makes no difference. We all go through the same degree and assessments and then we all have the same preceptorship period. By year 3 you will have enough experience to build up from! One of my friends qualified at 47 and she's now a practitioner. It's very much possible!

What's it like studying at Plymouth?

Are you back on campus now?

Do you feel ready for your third year?

Where do you want to end up working when you finish?

I have nothing to compare to given that I'd only ever been to Plymouth uni, but the student society here is massive, there's always lots going on and the campus is lovely! It's in the middle of town centre, in between all major public transport links, super convenient.
As for the course, it changes every year and they keep it as up-to-date as possible taking student feedback into account. Personally, I think it's lacking in some more thorough clinical learning (they expect us to learn clinical bits in placements, however given the short staffing crisis in the NHS a lot of us found it hard to sustain the protected/supernumerary learning time in placements).

So I'm part of the full-blown covid cohort and so far we haven't had face-to-face lectures yet, everything has mainly been online with only a few face-to-face seminars in second year! That's about it!
Clinical skills were cancelled half-way through the first year; but we had the full sessions this year, luckily!

Third year? I guess I'm about 80% ready and 20% anticipating some challenges. This entire course has been extremely unpredictable and a fair bit disorganised given the circumstances, especially with placements. One last push though, can't wait to qualify!

I'll most likely end up in A&E or ICU, not decided which one yet, ward-based is my Achilles heel. A fair few of my cohort are looking into aesthetics nursing and district nursing, from what I heard. However, I know our university encourages students to go into bedside nursing and stay local, and to be fair there is a fair amount of support readily available in the main Plymouth hospital and of course plenty of vacancies!

Plymouth seems to have quite a good reputation for healthcare courses, it's the go to place for a lot of advanced practice courses too from what I've seen. They also have a very positive presence on twitter.

Covid has had a massive impact on both uni and practice learning, I'm planning on looking at student experience of practice learning for my masters dissertation this year. Getting the theory/clinical balance right in uni is important, particularly as short staffing seems to be having an impact on students practice learning. Did you find covid had any positive impacts on your learning on placement? (Weird question, as it has caused chaos, but I've heard a few comments about students enjoying being thrown in at the deep end).

I remember third year going by really quickly, felt like I was on placement for most of it. Have you had any placements in emergency or critical care nursing? (I'm a critical care nurse). There's usually career events on towards when you qualify by local trusts (and ones further away) and most trusts do tend to prefer local students as they're already familiar with their documentation and policies etc.

I have nothing to compare to given that I'd only ever been to Plymouth uni, but the student society here is massive, there's always lots going on and the campus is lovely! It's in the middle of town centre, in between all major public transport links, super convenient.
As for the course, it changes every year and they keep it as up-to-date as possible taking student feedback into account. Personally, I think it's lacking in some more thorough clinical learning (they expect us to learn clinical bits in placements, however given the short staffing crisis in the NHS a lot of us found it hard to sustain the protected/supernumerary learning time in placements).

So I'm part of the full-blown covid cohort and so far we haven't had face-to-face lectures yet, everything has mainly been online with only a few face-to-face seminars in second year! That's about it!
Clinical skills were cancelled half-way through the first year; but we had the full sessions this year, luckily!

Third year? I guess I'm about 80% ready and 20% anticipating some challenges. This entire course has been extremely unpredictable and a fair bit disorganised given the circumstances, especially with placements. One last push though, can't wait to qualify!

I'll most likely end up in A&E or ICU, not decided which one yet, ward-based is my Achilles heel. A fair few of my cohort are looking into aesthetics nursing and district nursing, from what I heard. However, I know our university encourages students to go into bedside nursing and stay local, and to be fair there is a fair amount of support readily available in the main Plymouth hospital and of course plenty of vacancies!

Sounds like quite an achievement to get to where you are throughout all the upheaval with Covid.. well done to you. Are lectures still delivered online - so when you go back? I have been rushing through my application this year and may slow down a bit, as a single parent - and being in a well-paid, stable job (where I have quite a senior position, just completely disillusioned), i think I may wait - last year would be my last year to be able to apply and still afford the course. So maybe it won't be my dream.. my life is already quite tough, and I am not sure I would cope..

Been great hearing all the feedback. Thank you.

The people who have worked as (health)care assistants prior to their degree seem to have the least issues when it comes to practice learning (as they're used to the Trust and the documentation) and students who have come on the course with no experience have completely different opinions and are often disregarded in placements (spoke to a few fresh first years and a lot of them recall similar experiences, unfortunately). From an academic point of view, there is a lot of pre-work for those who aren't familiar with academic writing, and we start at level 4 in first year and level 6 in third year with very limited resources; and feedback isn't always the best to learn from, I usually get a 2 sentence report for a 2000+ word assignment. Again, we had a lot of lecturers leave since I started the course, and only few have been replaced.

Truthfully, in one of my placements during covid, I found I was given more autonomy in my learning due to the short-staffing, but I was still under indirect supervision. It works if you have a great supervisor that has the confidence required in letting their student take on a few more responsibilities; after all, the supervisor is still with you during the day, and we are told to not do anything we are not competent or confident in doing.
Other placements haven't been as lovely, in the nicest way possible, there is still a lot of misunderstanding out there in what a student nurse's responsibilities are, and often the students I was on placement with would be used as healthcare assistants. A lot of us including our student reps have been tackling this issue, but it's most likely gonna remain like this for a while, however, I stay hopeful!

All my placements have been acute inpatient hospital placements, but I've been working in A&E for nearly 5 years now as a healthcare assistant, obviously switching to part-time during my studies, and it's the one area that's stuck with me! I'll be moving up north anyways, so Plymouth working post-qualification doesn't really apply to me.

Yeah, that's a common issue across nursing education and nursing, experience is leaving and not being replaced. I'm hoping to move across to full time education in a few years time, but it'll be a big financial hit if I don't play it right and this puts a lot of people off. It's a shame to hear about feedback, it's well know this is what guides further learning. How are you finding the academic stuff?



Students being used as HCAs has been an issue for ages and will continue as one for ages I imagine. It's hugely frustrating, I used to find I would have to prove on every placement that I wasn't "too posh to wash" and miss out on learning opportunities. The future nurse curriculum has caused further confusion, with things like venepuncture, cannulation, catheterisation etc being included, yet many places won't let students do a BM.




I enjoy going down to A&E to help out the ITU docs, resus is often like the messy end of critical care nursing. I find the initial stabilisation and management of patients rewarding to be involved in. With how nursing is at the moment, there are vacancies everywhere so I bet you'll be find in finding a post, particularly with your experience.

Hi - i see you're currently a nursing student at Plymouth Uni. I am in the process of applying through Clearing for Nursing at Plymouth, but Mental Health - and based at Exeter campus. I would be a mature student (44 atm) - do you come across other mature students in your studies? I have had a place to do this course 4 times, but always put if off - partly as I am a single parent, though she is now nearly 15. But the other part because I have so much anxiety of starting again in life! I also am nervous about placements and feeling new and all the things that come with that.

Any encouragement / reassurance would be much appreciated! This is probably my last chance to apply, due to funding (once my daughter is 18 I would get no additional finance), so I really have to take the plunge now or accept that this isn't my path...

Many thanks in advance,

Kate

I'm currently a second-year student about to start my final year, fire away your questions! Happy to help!