Working and studying Nursing while running a household: Sam's story

I’m Sam, a 39-year-old Nursing student due to start the fourth year of a Master's Nursing degree. I also work 28 hours a week as a support worker and am a mum to two children, a 23-year-old and 4-year-old.

The road to nursing

Nursing was something that never even crossed my mind when I was younger. I always wanted to be a mechanic. After completing two years of a four-year mechanical apprenticeship, I ended up working in a factory. Unfortunately, the apprenticeship wage wasn’t sustainable while having a small child, and my dream ended.

I was a single mum at the time, and as my child got older, our living expenses increased. I decided to take a second, part-time job in care on top of my full-time factory role. Care was very new to me — it was something I thought would top up my income.

I was surprised at how I took to it. I loved the variety and challenges that came with it, and became a full-time care worker. I gradually progressed from domiciliary care to support work and then to complex care.

Shortly after I had my youngest son, a close friend suggested going to university to study nursing. I honestly thought I would be too old. She assured me that I could do it regardless of my age, so I looked into how I could achieve this. After a bit of digging, I found my pathway to university. It had a few small hurdles, but it was nowhere near as difficult as I had initially thought.

Balancing life, family and finances

It's been a lot of work to juggle life, family and finances, but achievable.

Working while studying has been a necessity. Student finance and the NHS Learning Support Fund are a great top up, but I still need a weekly wage to take care of the house, bills and fuel to travel between university and placements.

The key to finding time to manage all these is setting strict periods to dedicate to study and rest.

My working hours are usually Thursday and Friday nights, something I make clear to my placement area. However, I also tell them I can change that to work with placement shift patterns if required. Fortunately, all placement areas have been very understanding, and my employer also helps out by changing my shifts if there is enough notice.

Juggling studies with parenthood

Balancing parental responsibilities while studying has been challenging but also doable. Being strict about setting and completing a full day of independent study per week outside of university has helped. Breaking the planned day into areas of focus gives further structure to this time.

Any other free time I can use to study is a bonus that I grasp with both hands. I've added subject reading into our bedtime routines too, which has been great for putting the small human to sleep sooner.

Being able to access study materials through file cloud storage on my phone has been great for those unexpected moments you find you have some free time. Taking advantage of those moments has enabled me to get ahead or catch up with my studying.

Taking care of yourself

As important as scheduling yourself a full day of study is, it is just as important to designate a day to yourself where you don’t even open a page. Having a day to yourself helps to recharge your mental health and chill. This day can also be used for family days out, or as a duvet day.

It can be easy to put yourself last sometimes, but you need to remember: how can you look after others if you can’t look after yourself? Having this mentality early on in your nursing journey will be beneficial for when you become qualified.

I am one of the most unorganised people you could meet. But being strict with my planned study and rest days has really helped me to keep focused and on top of my work. This has also prevented burnout while I juggle life.

If I can do it, anyone can!

Check out MNurse (Adult/Mental Health) if you want to follow in Sam's footsteps.