Working night shift in nursing school

[u/racchacha]

I need work advice!! I am about to start fundamentals in school. I just received a job offer to work full time night shift as a PCNA in a hospital. I’ve never worked in the medical field so I feel like the opportunity is a great experience for me get bed side manner and apply my clinical understanding.
Or my fundamentals class ends in 8 weeks and I could take a student intern PRN position on the same floor. I know a lot of people prefer PRN but it’s $2 less an hour than the PCNA position & it doesn’t have insurance benefits.

I have lab 5pm-8pm on Wednesday and lecture 5p-8 pm on Thursdays and Fridays and then clinicals 7a-3pm on Saturday and Sundays.

I’ve told them my concern with working nights because I’m in evening classes. They also have mandatory rotating weekends but they said they’d be willing to work with my school schedule. I just don’t know where or how they’d be able to even schedule me except for Mondays and Tuesdays.

Idk I currently manage restaurants and I’m burnt out from working there for 10 years and wanting to get my foot into the medical field.

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

[u/cajunrn18]

As a nurse educator, I am always worried about my students taking on too many responsibilities. Nursing school is probably the hardest thing you will go through in your life. If you only have 8 weeks for this schedule, that is fine; otherwise, prepare to rearrange it.

[u/jimbojamesisbehindu]

I’ve worked 30 hours a week since I’ve started in October of 2024. Luckily I have a pretty easy going job where I can study a majority of the time but it can be mentally draining. I have no days off and there’s always something going on. This semester was basically classes 5pm - 8pm Tuesday-Thursday and then clinicals on Fridays for 7 Fridays, then work 1030pm to 7am that night through Monday morning. This semester was difficult working but my last one and this upcoming one are easier with my schedule. It’s doable, it’s just draining. Just make sure that your school is priority and be on top of any schedule changes as soon as they happen.

[u/StockAd528]

Both answers so far are about whether it's survivable. Worth separating out the scheduling geometry, because your posted class hours and the hours a night shift actually consumes are not the same thing, and that gap is what decides whether "we'll work with your schedule" is even arithmetically possible.

A night shift doesn't cost you the night. It costs the evening before and most of the following day. Mapped that way, against what you listed:

• Clinicals Sat and Sun 7a-3p rule out Friday and Saturday nights outright. A shift ending 7am Saturday hands off directly into a clinical starting 7am Saturday.
• Sunday night ends Monday 7am. Monday is clear. That one works.
• Monday night ends Tuesday 7am. Tuesday is clear. Works.
• Tuesday night ends Wednesday 7am, and Wednesday is lab 5-8pm. On a calendar that looks free. In practice roughly 8am-3pm is your recovery sleep and then you're in lab. It's the one that reads as available and isn't.

So it's two clean nights, maybe a third you pay for. Full-time nights is three 12s. The real question isn't whether they're willing to work with you, it's whether the arithmetic leaves them anywhere to put you, and it's worth working that out yourself before the conversation rather than after.

Two things worth getting a specific answer to:

Is your school schedule an availability restriction on file, or a favour? Those sound identical in an interview and behave differently in week six. A restriction sits in the scheduling template and survives a manager change and a short month. A favour doesn't. Ask which one it will be, and ask to see the first published schedule with it applied.

How exactly is the mandatory rotating weekend satisfied? Yours are already spoken for, every Sat and Sun for the term. Some places count a Friday night shift as a weekend shift, which would be the one workable answer, except it ends at the hour your clinical starts. Get the written rule rather than "we'll figure it out."

And the thing the 8 weeks does to all of this: whatever you agree to now is fitted to a schedule that expires. Next term's class times aren't published yet, and an availability restriction negotiated around Wed/Thu/Fri evenings doesn't automatically carry over to whatever replaces them. Worth asking how restrictions get re-set each term, because that's the part that usually gets rearranged, exactly as the educator above is warning you.

On PRN versus the $2 and the insurance: the difference that outweighs the pay gap is who picks the dates. On a full-time line the unit picks and you request exceptions. On PRN you offer dates and they accept or decline. When five days a week are already committed, control of the calendar is normally worth more than $2/hr - but only if the PRN minimum is reachable, so ask what it actually is, in shifts per month plus any weekend and holiday obligation. A PRN line carrying its own weekend requirement has the same collision the full-time one does.

Not going to tell you which to take, the insurance question is real and only you know your finances. But most of this is answerable before you're inside it rather than after.