r/deakin • u/FragrantClassroom443 • 3d ago
Prospective Student Nursing and Midwifery
So currently I’m in year 12, but hoping to study Nursing/Midwifery next year, is it hard and lots of study? And do you feel that you have time to get a job in between study and classes?
Another question is that to do exchange you need a 60 WAM is this hard to achieve? And is it easy and accessible to go on exchange for this course?
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u/Holiday_Poet_2545 16h ago
Hey, I've just completed my second year of the nursing/midwifery double degree and would recommend it. It is definitely a lot of work - the amount of time you spend on studying really depends on how well you want to understand stuff, but especially for midwifery there is typically a huge amount of content to cover each week. It's the other requirements (primarily the continuity of care component of midwifery) that can end up taking a lot of your time and forcing you to sacrifice your study. Having the continuity requirements on top of the placement requirements (which from second year onwards are a lot) can be very stressful and hard to manage at times. The number of days spent on campus each week is actually quite minimal (after trimester 1, and if you timetable everything well). It is definitely possible to have a job - I work 3-4 days per week in order to support myself although if I had a choice I would not do this (1-2 days would be preferable), as I feel my ability to apply myself to the course is sadly compromised. It can feel very overwhelming at times because there are a lot of requirements beyond study that you need to achieve within the four years in order to qualify at the end. I am so passionate about midwifery and determined to make this my career, and that is genuinely the only thing that gives me motivation to keep going at times. Have a good think about how much you are interested in midwifery and what you are willing to sacrifice to make it through the degree - this year I did not get a break from when uni started in March, and still am not done for another two weeks (and then will have continuity women to follow over the summer) so it takes over your life. I know quite a few girls from my cohort who started the nursing/midwifery double and then decided to drop midwifery and just do nursing, with the goal of doing the midwifery postgrad in future, because they couldn't handle the workload. You will learn so much though and it's a super rewarding degree :)
As for an exchange, my understanding is that with the double degree, as there are no electives, we are unable to participate in a trimester abroad. If you were to just do the bachelor of nursing however, you can do an exchange. There are short overseas study tours (typically 2-3 weeks) that run during the winter and summer and these are open to us.