Another question about medic school...

[emtB123]

I'm just wondering if anyone has an experience traveling a long distance for school, and trying to balance a social/private/work life. The school I'll be going to is about an hour and a half away, and I'm worried about not being able to juggle things so I wanted to see if there was some good organization advice out there. And how many days a week is class usually?
Thanks!

 

[joshrunkle35]

Mine was 80 minutes from my house. I did it fine, but I didn't really have a social life for the last 6 months of school. I didn't have much sleep for the last 3 months of school. I spent a LOT of time and gas money driving. The time driving was fine: I listened to podcasts about medic school stuff. My clinical a and ride alongs were also in that area, so I spent about 6-8 hours a week driving at the beginning of school, and about 15-30 hours a week driving to school or clinical a or ride alongs or between them toward the end of school.

I worked two part-time jobs, attended a university full-time and went to a separate paramedic school and did the clinical a and ride alongs. Toward the end, I woke up around 5am every day, and got home around midnight every night and still had to find time to do homework. I had no social life. I talked to my girlfriend on the phone whenever I was driving, but she honestly spent the time quizzing me, rather than just chatting. It made us stronger as a couple, and we're now getting married a few weeks from now.

I know another guy who spent every Sunday with his family, and he worked a mon-fri 8-5 job, but he went without sleep for a long time and never saw his family aside from Sundays. I also know a lot of people who had much better "balanced" life styles where the thing that suffered was their time committed to homework...they flunked out.

A major factor to be considered is the duration of school. Where I live, there are 9 month and 12 month options. I took a 9 month long school, but a 12 month long school would have been easier.

It is definitely doable. You may just need to temporarily re-prioritize things in order to finish school.