MSc Nursing at Keele

I think a career in nursing is the best career you can have really because it's so varied.

Most students come into nursing through a passion for wanting to care for people. For me, as a Children's Nurse, wanting to care for children and young people.

The sense of gratification and the sense of thankfulness that patients show towards us.

The most important thing for me is that we go to work and we come home and we feel like we've achieved something. That’s where you know that you've actually made a difference to somebody.

I think nursing offers many facets, so you could have a qualification as a nurse and it has many careers within a career. You could work in critical care. You could, after a few years, move to the emergency department. You could move and work as a health visitor. So they're all most really diverse careers with the one qualification. I think that's what makes it really attractive.

Students studying on the MSc programme at Keele would have a dedicated Student Experience and Support Officer who would be based within their school. They would have one-to-one pastoral support with that Support Officer who would then be able to provide academic support if required.

We have lectures first, then we go into clinical skills. What we've learned in class, we come to the clinical skills centre where you actually do the physical part of it or the practical part of it before we actually go out in the community which is placement.

I learn by doing and it's applying what you learn in the classroom through theory and putting into practice into placement. But that's what happens in nursing practice anyway because you got evidence-based practice from research that's applied to our patients.

You get information ahead of the programme of whatever skill section you're going to do. In your spare time, you can go on the Sway documents, go through everything, and then they also set up extra skill sections for you to catch up in case you've missed out. So the support from both the Uni and my lecturers is amazing, and on placement is also amazing.

Every time you go on a different placement, you get a different set of knowledge and different kind of work culture around there.

In my view, someone who's studying at level 7 means that their criticality is more, which means that their understanding is enhanced. You are at a higher level therefore in terms of progression, it's easier for you to progress.

Some of our students have straightaway gone on to do PhDs, so have gone and want to become Nurse Researchers, so leading and managing research projects. We've got some students who've gone straight onto the NHS Graduate Management Scheme, so they're going down that route.

Students coming through from the MSc will definitely feel that they've got a benefit and access to progress through the career much smoother and much quicker. I think the benefit is is that they've studied, they've trained at that MSc level, they've got those skills, they can demonstrate those skills.

For anybody who was looking at taking a career up in nursing or especially doing the Masters, I think it's very beneficial for them to have some experience in the care environment. My interest in nursing only grew from actually working in the care home and working with the doctors. I realized within nursing, you are always learning. There's always new developments in both technology, medicine and science. So this is just the beginning of the journey, and as long as I keep feeling hungry for the next project, the next new innovation, the next change in medical and technological healthcare. I want to be there when it happens.

There are lots of openings for people out there. People want qualified nurses and normally people can pick and choose actually in terms of where they want to be and what job they want to be in.

It's never too old to start a career or too old for learning. You can always take your career and your childcare or the family commitment together and Keele is always open to help with that.

I will tell them to go for it. One, it's 2 years, not 3 years. It's intense but it's short. You know you have this target, this is it for 2 years, so I will encourage the person. And Keele is a lovely University. The environment is peaceful, it’s calm. So I will tell the person go for it. You won't regret it.

I recommend the course to anybody else, especially those that want to be a registered nurse within a short period of time.