Seago knows personally how tough this can be. She was a PhD candidate in Nursing Administration here from 1990-1995, and worked during most of her student years. She was Chief Nurse Executive at Kaiser, a full-time job, and negotiated one day off per week to go to school here. Seago recalled with a laugh. Working as a nurse and going to school complement and accommodate each other in several ways.
Nursing is flexible work.
Shifts can be scheduled on weekends and evenings, leaving days free for classes, studying and caring for families. It's acceptable in nursing to take a year off, then come back to work. In fact, students can take all their courses in one or two days, leaving the other days available for work. Nursing also pays well compared to other careers traditionally dominated by women, allowing one to go to school and still maintain a comfortable standard of living or support a family. She said that nursing has not changed, but what has changed are the boundaries of nursing, which have expanded to include areas such as informatics.