This Monday I celebrated my birthday by taking my first ever Medical School exam as an actual Medical student (last year I took a medical school exam with M1s but as a summer student). I was not originally excited about having a major exam on my birthday but what other way would I want to celebrate my life and have another year to accomplish goals and be with family/friends than by living out a life long dream!! Well lets get to this a synopsis of the first few weeks of school.
Our orientation was at the end of June and class began immediately after the July 4th Holiday. Orientation consisted of faculty and student introductions, class photos, debt management talks, school public safety sessions, learning communities introduction and Ethic dilemma session among a wide range of other things.
The first week of class was a bit surreal, even though it was only a 4 day class week due to the holiday it probably felt like one the longest weeks so far. At that point it still had not set in that I was actually in medical school and that I was in a position that I had envisioned for so long (not sure if it has even set in yet lol).
My school typically has class Mon-Fri first starting at 9am and the end of our day ranges from 3pm to 5pm but once gross lab starts we will definitely be there till 5pm or later. I am accostumed to the long days because I just transitioned from a full time job back to being a full time student, despite that I found myself searching for energy after lunch, during our 3pm session and even sadly sometimes midway through our 9am session. If you have ever heard medical school classes being referred to as like a fire hydrant... its true because the amount of information you are flooding with in a short amount of time can be mind blowing. Being a single parent makes my situation a bit different as well. I have tried to get my feel of things and work on my study schedule, find people that I can potentially study with and those that I can build relationships with, its a work in progress!
Prior to our test on this Monday we had over 25 different lecture sessions (13 actual class days) ranging from biochemistry, histology, molecular cell, cell biology, fundamentals of medicine, etc and our test was 118 questions. I will go into more detail about the test and what I learned in another post!
Here are a few words that my classmates used to describe there first week of school........
Indescribable, Woaaaah, ugh, Introspective, fun, Crazy, Seriously, Interesting!
I am a proud member of the Class of 2020!!!
LOL :-)