In exactly one month and one day from now, I'll be on a flight back home to Boston. And when I return to AUC after my 10 day hiatus, I will officially be a second semester student.
Crazy isn't it? I can't even fathom it right now. It seemed like just yesterday I was sitting at home and freaking out about Caribbean medical schools and now I'm nearly done with my first semester.
So Block exams.... this is the first time this semester I felt woefully unprepared for my exams to the point where I was having mini panic attacks throughout the week punctuated with a pretty huge freakout moment the night before. I kept asking how did this happen? I've been studying but I guess somewhere in the second or third week I was letting some lectures slide, and I wasn't attending MCB as much as I should have (8 am classes are a bitch). Unlike the first two blocks, block III is an extra week long so you are tested on FOUR weeks worth of material rather than the three. Additionally, instead of having 40 questions for the block exams, you now have 50. Time was never a problem for me in the last two block exams and often finished early, but this time around I actually had to be mindful of the time. I found myself racing against the clock to finish the last 5 or 10 questions of each exam. This was especially true for anatomy. I used every last second.
I feel like my study habits were excellent for the first and fourth week of block 3 and the second and third weeks I just put things off. And when the weekend rolled around for these middle two weeks, I didn't spend much time at all going over the material because I went on a couple of boat cruises that took over my entire Saturdays (one being the Regatta). Considering I stupidly failed my last histo exam, I made sure that wasn't going to happen again and decided to go over the material at least 3 times before Monday. This was the last Histo exam of the semester and would account for 40% of our total grade. As you all know by now for anatomy, we are not friends. I had been in the "failing" range for anatomy for pretty much this entire semester, and I really didn't want to be there again so I studied my tail off.... for the abdominal region... pelvic region.... not quite as much. MCB was going to be terrible for me. I could feel it by the Thursday before blocks. I was studying everything else and neglected MCB. When I was midway through Lysosome diseases, I knew there was no way in hell I was going to finish all the material for the block, let alone memorize all the proteins and diseases I had to. I panicked, I freaked out, and then I slowly came to accept it. I kept telling myself I was going to fail this exam and it would be okay because I have a decent buffer and the fourth block exam and Final would count for 50% of the total MCB grade. After I came to terms with the fact I was going to fail, I was able to refocus and spend the rest of my energy on my other two subjects.
Curious how I did? Here we go, drum roll please:
Histology:
Class Average-84%
Me-90% :-)
MCB I:
Class Average-79%
Me- 62% :-(
Anatomy:
Class Average -81%
Me- 80%! :-O
(What's particularly interesting about my anatomy grade is for the written portion, 30 of the questions were on the abdomen and 20 on the pelvis. As I already mentioned, I spent most of my time on the abdomen and allocated little to the pelvis.... turns out I only missed 3 abdomen questions [27/30 damn good for me] but I missed 7 or 8 questions for the pelvis [good thing 3 of those were thrown out!]. There is hope for me yet.)
At this moment, I am passing all my classes for the first time this semester!!! I've passed histo with an overall grade of 80% and it's officially OVER. I passed my first class in med school. Since we won't be having histo anymore, we will be taking Embryology for this last block and the grade we get for that is added in to our overall Anatomy grade. Due to my 80% in anatomy, I'm officially passing the course and despite my terrible performance in MCB, I'm still passing.
Mission Complete
I'll upgrade it to Mission Accomplished once I kick ass in all my exams for this last block.
Crazy isn't it? I can't even fathom it right now. It seemed like just yesterday I was sitting at home and freaking out about Caribbean medical schools and now I'm nearly done with my first semester.
So Block exams.... this is the first time this semester I felt woefully unprepared for my exams to the point where I was having mini panic attacks throughout the week punctuated with a pretty huge freakout moment the night before. I kept asking how did this happen? I've been studying but I guess somewhere in the second or third week I was letting some lectures slide, and I wasn't attending MCB as much as I should have (8 am classes are a bitch). Unlike the first two blocks, block III is an extra week long so you are tested on FOUR weeks worth of material rather than the three. Additionally, instead of having 40 questions for the block exams, you now have 50. Time was never a problem for me in the last two block exams and often finished early, but this time around I actually had to be mindful of the time. I found myself racing against the clock to finish the last 5 or 10 questions of each exam. This was especially true for anatomy. I used every last second.
I feel like my study habits were excellent for the first and fourth week of block 3 and the second and third weeks I just put things off. And when the weekend rolled around for these middle two weeks, I didn't spend much time at all going over the material because I went on a couple of boat cruises that took over my entire Saturdays (one being the Regatta). Considering I stupidly failed my last histo exam, I made sure that wasn't going to happen again and decided to go over the material at least 3 times before Monday. This was the last Histo exam of the semester and would account for 40% of our total grade. As you all know by now for anatomy, we are not friends. I had been in the "failing" range for anatomy for pretty much this entire semester, and I really didn't want to be there again so I studied my tail off.... for the abdominal region... pelvic region.... not quite as much. MCB was going to be terrible for me. I could feel it by the Thursday before blocks. I was studying everything else and neglected MCB. When I was midway through Lysosome diseases, I knew there was no way in hell I was going to finish all the material for the block, let alone memorize all the proteins and diseases I had to. I panicked, I freaked out, and then I slowly came to accept it. I kept telling myself I was going to fail this exam and it would be okay because I have a decent buffer and the fourth block exam and Final would count for 50% of the total MCB grade. After I came to terms with the fact I was going to fail, I was able to refocus and spend the rest of my energy on my other two subjects.
Curious how I did? Here we go, drum roll please:
Histology:
Class Average-84%
Me-90% :-)
MCB I:
Class Average-79%
Me- 62% :-(
Anatomy:
Class Average -81%
Me- 80%! :-O
(What's particularly interesting about my anatomy grade is for the written portion, 30 of the questions were on the abdomen and 20 on the pelvis. As I already mentioned, I spent most of my time on the abdomen and allocated little to the pelvis.... turns out I only missed 3 abdomen questions [27/30 damn good for me] but I missed 7 or 8 questions for the pelvis [good thing 3 of those were thrown out!]. There is hope for me yet.)
At this moment, I am passing all my classes for the first time this semester!!! I've passed histo with an overall grade of 80% and it's officially OVER. I passed my first class in med school. Since we won't be having histo anymore, we will be taking Embryology for this last block and the grade we get for that is added in to our overall Anatomy grade. Due to my 80% in anatomy, I'm officially passing the course and despite my terrible performance in MCB, I'm still passing.
Mission Complete
I'll upgrade it to Mission Accomplished once I kick ass in all my exams for this last block.
Related articles
- Block I Exams and Post Show Festivities (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
- Block II Hits and Misses (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
- First Semester Done and I've Passed All my Classes! (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
- Semester 2: Block I (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
Onwards to block 4! Congratulations on getting through! It's worth it I promise you.
ReplyDeletecongratulations Andrea
ReplyDeletethanks guys!
ReplyDeleteHey Andrea! I've been following your blog for a couple of months and I'll admit I haven't read all your posts but definitely the ones from the beginning as I am coming down there next month for the May semester! Just wanted to let you know that your blog has been a big help because being a girl I needed to see this from another girl's point of view. I'm nervous, excited, scared, happy, sad but most of all I feel prepared thanks to you!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll bump into you!
Best wishes,
Hamna
Thank you! And we will definitely bump into each other. Once you get here, you see this school is pretty small and you pretty much see everyone all the time (except for the 5th semesters, they are on a different clock)
ReplyDelete