Thursday, July 30, 2009

Results | Fall '09 Scheduling

Today was the last day of Calculus for all intents and purposes (there's the final exam still, and one day after that). We got our second test back today, and I got a 100%, as expected. That doesn't say too much - the test was much harder than the first, and I only did well because I had three days to spend on it with my math book open. Still, this means I only need a 67% on the final to get an A- average in the course, which I would be very happy with. I'd be ok with a B+, thrilled with an A, and slightly disappointed with a B.

The final is this coming Tuesday, and I have a lot of studying to do for it. 67% sounds low, but depending on the number of questions, it could be easier to slip up badly than it seems. Especially since things have been getting notably harder lately. Making things worse, I showed up for every class but kind of let my brain take this last week off. While I'm a bit behind though, hopefully it's nothing four days of hard work can't fix.

Scheduling for Fall has been more complicated than I'd anticipated. I've had the last selection of courses as a non-degree student, which caused various complications. The only available Chemistry course had a lab that met on the only days the remaining Biology courses met. I stressed out over this - a lot, at first.

I got in touch with my premed advisers though (both at American and my alma mater), and both agreed that I don't have to take the standard order of courses so long as I make sure I can take Organic Chemistry next year. So what I did is switch things up and register for Physics and Chemistry in the Fall. I'm saddled with bad course times (the earliest possible start time, and late evening lab sessions), but other than that the courses fit together well. (Physics is right after my 8AM Chemistry course, I have my labs spread out instead of being stuck doing 6 hours on one single day, I don't have a morning course followed by a 4 hour wait before my next course, etc).

So, if I manage to get a 67% or better on my Calculus final, I'll be quite pleased with the way things are shaping up. If I manage to keep an A- or higher average after a year of Physics and Gen Chem, I'll be fairly certain that things will actually work out for me (and I might go get myself a real site to keep this blog up, and add fancy pictures, and ways for users to leave feed back, and a real domain name, and... such).

I had a daydream of getting back to Vanderbilt for med school today, after getting my second test back. It's ridiculously premature for that though. People with 4.0 averages who're coming straight out of college get rejected from there, and there's not a single reason to believe they'd let me in. That would be my ideal school though, I think. I really do have fond memories of it, and it has a world class hospital and medical school.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Pre-Med Advising

I think it's rather easy to take for granted the benefits of being in a top 20+ university with lots of money to burn, when you're used to them.

I'd kind of picked up on this earlier. American University has some nice buildings (I'm a big fan of their library, in particular, which is well designed and has lots of light. It's a library you'd actually want to work in, rather than one where you'd want to pick up what you need and run out asap), but most of the buildings seem a bit small, old, and/or run down. Even the library has a noticeably smaller collection than the other schools I've been at to date. The facilities and labs are certainly decent enough to do what needs to be done, but they don't seem particularly pleasant or modern on the whole.

The pre-med advising system sort of struck me as another example of this. The office was a small hole in the wall, and the advisor didn't seem particularly interested. There was a dog in the office even, and while I have nothing against dogs, I don't think that's particularly professional.

We had a brief chat... not a conversation. Essentially I was handed out a sheet for new college freshman that told me nothing particularly new, and I've already seen when I was an undergrad. To be fair, I'm probably partly at fault. I could have pushed for more dialogue, but I felt brushed off enough that I decided to head out after getting the most immediately pressing information. I don't know if it's because I'm a non-degree student (bad reason to ignore me... I'm still a paying student), because they'd met with 1000 new freshman who all wanted to do premed right off the bat without a good reason, because they were just having an off day, or... whatever. I wasn't particularly happy though.

What I did learn was that I only have to take this one Calculus course. Also, I need to register for Gen. Chem and Gen. Bio in the Fall (although I knew that part). I have some other questions... some pressing, others not so much. Do I need to take genetics, do I need to take cell bio, when do I start getting ready for/registering for the MCAT, how many miscellaneous upper level science courses do I need beyond the fundamental prereqs, if any, etc, etc.

Right now, I'm thinking I'll e-mail the lady I spoke with back at Emory's medical school though. She seemed more approachable to me, even though my problems weren't her responsibility. I still have her business card though, and might as well make good use of it. I might see if I can work with the pre-med advisor at Vanderbilt as well, being an alumni.

For now, I'm going to register for General Biology and Chemistry, and I'm going to get started on my second Calculus test.

Test Two

In a fortunate stroke of luck (and, probably, our teacher taking pity on some of the summer students who didn't do so well on the first exam), our second test is a take home. It was handed out today, is due on Monday, and there's not really any limits on what we can do (beyond working together on it).

Some of the math here I'm a bit behind on, and that could have been problematic if this were given as a real test. With 72 hours to work on it though, and an open-book policy, I can't imagine myself doing worse than a 90%. Honestly, I really should get a 100%: not doing so would be mildly embarrassing.

That pretty much means 70% of my Calculus grade will be 100% after this, with nothing between me and a decent grade other than the final (which won't be a take home). A 67% or so on the final will give me an A- in the course. (I could fail the final - badly - and get a B-, but I don't think anything less than a B+ is really acceptable for what I'm trying to do).

This is doubly awesome because I spoke with the pre-med advisor today, and learned that I only have to take this one Calculus course. A second semester of higher Calculus won't be required, so I'm almost in the clear as far as math goes.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Results

I got the actual results of my test last Thursday, so this is a bit late, but I did as well as I had hoped. I managed to get a 100% on it, which doesn't say much since it was the first and simplest test we'll have. Things are already getting more difficult, I can tell, but hopefully I'll manage to get through that as I did last time.

What it does say is that I can score an average of ~63% on my next/final two exams, and get a B-, which probably isn't good enough. If I can score an average of ~83% or so on my next two exams though, I'll be able to end up with an A-, which would probably suffice. An 83% average on two tests should be entirely doable as long as I keep putting in a strong effort.

So: the verdict is that my plan goes on along the medical school path.

In other news, I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, in general. I even missed an assignment (no problem, since they're only collected on the days of our exams), and spent this weekend catching up as well as trying to keep up. This coming week, I'll be missing a class too, which won't help things. I've been trying to schedule or make all sorts of other appointments as well, in addition to trying to get a refill of the medication for my epilepsy (the doctors here won't give me one because I haven't seen them yet, and I'm having trouble with my old doctors in Atlanta because I haven't seen them in too long....) I'm stressed out, and feeling a bit like a chicken running around blindly with its head cut off.

Hopefully the medical part of getting appointments should be finished soon, and I can stop stressing over that. My volunteering at the hospital is nearing the mark at which I'm allowed to stop working as well. I hadn't planned to stop just yet, but I might end up doing that to free up some time if I'm still feeling this way in a few weeks.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Thoughts On My Calc. Test

It's entirely premature to be happy about how I did. While studying I made incredibly stupid mistakes like reading addition signs as subtraction signs (which, of course, produced the wrong result). The test itself was fairly short - some 15 questions - so even one of these stupid mistakes would be enough to have a respectably negative impact on my grade.

As an aside, to anyone who wonders what Calculus has to do with medicine (a question I've gotten a few times, actually) - here's an easy answer. Careless mistakes on math tests get you to fail. Careless mistakes in medicine kill people. Therefore, people who habitually make careless mistakes shouldn't be in positions of medical responsibility, and failing a course in Calculus keeps people from entering medical school in the first place.

That said, I /think/ I did fairly well, and I'm sure I didn't do /too/ badly. I was happy enough with how I thought I did to go get a bottle of my favorite hard-to-find wine at a nearby restaurant afterwards (which, for the record, I'm not drinking all at once).

Speaking of wine, I also had my first soft drink in about a month today before the exam (I've been, fairly successfully, working at fixing my diet of late). It's shocking how sickening-sweet that soda tastes after having broken the habit. I don't even want to get another... (My favorite wine was still awesome though). Actually.... on the off-chance anyone is actually reading my blog, the wine is Eroica Riesling. It's grown in the US, but is an absolutely phenomenal Riesling in my opinion. And it's only ~$25 / bottle. ... and I think it's making me ramble a bit in this post: hopefully, future medical school reviewers who have found this site will be willing to overlook that, just this once. (Please?)

Back to the test, its results, and their impact.

The registration deadline for the fall semester is, I think, approaching quickly. Once I'm sure I've done well on this exam (assuming that is the case) I'll have a lot of decisions to make, without an entirely satisfactory set of information to base them on.

1: Do I continue the medical school courses in the fall Semester, or opt out for nursing?
- If I got an A of some color on this, as I hope, I opt to schedule med. school prereqs.

2: Do I (need) to take a second semester of Calculus? If so, do I take it now, or do that next summer and dedicate the year to pure science courses?
- I don't know what the best plan would be. It would be helpful if I could isolate math in Summer again, as it's my weakest point, but I need to talk to an academic advisor of some color.

3: How intense do I want to make my curriculum?
- I can, technically, take nearly everything at once. Taking Gen Chem/Bio/Physics/Organic Chem/Calculus/Bio Chem at the same time strikes me as begging to fail, though. Or, at the least, asking to perform sub-par. That's an overwhelming schedule. I need to decided how to split things though. Again, an advisor can hopefully assist here.

Until I find out how I did for sure though, I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Test One

The first Calculus test is coming up on Monday the 13th. So far, everything seems to be going well. At least, that was the case until Tuesday's class, when I completely blanked once we started covering delta-epsilon proofs. I didn't understand a single thing - math with more letters than numbers scares me.

I've really been working on it since that class though, for the last 48 hours or so, and I had a breakthrough this morning. I get it now. Mostly. I think. And I was really proud of myself for managing to push through that (if I actually have). I'm not good at it, but it would be nice to know that you can just manage to force through things if you have enough stubbornness.

Anyhow... the first test is this coming Monday, and it's fairly important. Between that and my (more or less) free 20% from homework, roughly 50% of my grade in the course will be determined by the end of the day. If I manage to do spectacularly well on this test, I'll be able to do quite poorly on the next two (in the range of 60%...) and still reach some form of a B in the class. On the other hand, if I do spectacularly poorly, I can pretty much put an end to all my MD plans right now - especially given that the next two tests will only be harder.

Anything in between will keep me in suspense and in frustration.