Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Catching Up

I didn't get quite as much work done the other day as I'd been hoping, but I did get to go over the chapter from the class I missed in a lot of detail and feel like I'm pretty up to speed there, despite the absence. The bigger problem is organic chemistry, which I meant to spend some extra time with but didn't.

That's not an uncorrectable problem - some effort this weekend can easily get me feeling good about that course at this point. I've just got to make sure I actually do the work this weekend. I'm sure I've said it before, but I have a terrible tendency to put off work that isn't officially required. In a course like this where nothing is technically required beyond showing up and taking two tests, its a pretty slippery slope if I start falling behind early on. It should help that next Monday is a holiday, effectively giving me a four day weekend to catch up.

I was also able to change lab sections, for organic chem. That's great news, because I get to take it with the TA I had for both sections of gen chem last year.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Sick Already

Physically that is: not of my courses.

Universities are some kind of fetid breeding ground for disease, especially when the new freshman class comes in, and I managed to get the flu in my first few days. Right now I'm thinking I'm going to take tomorrow off to get better and get a chance to start waking up earlier more gradually (last week didn't work well, trying to wake up earlier suddenly. I'd have no sleep, and then crashed when I got back home from my courses, so when night came I couldn't sleep again).

It's annoying missing a class this early. If it was later at least I wouldn't mind the time off, but right now time off is the last thing I'm really looking for. Nothing to it but to make sure I get lots of work done at home tomorrow, to balance it out. Then if I can manage to start getting up earlier naturally and fall in some kind of rhythm, it might be for the best.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Final Courses: Go!

And here we are. I can't decide if it feels like the time went by quickly or slowly, it was probably a bit of each. Either way, the last two courses I need to take before I can apply for med school begin this Monday. Organic Chemistry is a year long course, so it won't finish this semester, but Cell Biology is only a one semester affair. I picked up my books for each today (and am worried the cell bio one is missing some sort of CD I might need), and am reasonably excited to get this underway.

Organic Chemistry is typically supposed to be one of the harder courses around. I don't want to say the goal is to weed out premeds, because I've run into very few teachers who genuinely want their students to not succeed, but that's typically the result. One of the problems (allegedly) is that people approach it as a massive memorization game - typically with disastrous results, because there's more you'd have to memorize than is achievable without something close to a photographic memory. The goal is to only memorize a few things, and then get a complete handle on the mechanisms behind reactions so that you can predict how X, Y, and Z will react given that they have similar properties to A, B, and C.

That's also why medical schools like the course, I think. The chemistry itself is only mildly useful, unless you're going to medical school to pursue a career in research. What's more useful is that the course forces you go through a process very similar to analyzing/diagnosing/treating rather than just memorizing a set of facts.

Additionally, I've already brought up how a good grade here will help me justify my bad grade in the second half of Physics as the result of simply never having seen an Integral before the course. A bad grade here, on the other hand, and it starts to show a pattern of me not being able to handle really difficult material. Two courses probably isn't enough to prove that pattern's presence or absence, but its all medical schools would have to go on so its importance is artificially inflated for me.

I don't know too much what Cell Biology will be like, although apparently we get to play with cancer cells in the lab at some point. Sounds very neat. Hopefully it won't take up too much time though, because Organic Chemistry and (of course) the MCAT have me much more concerned.

Speaking of the MCAT, I've fallen off my flash card studying a bit since I left for my vacation, and need to get back on top of that. The test itself is really overwhelming, and I'm just not sure how to approach it. It has so much on it, and right now I'm just sort of looking at it dumbfoundedly (which is, I guarantee, the worst way to prepare). I think that might actually be an argument for starting the MCAT review in October, rather than the one I had been leaning towards in January. Having some company help me break it up into smaller pieces at an early start date could be helpful, since it seems pretty tough to do by myself. I'll be able to force-cram closer to the test just fine on my own though, and don't need to pay anyone for help with that.

It's not an overwhelming reason to start in October, but I'm thinking about it much more seriously now.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

MCAT Prep

So I decided it was time to genuinely start getting ready for the MCAT, instead of just talking about it. Of course, that won't stop me from talking about it as well.

There are two flavors of prep: official and unofficial. Official is going to be working with companies like Kaplan, or old administered MCATs that have been put out and are now serving as examples. Unofficial will be me working with myself to get up to speed on physics, remember my Gen. Chem, learn things I was never taught in my Biology courses, etc. There's still plenty of time before the test, but I really can't put off getting ready for it any longer. It's unbelievably epic in scope.

Registering for Kaplan courses is something that has to happen soon, but is also a bit difficult. Two are offered (several more actually, but mostly at different locations rather than at different times). One meets one day a week from (roughly) October 2010 to April 2011 on Saturdays, and the other course meets two days a week from January 2011 to April 2011 on Monday and Wednesday evenings. I'd prefer the second set-up I think, but I don't know my schedule for the second half of next year yet. It's very likely I won't be forced into taking evening labs on Monday and Wednesday since Organic Chemistry is my only course and I /should/ have scheduling options, but I don't know. It's also possible only two labs will be offered, and that they'll fall on Monday and Wednesday evening. There's not much to do here though - I have until the start of October to figure out what my schedule might be like, and which of these courses to sign up for.

More immediately, I've put together a set of some 7-800 flashcards that have terms/definitions of things from Gen. Chem, Organic Chem, Biology, and Physics that will be on the MCAT (ie: Aldose, Interstitial Cells, the Permittivity of Free Space, Effusion, etc). My goal is to learn these words as best as possible between now and the time I (hopefully) start my "official" review work in January. That means I just have to memorize some 5-6 terms a day, 6-7 days a week. It's s a fairly reasonable amount, but spread over the morning and the evening I can probably do it in just under an hour a day. Every week I'll do some sort of review to keep from forgetting the terms I've gone over in the last two weeks or so, and then I'll do a bigger review at the end of each month.

Knowing this stuff well come January will be a good pay-off for when the "real" studying starts. Some of it provides good "grounding" for more serious review over the next four months, and some of it should translate directly into points on "An example of Ohm's Law is A, B, C, or D" type questions on the actual exam.

Before January, I'm also going to re-open a Physics book (out of necessity rather than desire - I don't think January to April is enough time for "relearning" Physics).

I'm hoping my Organic Chemistry course is going to be reasonably difficult (it should be), so that it simultaneously serves as a good review for the MCAT. O. Chem should also force me to use some Gen. Chem principles on a regular basis, so out of class I get to focus most on Biology and Physics.

I'll start with my flash cards focusing on Gen. Chem though - that might be a good review for starting up O. Chem as well as for the MCAT.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

MCAT Dates and My Grades

First off, I got a 4.0 in Biology 210. It didn't come as that much of a surprise, since I'd calculated that I would have had to score as poorly as a D+ on the lab final to get an A- instead, but it's still nice to have the grade be official.

Second, back to the MCAT.

I got in touch with the AAMC and had a few of my questions answered. The 2011 schedule actually is up, if somewhat hidden (I think I'd even stumbled on it in one of my posts a long time ago, and lost track since). I now have the link to it, and its solidly bookmarked so it won't get lost again. There are multiple dates and April and May, but only one in June. July and August are both out of the picture for me - I think I've officially decided they're too late.

It takes roughly 30 days for your scores to get back to you after you take the exam, so that will be an important point to consider. Registration for the MCAT itself doesn't open up until November (I didn't get a specific day, so I'll assume 1st until I find out otherwise), so I have a bit of time to figure out what to do.

In April, the test is offered on the 9th and 16th at 8:00 AM, and on the 29th at 1:00 PM. In May, it is offered on the 7th, 20th, and 21st at 8:00 AM, and on the 26th at 1:00 PM. In June it is offered on the 16th at 8:00AM and 2:00 PM.

Since it only takes 30 days to get scores back, there's not a single compelling reason to take the April 9th or 16th tests unless you were worried about doing badly and wanted time to take it again before applying. Taking it in June is, I think, probably too late also. It would be "doable", but I'd be far behind many people in the application process. I'm partial to the two dates at 1:00 PM, since being awake for tests is good. The second of those two dates is still pretty late though, sadly. The 20th and 21st are pretty close together, and the only real difference is that one is on a weekend (which is more convenient for some, and might be more crowded). So I'm going to arbitrarily chop out the 21st as well to narrow down my list.

So I have four dates to pick from: April 29th (ideal, if I'm ready then), and May 7th, 20th, or 26th.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The MCAT and Application Schedule

So there's still lots of time before the actual MCAT (I won't take it before the April date, most likely, if not later). I don't know the list of 2011 dates though, or when the AAMC opens up registration for the test, and I haven't decided on whether I want to go for a test in April/May/June/whatever yet either.

This is the kind of thing that's easy to push off day-by-day and let slip a bit if you're not proactive about it. If that happened, one day I'd wake up and realize that my preferred test date was full and I had to take it later, or I'd have to drive 75 miles to a testing spot that wasn't full yet. It's also important to figure out for the purposes of signing up for a prep-course before it gets filled up, so I want to decide when I'm taking the test, and I want to register the moment it opens up. I found the AAMC phone number and was going to call them today to figure this out. It turns out they close two hours early on Wednesdays (go figure), so I'll give it a try tomorrow.

The general AAMC application opens at the very beginning of June; in my case, we're looking at June 2011. That's not the test - it's the real application where I start filling out forms, writing essays, and sending in my grades to various medical schools. The application period runs through summer and into early fall (varying a bit by school). The earlier you apply the better it is for you, since many places work on rolling application where invites get sent through the cycle on a case by case basis.

While the MCAT is offered year-round, if you take it in April your score should be back in time to apply at the very start of the application process in June. If you take a later MCAT, you get extra time to study. I've mused on this before, but it's hard for me to figure out if this sort of trade-off would be worth it. I really think I'd prefer April or May. Taking the test in May 2011 might be a good option, but I'm just not sure if the extra month of study time is worth my application coming into the cycle a bit late. And with only 1 class in my second semester, I /should/ have lots of time I could spend studying on the MCAT. In theory, you'd think I could get ready for an April test date. Then again, I need to find out how long it takes to get MCAT scores in. If I take it in May, will the scores be in just a few days after June starts? If that were the case, I'd hardly miss on anything at all. On the other hand, maybe I wouldn't get them in until the end of the month, which would be more serious.

I wish I could put off the decision until I saw how I was doing in Organic Chemistry and knew how much of my life that course was eating up, but that's just not possible.

Interviews for schools will start being sent out to fortunate individuals in August 2011, and you would actually begin school in the fall of 2012.

Monday, August 2, 2010

And Test Three is Back

Another 100~ yay!

Good thing, too, because I did decidedly worse on the lab final. That was only worth 1/16th of my grade though, so it wasn't an overwhelming disaster. I didn't fail it either, although its possible I might have got a C (although a B is also quite possible).

From the main part of the course alone I have a 71.5% (if I were to get a 0% in lab). To get a 4.0 in this particular class (curved so that a 93% is an A, instead of a 94%), I'll need to get 21.5 percentage points out of the lab somehow (that is, I need an 86% or better as my final lab grade). Three-fourths of my grade there is a 94% or better, I think. If that's the case, it looks like I'll manage to pull off the 4.0 if I got a high D on the final exam. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do /that/ badly. I should find out soon.

Wow. What a dry two paragraphs.

It's good news, and might be written up more happily except that my pc unexpectedly crashed on me the day I was supposed to e-mail this very final to my professor. I hadn't quite finished the test even - I had one question left. I woke up late, not in a rush since it was mostly done. Went outside, got some coffee, came back, and bam. The PC that had been working great the night before decided it was a good time to start pretending it had no hard drive.

It cost a ton to fix it up - not even for the actual repairs, but because the store had a policy of not working on week-ends without an extra "service fee". A huge service fee. But I really had no choice, because I couldn't get an extension for computer problems. So I did that, then went to my parents house to work on the exam on their old pc that barely starts up and has an outdated version of word, and got my exam mailed in right before the midnight deadline.

I have to say I think I actually earned the 100 on this one, more or less, unlike the last one. And not just because I had to deal with gross inconvenience - my answers were reasonably solid.

I suspect my PC isn't properly fixed even as we speak, and am holding my breath for it to fall apart again in a day or two. It's still saying there's no hard drive, although its starting up again. We'll see what happens, I guess, but if I'm away from the blog for awhile that will be the reason.