Archives for School Daze category
Last semester was the best semester ever. You can tell this because I hardly updated this blog, which means I had nothing to complain about, ha ha.
My favorite course, by far, since starting vet school has been clinical pathology, wherein you learn to interpret things like blood work, urinalyses, etc. The beauty of the class, for me, was the fact that it all had clinical relevance. There was very little “Why do we have to learn this?” and a lot of “That’s so cool!”
Another upside to the class was that the emphasis was not on memorization and regurgitation, but rather the application of a small set of facts to solving a problem. In other words, clinical reasoning, the kind of thing I am really good at.
At any rate, that class, plus the fact that most my other classes were somewhat more clinically relevant than my freshman classes, made this past semester fantastic. It probably didn’t hurt that I got off my butt and joined a gym, too. Exercising regularly did wonders for my mood and stress level.
Enter sophomore year, round 2. Widely regarded by the classes ahead of me to be the worst semester of vet school. Why? Time will tell. It might have something to do with the fact that we start class at 8 a.m. every day and are there until 3 p.m. every day, if not later. It might have to do with the fact that it’s 24 credit hours. Maybe it’s just the fact that we have to suffer through still one more semester of classroom-only work before we get to see real patients.
Whatever it is, I’m not really looking forward to it all that much, mostly because I am savoring my last few days of vacation and productivity in other areas of my life.
These are the times you have to remind yourself just how bad you wanted to get into vet school.
Jan 13, 2012 | | School Daze
One of our professors was discussing thrombocytopenia (low platelets) this week, and said it was a little bit like bankaccountopenia, which, as vet students, we would all be familiar with.
Oh, so sad, but true. This is one of the especially difficult parts about being a non-traditional student. I used to make decent money, and now… now I don’t even itemize deductions on my income taxes because my outflow is so much higher than my inflow, and I don’t want the IRS to flag my returns.
Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 07, 2011 | | School Daze
School started last Monday with some genius’ idea of a good time: an eight hour test over everything we learned last year. EVERYTHING WE LEARNED LAST YEAR!
This monstrosity, the “Capstone,” was supposedly created in response to some former students’ complaints that they didn’t feel as though they had enough practice for the NAVLE (the national board exam). Well, fie on you, former unnamed students! Your crapstone was a seriously horrible pain in the patooti that did absolutely nothing positive for me.
First of all, how do you even begin to study an entire year’s worth of material? By procrastinating until two days before because the task seems too overwhelming, that’s how! Read the rest of this entry »
Aug 28, 2011 | | School Daze
We’re currently in the midst of the calm before the storm of finals. Calm, in that we have only two tests this week. Not long ago, we came out of a spell of five tests in nine days. FIVE TESTS IN NINE DAYS!
Life during that time looked something like this:
Memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize memorize.
Regurgitate.
Forget 95.78%.
Repeat.
Is this helping me become a better doctor, or is this just helping me pass the NAVLE? Frankly, just passing the NAVLE isn’t good enough. But at this rate, there is no way I will feel confident enough to be a doctor in only three more years.
Apr 18, 2011 | | School Daze
This semester, we are taking bacteriology, virology, and parasitology all at the same time. Or, as I like to call them, “tiny little things that can kill you.”
When friends ask what classes I am taking in vet school, they typically zone out after the third class, so it’s just easier to lump things together. Last semester, it was “a lot of -ologies.”
The downside of taking all three of the tiny-things-that-can-kill-you classes simultaneously is (interjection by cat #1: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm n) that there is a LOT of rote memorization. The thing I find incredibly fascinating (and annoying), though, is how differently these classes are approached by the three professors teaching them. I mean, they’re all pretty similar subjects, but one of them is my FAVORITE CLASS EVER, and one of them is my GOING-TO-GO-POSTAL WORST CLASS EVER. Complete opposites. Two extremes. But pretty much the same type of material. In the one class, I have close to 100%. In the other, I am doing enough to pass.
The difference isn’t the course material. It’s the way that material is presented by the professors, and the attitude that each has toward teaching. For example: Read the rest of this entry »
Mar 16, 2011 | | School Daze
Last Monday, half our class showed up at school. The other half were home coughing and hacking and feeling feverish, myself included.
I’m one of the few who stayed home for the entire duration of my illness, which means I missed a few days of class. Others felt compelled to attend class in spite of being sick, which means that more of the class got infected… a vicious cycle.
I’d be interested to know what percentage of the class got sick, in the end, but it’s pretty obvious from the recorded lectures that it was a lot:
“So now we’re *cough cough* to talk about *cough* Staphylo *coughcoughcough* equi and how that *cough sneeze* as disease in *cough. cough.*”
One of my classmates used to think children were best avoided due to their excessive germiness. She’s changed her mind. Now she thinks freshman vet students are best avoided. I agree.
Feb 06, 2011 | | School Daze
If your dissection dog is a boy, spend some quality time with another group’s girl dog.
Otherwise, you may find yourself at the anatomy final exam, poking at an ovary, and thinking, “But there aren’t any major lymph nodes right here!”
And then you may walk around for a while, and come back to that question, and, if you’re lucky, you will see the GIANT UTERUS pointing RIGHT AT the lymph node. Er, ovary.
Not that I speak from personal experience, or anything.
Dec 19, 2010 | | School Daze
So long, Vick.
Yesterday was our final exam in anatomy, and when it was over, all of our dogs–the dogs we’ve been dissecting all semester–were wheeled away on gurneys, never to be seen again.
It made me a little sad. I am mourning a dog I never actually met. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 18, 2010 | | Animal Tales, School Daze
Today began five finals in five days. Fortunately, I think today’s will be my worst, and now that it’s behind me, I’m feeling a wee bit giddy.
I’ve been studying histology since that one ended, and my brain cells are starting to explode. Or implode. Or crenate, just because I like that word.
Histology, as you may know, is Greek for “the study of meaningless pink and blue blobs.”
I think it can be interesting, really, but when you’ve stared at pink and blue slide after pink and blue slide, it starts to get to you.
I’m still having trouble identifying a few things, but I’m getting a lot better. And then I got to this slide. What the heck is it?
Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 14, 2010 | | School Daze
Holy moley.
Being in vet school is a lot like being on a roller coaster. Parts of it are scary, parts of it are a rush, there are ups, and there are downs. So far there are a lot more ups than downs (which would be physically impossible on a roller coaster, so I guess my analogy doesn’t hold, but you get the idea. That, and the going down is the fun part on the roller coaster. Wow, bad analogy all around).
Anyway, I’ll start with the downs, so that I can end with the ups.
1. The built-in inner tube I am sporting around my midsection. Not pretty.
2. Being a terrible time manager so that it feels like I am studying constantly (even though it’s interspersed with serious procrastination), and when I actually plan an activity that’s not studying, I feel guilty.
3. Having to learn about a few things I’m not all that interested in, just because they might be on the licensing exam or they’re part of establishing a broad knowledge base. (Oh, histo, how I loathe thee…) Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 05, 2010 | | School Daze
