I have to admit that I failed on my quest to write up ANYTHING about SOMETHING that happened during each week of the summer semester. Sorry. I would never have guessed that the schoolwork alone would take up so much of my time that a seemingly 200 word post would be out of the question.
The transition to a PA program is not in any way similar to just “going back to school”. Going back to school insinuates that it is in some way going to be at the very least, characteristically familiar to a past school experience. Not only have I never had to work so hard, I also have never wanted to work so hard.
As the summer semester began I struggled to do well. I was scoring in the low 80′s on my exams. I was walking in to the lecture halls feeling like I just tried to memorize an encyclopedia. There were troubles reciting the information orally and written exams often became the enemy of the day as my lack of knowledge trickeld out eventually logic would as well followed by organization and penmanship.
THINGS HAD TO CHANGE…
And they did. There is not a lot of time for sleeping. At the beginning of the semester I was heading to bed after the 11 o’clock Sportscenter. I would sleep til 8 a.m. and be in class by 9. In the end I was making coffee with dinner, studying til 2 or 3 and sleeping on a bed made of books. I would awake at 7ish shower and review until class. It is amazing what a slow start or unimpressive grades can do to someone.
The largest transition for me came with the clinical application of the material that we were learning. I have had to memorize large amounts of material before. I have had to remember flow charts and diagrams. But with a PA program it is assumed that by the time you sit for the exam you not only know everything covered in class but also how it is applied to medicine. Our summer long anatomy class which had a supplemental cadaver lab was an AMAZING experience. Lecture was a blur. It was at such a fast pace that it was a better use of my time to start studying where I left off the night before then to try to hurry through the lecture notes and digest new material at break-neck speed. In the 9 week summer semester a class like anatomy really walks the thin line of appropriateness with regards to the amount of material and the given time frame. What saved this class was cadaver lab. Actually, what saved me was cadaver lab.
It was held every wednesday and the material being disected and reflected was material covered in the past friday’s anatomy lecture. By wednesday I would have a just started to review/study the previous anatomy lecture. Fridays would become the introduction to new material and Wednesdays would be where the LEARNING took place. Almost all of the past semester was a process in learning. Often what was being learned had nothing to do with medicine or school but life and how to live in a new state at a new school with new people.
Eventually the study habits were straightened out and the grades improved a lot and the final GPA at the end of the semester shocked even myself. I am pleased with the transitions that I overcame and grateful for all of the people this summer that helped me a long the way.