Posted by alexandra_k on September 8, 2014, at 3:00:52
In reply to Re: med curriculum, posted by alexandra_k on September 5, 2014, at 17:18:49
it is nice to be having a break...
doing some reading... but also having a break, yeah.
had another meeting with the learning support people today. a bit weird... they were keen to do x and y and z and i was more... reluctant. i... don't feel that disclosure letters need to be going anyplace... or that i need to be making requests about lecture notes in advance or... to be specially allocated a suitably motivated lab partner or... anything, really...
but i did feel a bit bad about that. because i was really impressed by how organised and... uh... effective... they seemed to be focused on being.
anyway...
i thanked them a whole heap for the information about the curriculum... i'm not sure how much i can convey to anyone just how helpful that was. i mean... i did have a heap of concerns about whether this really was something that i wanted to do etc etc etc. and now i know for absolute sure: it really really is.
something that is becoming clearer to me... this OY1 year... is mostly about... persistence. reliability and persistence in the face of immense pressure / stress. i think that that is what it is testing more than anything. the website is (intentionally, i think) rather ambiguous on how candidates are ranked... and there is a bunch of stuff online... but biased samples etc etc... some later year med students saying they know of people who didn't get a place with an A+ GPA and people who did with a high A-... and a bunch of candidates who are posting about how everyone they know has A+'s for all the core papers (which is very unlikely to be true - and simply can't be true of all people accepted to med given the way grades are distributed in first year papers)...
And I realise... That the GPA difference between an A+ and an A- GPA is negligible indeed compared to the large spread of marks that are allocated from interview. and that quite a few of the students obsess about grades because they feel that that is where they excel and so they focus on that...
And i remember back to the girl I met for my Otago interview... I was all highly organised and all... Arriving with a day before so I could check out the locations etc etc... Buying stuff especially to wear etc etc... And she rocked up with not much time to spare (couldn't get much time off work) and I helped her out, yeah... But she just kind of... Kludged along... And things went well for her, yeah. Because she just held her stuff together and was pleasant enough etc etc. And, anyway, I'm going to hold onto her, I think... I ended up being... A bit preppy, really. Because I thought that would be 'normal' for them. What they were looking for. But I see now that no, that's not it. Think - unphased if a patient throws up on you. Easily laundered. Robust.
I just meant to say... Things like clothes are not a big deal. Things like books... Are. Things like the gym... Is important for my sanity / mental health. Hold onto these things...
Anyway...
I said a bit about how I have come to realise that this year is likely to be harder for me than next year for a bunch of reasons... And about how next year is likely to be harder than subsequent years for various reasons, too... About chatty girls hoping to find doctor husbands... About how they don't tend to take kindly to my sssshing them. They said about how they do... Put a great deal of time and thought and... Effort... Into the planning of those four courses. And I said about how... It showed. That things that bug me this year... Won't be an issue next year. Also... How I"m not overly thrilled by aspects of animal biology and I really am not particularly good at physics and how I don't really have the time to spend on law (given how many freaking animals there are)... And... I didn't say... But how... I'm sort of working up next year into something of a special interest... That is the idea... To special interest my way (all enjoyable like) through the prescribed texts and I've got the lab manual for one of the courses...
Anyway... Buy the books. That's crucial. Partly psychological. So I... Love them. Like a spider spinning it's web... I need to spin it into my brain... Hard to describe... I need a basic organic molecule set, too, to get a proper grip on tetrahedral geometry... Bond angles... To develop a better appreciation of 3-d structure... I have trouble visualising that... I think it will help a great deal... For all the electron movement stuff I need to get my head around next year...
The most important thing will be to keep my cool... It is fairly... PErsistent. Persistent deadlines of this and that... Long hours of classes and labs... Commute times for me with the health science based out at another campus... then UMAT over the break (I will in fact need to study for the non-verbal picture completions since it is kind of a mathsy thing to be doing)... And then the major major thing... To not let the A+ kids psych me out... To find some... Friends. To relax and be myself around...
She'll be right.
Yeah.
It is gonna be a journey, for sure.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20140828/msgs/1070903.html