Next semester

I'm registered for 9 credits next semester, which is a huge step down from the 19 I took in the fall. But even with only three classes, I just realized I'm going to be super busy with work, MCAT studying, and AMCAS application writing.

So I'm thinking of dropping one of my classes because it won't really change my GPA significantly any more but taking it might prevent me from keeping my sanity. In such a case, I would like to audit Biochem II because I heard the professor is a really hard grader, but given the fact that I got a B last semester in Biochem I, I don't think it would look good on my application. So that leaves me with dropping Biology of the Cancer Cell, which I've heard really good things about and kind of want to take. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

In bullet-point form, one thing has got to give this semester out of the following:

• Work
• Three classes
• MCAT studying
• AMCAS application writing
• Rugby

And I really don't want it to be rugby. I tried that this semester and I was miserable. I need some sort of social interaction, but it would be the easiest to cut (again). The other option is to go back to racquetball instead, which is still physical exercise on a team with a much shorter commute but also a little less fun.

I think for now I've decided on sticking with my three classes for the first two weeks of the semester to feel them out and see how the course load will be for me, and make the decision then. If I do have to drop a class, then it'll have to be the Cancer Cell because it's the one I don't necessarily NEED, but would like to have to increase my GPA.

Oh, and even though I swear I'm over that B from biochem, I'm still kind of worried about not having straight As, considering my undergrad grades. But LizzyM somewhat allayed my fears with this comment:

Quote:

Originally Posted by p Hey LizzyM, thanks for doing this! If I'm shooting for a top-tier med school, how concerning would a B in biochem 1 look to an adcom when my overall GPA is a 3.80 and sGPA is a 3.75+ and I've earned A's in both genetics and cell biology? Will an A in biochem 2 make up for this?

It makes you look human. No worries.

Granted, I'm not even close to his GPA and I should be perfect from now on, but one B won't kill me. That, and there's nothing I can do about it now, so I need to STOP FRETTING!!!

MCAT studying

The MCAT and I have a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, I REALLY like doing problems about science, but on the other hand I don't like having to know something. So I look forward to doing physics passages in my free time (I'm a freak, I know) but if I have to do them then I procrastinate like whoa. It's a weird dynamic between me and the MCAT...

Also, I haven't taken or done physics since my freshman year of college over 8 years ago and I still remember a good chunk of it (helps to be physics/logical-minded). Although I appreciate remembering a lot of what I need to know about gravity, forces, projectiles, etc, I've found that MCAT prep will have to involve working through the entire physics textbook in the next three months. Ay ay ay! Every 4th day just a got a bit more busy. But really, I don't mind. I kind of liked physics anyway.

Reminder to write to LizzyM, and her response

On SDN (Student Doctor Network) there's a thread going around where LizzyM, an adcom at a top tier private university, is answering anyone and everyone's questions. Unfortunately, she's gone for the holidays just as I was about to ask her a question, so I'm posting it here so I don't forget to email her when she comes back.

In response to this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by h What is your opinion about applicants addressing weaknesses in their apps without being questioned during their interview?

If you address weaknesses in your application, you might not get an interview. You might get an interview and be asked about your weaknesses or you might not be asked about your weaknesses.

Frankly, I think that weaknesses are like zits. Almost everyone has one at one time or another. You can call attention to it or you can do something to take attention away from it. The reader/interviewer can see it and might be curious about it and might mention it or might look to see if it is addressed in your LOR.

I want to write this:

It seems like you stated that weaknesses shouldn't be addressed in the application because they are so common, but shouldn't a very spotty undergrad GPA that was somewhat fixed a few years later by an almost-perfect post-bacc be addressed since it's the elephant in the room? Should I not mention it in the app at all and explain myself in interviews if it comes up? If addressed, should that be in the personal statement or elsewhere? I have no good explanation for my bad grades except I wasn't mature enough to take school seriously and didn't consider my future at the time, choosing to live in the moment instead. No extenuating circumstances or anything. So addressing it would be limited to that comment.

And here is her response:

A small blemish is what I call a zit. Awhile back I got a PM from an applicant who had a college gpa <3.0 and post bac of 4.0 and MCAT >38. Here's what I wrote in response:

Your situation is not a zit, it is a scar that runs from your earlobe to your chin. The adcom will be begging to know what happened and how you survived.

The story is not so much how you got slashed but how you turned things around and came back against overwhelming odds and triumphed. It could be a great story and I hope you'll write it.

Congrats on the great performance on the MCAT and in the post-bac. Some post-bac schools will send great committee letters that will tell your story in a very sympathetic way (based on your interview with your advisor).

I recently got a nice thank you note from the applicant to tell me of great success this cycle.

While I no longer have the 4.0, I do expect to score about this high on the MCAT so I think I should be OK. I'm aiming for a 3.93 for the whole post-bacc experience, which is high enough according to another member of an admissions committee board (anything 3.8 or higher is awesome). Phew!

And the Bs start pouring in

Grades are starting to trickle in and I just broke my 4.0 from post-bacc classes. Sadness. I've been preparing myself for this for the past week so I'm not too upset about it, but I didn't expect a solid B in biochem. I had a pretty decent chance at the A, so I must've really bombed the final to drop myself all the way down to a B, even though I thought I had totally killed it. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now.

Since I'm pretty convinced I got the B in physio (grades aren't up yet so no proof), my post-bacc is going to go down to 3.88, which is dangerously close to not having a 3.8+ post-bacc GPA. And apparently that's the ultimate goal.

With Biochem II grading being harder and more intense than Biochem I, I'm kind of worried I will drop below that threshold. Ay, the stress!

But, what I have learned this semester is to keep up with the work and not leave it to the last minute. Duh, right? But I've managed to get by every other semester, and this time just bit me in the butt. So lesson learned.

Only way to go is up!

Edit: I caved and looked to see the breakdown of finals for all my classes. I managed to squeak by with an A in physiology (!), and did indeed bomb the biochem final (a whopping 68%). I have no idea how I did so poorly in biochem, as I came out of that exam feeling awesome. But since I know I studied my butt off and felt like I couldn't study any more than I already had, I'm ok with the B because I gave it my all. If I had gotten a B in physio or bio, I would've been pissed because the only reason for that grade would've been burnout and complete laziness. So although I'm still mourning the loss of my 4.0, I'm totally okay with it and will probably sleep better tonight knowing all my grades from this semester are finally decided.

Shadowing, Version 2.0

I'd been debating asking my knee surgeon if I could shadow him, because I already have shadowing history with a specialist (my hand guy from this summer), so it'd be kind of redundant with regards to my medical school app. I'm all for jumping through hoops to get into school but I'd like to minimize them because I don't have that much time between school, work, and now, MCAT studying. So if I'm going to shadow somebody out of necessity, it's either going to be a family practitioner or the pulmonologist.

But then I realized that not all of this is about off checking boxes and I'm truly interested in orthopedics, so why not? The hand guy shadowing was limited to his clinic and not the OR, so I figured I'd give the knee surgeon a shot and see what happens with this dude. If I decided I didn't want to do it after inquiring, then I could always not follow up and let it be. But this was my only chance to ask him in person, so I might as well take the opportunity while it presented itself.

So I mentioned to the PA that I wanted to speak to the doctor about shadowing him during my post-op visit, and as she was taking out my stitches she asked, "You mean the OR or the clinic?" I did the Barbara Walters "Wait, what?" face, because I couldn't believe my ears! Heck yeah, I want to shadow him in the OR!!!

Suddenly my meh-I-don't-feel-like-shadowing-an-orthopedist-again feelings went out the window. The PA talked to the office manager, who totally agreed, and the doc seemed very enthusiastic about it when I saw him at the end of my visit so I'm super stoked.

This whole surgery has been one heck of a good decision!

End of my mini vacation

Now that my mom's gone home and I'm not on a whole bunch of mind-altering pain meds, it's time to go back to the real world and get things done.

About a month ago, I had a mini breakdown about my life and how I won't get a rest until my med school app is submitted in June. Now working and studying don't seem like such a big deal. I have a HUGE meeting with my boss on Wednesday about all the work I'm supposed to have finished in November that I haven't even started (I took all of December off due to finals so it's not as bad as it sounds) but somehow I'm not stressing out about it at all. I'm supposed to start studying for the MCAT today and that's not really bothering me at all. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Because what else am I supposed to do with all this free time?

Surgery

My leg was fixed this past Wednesday in the best possible way. A tear in the meniscus was discovered, but it wasn't repairable so they just cut it out. So not only did my worry about having unneccessary surgery evaporate (diagnostic procedures are the worst!), I also got the result with the shortest recovery time. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

For the past couple of days, I've been reliving the whole experience, trying to hang on to the few things I remember between the time my IV was put in to finally being discharged several hours later. This is the closest I've been to an OR since my last surgery in 2005, and not nearly as close as I was in high school when I got to observe a tumor removal from a man's pelvis.

Most of the experience is pretty fuzzy, understandably so, but the parts I do remember are pretty fascinating. It's like being able to shadow a surgeon from a very intimate perspective, and it's probably the most surgery shadowing I will get to see for another couple of years.

It's amazing how quickly the IV drugs kicked in, how nonchalant but efficient all the people in the OR were about getting me prepped for the procedure, and how professional and caring the nurses were when I finally woke up in post-op. It was also very interesting to see how a different hospital runs their outpatient surgery department as compared to the one I volunteer at every week. It's weird being on the receiving end of everything I tell people both as a volunteer and as an EMT on the ambulance company I worked at in college.

All in all, it's nice to be a patient and see what it's like for my future patients, so I can better understand what they will go through.

I sound like one of those pre-meds who gets excited about everything and anything medical they come in contact with, but seriously, this was pretty neat, mostly because I want exactly this to be my life and I just got a very intimate glimpse into what it may be like in the future, albeit from a very different perspective.

And I'm so stoked that it all turned out the way I had hoped it would. That's the best part!

My happy place

Last night's theme: Onesies

We won. Not just at life.

How I get through marathon studying days

Here is another quote that keeps me going, from a professional cyclist.

Levi Leipheimer
It’s a constant battle with yourself. You know, I just want to give ups and say “Screw it. I’m not going to be fourth or fifth in this Giro, that’s it, I’m cracked.”

But you don’t ever let up. You just have to keep tricking yourself like, “Okay, one more kilometer. Just one more kilometer, one more switchback.” You just trick yourself and trick yourself until you’re at the finish line.

And because as much as you’re hurting then, if you give up, that sticks with you much longer than the 30 or 40 minutes that you have to sit there and suffer.

Note regarding grade obsession

Before you judge my obsession with grades, you have to understand that my undergrad GPA was horrendous. I have every grade my undergraduate institution had to offer on my transcript, from A to F (including +s and -s) with a couple Ws thrown in for good measure.

So as someone on SDN said, "Take every test as if it will decide the rest of your life, because it will." And that's how I'm thinking. I need those As otherwise there's no point in paying for these classes and sacrificing time and money not to do well. If only I had listened to that advice at the beginning of this semester...

Obsessing over grades, and BROOMBALL!

The semester comes to an end tomorrow and I can't wait for that to happen! It's been a really long few months and I definitely feel like I've taken on too much. I don't know if that's because I didn't really have a summer due to organic chemistry or just the sheer number of credits and hours in class is wearing on me, but I am beyond burned out.

And I think I've come to terms with the fact that I'm about to lose my 4.0, which is oh so very sad. I have 31 credits of straight As, and I'll be very bummed to see that go because I was too tired and unwilling to put in the time and effort to go for that A. And time and effort are precisely the reasons I would not be getting an A. I've been slacking all week instead of studying and I'm kind of upset with myself for that.

The dates for the actual final exams are Wednesday and Thursday (instead of today and tomorrow), but I had to push them up because of my knee surgery. So that's also kind of wearing on me, because maybe if I had those extra two days, I would've done better. But I know myself well enough that I would just be procrastinating for two days instead of studying and would find myself in the same position as I am now, with the only difference being knee surgery pushed back to January, which would also suck.

I still have a pretty good chance of pulling it off, but I've given up I think, and have come to terms with my not-so-perfect semester. In the grand scheme of my overall GPA (because that's how I think these days), a few A-, B+ grades won't change much in terms of getting into med school. But not having that perfect 4.0 is going to hurt just a little bit.

I shouldn't be giving up all hope, honestly. To get solid As, here is the breakdown of what I need on the final, and some notes.

Molecular bio
What I need: 80% for a 91% in the class, which should be enough for a solid A since the prof said he doesn't give - or +
How I think I did: I'm not sure if I got it. I took the final today and I'm not sure if I answered enough things correctly to get that 80%, honestly. There is only one question I should've known the answer to if I had studied harder that was worth four points, so hopefully that doesn't drop me in the B category, because I will be mad.

Physiology
What I need: 79% for 90% in the class, which is a solid A, and means that I can get 10 out of 50 wrong.
What are my chances? I'm worried. This class asks you to order stuff so if you get one thing wrong in the order, you get many points off on the test since it's multiple choice (last time I messed up 1 thing and got 6% off). Since she said the final is going to integrate the whole body, I'm kind of concerned because there's a lot of minutiae that are not staying in my head right now. I studied a decent amount for one of the tests (about as much studying as I'm doing now) and got 80% so clearly this is not a buffer. I should've started studying for this earlier, but I didn't anticipate my brain to stop working the night before the test. Oops.

Biochemistry
What I need: 94 points or 84% on the final for 85% in the class, which is going to be a solid A.
What are my chances? Not good. My other exam scores have been 91.5, 97, and 91.5, so getting this 94 is going to be hard. There are a going to be a lot of mechanisms that I just can't remember how to do, even though organic chem was only a couple months ago, and I can't keep the glycolysis and citric acid cycle substrates and products straight in my head. Actually, nothing is sticking right now, and both this and the physio exams are tomorrow. This is worrisome.

So that's the breakdown. Because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be close to the cut-offs for all of my classes, I'm not going to look at the grade on my final exam, but instead wait til the final grades come out. This way, if I do get the B, I won't drive myself crazy thinking "what if". But if I do get the A, then I'm kind of curious to see the buffer with which I got it. Either way, checking grades is going to be nerve-wracking.

And now, back to studying, and hoping something will stay in my head for 24 more hours.

And by studying, I totally mean the season opener of my BROOMBALL! league. I'm so excited! Can't you tell?

Note: If you're wondering, I do have an Excel spreadsheet of all this, because I like to know how I'm doing and how well I have to do in the future. It helps calm my nerves around finals time (usually), but in situations like these it's kind of disconcerting.

Inexplicably at peace

My EMT final was last night and I only got 91.5% on it, which is not the 100% I needed. BUT, we have the opportunity to get 4% of extra credit just by showing up for the practicals of the other sections of the course, so I'll be skipping my last biochem lecture to get those points. And that will help me enough to get the A I so desperately need.

Overall, things are looking up over here for me. My vacation was pretty spectacular, even if I had to read my EMT book instead of a John Grisham novel with a margarita in hand. Either way, I got to sit on the beach and go snorkeling every day so it wasn't too shabby. I don't think all the studying helped considering my grade, but I don't know what I would've gotten if I hadn't studied so I'm not too upset about having my nose in my EMT book all week.

Even though I don't really have a break until June 1st per se, I feel a lot more relaxed right now. I'm sitting under a heat blanket on my couch staring out the window at the beautiful snow-covered trees and life seems a lot less complicated than it really is.

It turns out that I do need knee surgery after-all and I scheduled it for mid-December (less than two weeks away), which just so happens to be the day of two of my finals and the day before my third final. A lot of begging and pleading later, I was able to have all three professors agree to let me take their finals early, so that's all settled. Ever since I decided on the surgery, my knee has hurt more so I don't know if all the pain is in my head or what, and that makes me question the need to actually go under the knife. I don't want to deal with all this if it's not necessary. On the other hand, the inside of my knee is still hurting after almost two months and that worries me that I tore something there as well, which would have to be fixed and would give me a 6 month recovery time instead of 4-6 weeks. And that would mean no broomball, no rugby, nada. And that would make me very sad.

But I've pushed those thoughts of worry out of my mind because there's nothing I can do about it until the surgeon goes in there and checks, so no need to think about it anymore. I mean, the reason I've finally decided to have surgery is because the unknown is bothering me, so this should answer all those questions.

Other than that, life is good. My finals are now a couple days earlier than they were originally, and I'm super behind on my job, but for some reason I'm not exactly worried. I have a lot to review each day, but it seems so manageable that I'm content instead of stressed.

It's amazing what a week on a Caribbean beach will do for your mind.