Classes.
Classes, Classes, Class.
I’m not a fan of attending class. My second semester I barely went to class just because I was so stressed out and needed to sleep as a coping mechanism. But I surprised myself first semester! For the first two entire test weeks I didn’t miss a single class (Wait What? Who am I?). After that I started missing a few here and there, and by second semester my friends, classmates, and boyfriend would all comment whenever I did show up to class.
Yea, that’s how much I went…
The way KCU-COB is set up, you have 2-3 classes each day. So for my first semester, I had epidemiology, biochem, & microbiology all on M/W/F, and anatomy & physiology on T/TH. Because of this, my M/W/F classes were usually 50 minutes a piece, but my T/Th classes were about 75 minutes. Let me tell you, that additional 25 minutes made it hella painful to sit through. My brain could easily handle the 50 minutes and with the professor change for each class on those days, I could pretty well pay attention. For my anatomy and phys classes, the extra minutes made it impossible to pay attention after the first 50 minutes, and they were taught by the same professor. So my brain thought it was just one giant 2.5 hour class.
I also was not a fan of having to be there at 8 am. And remember on my last post where I said I had to drive 45 minutes for a couple months? Yea that factored in too so ya know, didn’t really want to be there. But the 9am courses I would mostly show up for.
Most of the professors didn’t choose to videotape the course either, which is understandable. They wanted us to show. I didn’t have an issue by the time I went to take the test with teaching myself off of the slides, but honestly, it was easier to review my notes if I attended class.
Even if I wasn’t really paying attention.
I know, I know. Some people need to sleep in order to function or handle the stress thrown at them. I know, I’m one of them. I’m also a tad bit annoyed because optimal learning doesn’t occur at 8am for most people. It certainly doesn’t for me. I can be somewhat productive in the morning but closer to 9 or 10 am. By lunch and early afternoon I’m not very productive. From 8pm-2am I am the most productive. Which means if I want to be productive, I usually have to either lose sleep to attend class the next day, or skip class to try to get a good amount of sleep.
Vicious cycle isn’t it?
But if you are able to attend class or your institution does record your lectures, it will be 10x easier to go through your notes or to understand a concept that you have seen before. It would take me hours just to go through the lecture that should have been completed in the original 50 to 75 minutes. I usually had to employ the book to help give me a better understanding, and had no clue what was specifically pointed out during class or what the professors chose to spend a large amount of time on. Thus, I had to learn everything. Thankfully, after so many lectures occurred, some of the information would inevitably be repeated throughout the lectures. But hey, at least it was one less thing to learn.
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