Month: June 2018

Attending a Master’s Part 3: Classes

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.

 

 

Let me know in the comments below what topics you would like to see on here!

Attending a Master’s part 2

Prior to leaving for my master’s program I was in the middle of training about 5 people between 2 different offices, and working in between 3 clinics. It was very hectic, incredibly stressful, and I tried to make it so I could fit in as much training with me (as the trainer) before I left. I had it planned out to a tee…

Let’s just say at least 2 of the people I was attempting to train as scribes before I left were not getting it very well. It happens. Not everyone who wants to be a scribe is actually good at it. But at the time we were very short staffed and a main Junior Project Leader/trainer (me!) was leaving for good. But I had planned to have my last training day on July 31st, to travel on August 1st, have one day to settle in at my (now) ex’s sister’s house, and be ready to go for orientation on August 3rd.

I had to cancel the last 2 days I was supposed to work because I couldn’t fit my packing schedule in during the time I gave myself. I definitely got an earful from many people, and it made trying to transition out of my position way harder in the next coming days to weeks. I did leave early in the morning on August 1st, but the Uhaul truck we picked up was very difficult to drive and trying to hit 70 mph was a bit difficult to do without the truck vibrating like the gates of hell were trying to shake you into its hole and swallow you up.

Bonus points for this! I couldn’t drive the truck either. It was too much for me to handle so my ex had to drive it the whole way down, which meant we weren’t getting there on my pre-planned timetable. The drive should have taken us 12 hours. It took us almost 20 because of how much slower we were going than anticipated and additional things that kept popping up along the way. We thus kept having to stop to sleep in awkward positions because we were exhausted, and didn’t have the money to get a hotel.

I got to Kansas City on August 2nd at about 1pm. I was able to sleep when we arrived, but had no time to fix my room up to try to feel somewhat settled in this new place. Although this story isn’t uncommon; I noticed a lot of my roommates still trying to find a place or weren’t able to move in right away when they arrived, so they were living either out of their car or in a hotel for the time being.

Orientation for the master’s program is only 2 days. I didn’t feel we needed the whole 2 days, although I understand why they had us there in person for 2 days. I think a lot of us would have benefitted from either an email afterwards of some of the higher yield information, or a way to directly walk us through where to find it. I know I didn’t really remember much walking away due to the amount of information presented, and it took me awhile to learn where I could find it later on in the year. There are a lot of introductions and a couple of break the ice things you do to fill up the time, and most of us were ready for orientation to be over within the first half a day. For me personally, I just really wanted to start the program as I was pretty excited at this new direction in my life.

For the first 2 months I drove 45 minutes to get to campus at the expense of free housing. Don’t do that to yourself. Do not drive 45 minutes to campus everyday because in morning traffic it always turns into an hour + . You will be exhausted just from having to get up super early to be to class on time and too tired to do much studying by the time you get home. I usually left by 6 or 6:30am to get to class on time and grab some coffee beforehand, and waited until after 7pm to miss the rush hour traffic to get home. Also, just because your rent may be free or very discounted doesn’t mean the roommates you live with are going to be decent human beings.

Just don’t do it to yourself.