Ah, graduation day! Finally! You’ve finally made it!
Well, sort of.
Hopefully in the coming years the schedule/calendar works out a little bit differently than ours did.
We had our graduation ceremony before we could actually graduate or finish the program. So at that time, we still had final exams, our comprehensive exam, and our mini-thesis due! This meant that graduation was conditional: You had to pass your finals and comprehensive exam, and you had to have turned in your mini-thesis and gotten at least a satisfactory job by your advisor before they could let you graduate. Which means a little bit more stress added onto your plate, especially if you were on the cusp of potentially not passing a course.
I’m assuming that the reason we had it so early was due to reservation of space many years ahead of time.
Because that is literally the only thing I can think of as to why the schedule worked out the way it did.
Negative Side of Walking Before the End of the Program
I walked the stage a month before I could actually be done with the program. Even though it was an amazing memory and I had a great time with my friends and family, I wish we didn’t end up graduating a month before I had all those hurtles left. At the time, it almost gave me a false sense of hope that I was done when really I still had the chance of not passing the program.
You had all the excitement of “graduating”, wearing the cap & gown, your family being in town, and walking the stage. Yet you had the let down of not actually receiving your degree and knowing full well when the weekend was over you had to go back.
See this face?
Yea this was the my face the whole time only because I knew how much shit we still had to do.
Our graduation day ceremony was held at the same time as the graduating medical school class. So while they were all excited because they were actually done, most of us COB students were like okay yea but like I have to get back to studying so can we be done?
There were several classmates who did walk in the ceremony, but ended up not graduating/passing say their comprehensive exam or their finals. So this ultimately ended up being like a slap in the face to some of my classmates because they got to walk during graduation, but couldn’t obtain their degree. (In some cases they let you repeat one course so you could get your degree, in others they didn’t).
I’m hoping that in the future, the school will try to take that into consideration for the upcoming classes. But just the ceremony itself was a lovely ceremony and I’m happy my mom got to fly out to watch me walk across the stage.
We ended up having the ceremony on May 5th, and we took our final comprehensive test on June 1st. In early July I finally got my diploma mailed to me! Yay!
Positive Side of This:
Well 1) you get to graduate (as long as you don’t throw the towel in after the ceremony). 2) You get to walk. 3) You are almost done!
It was also very nice to have one of my favorite professors hood me during the ceremony! About a month or so before we were set to graduate we got to vote on two professors who would hood the COB students. We chose Dr. Anderson and Dr. Zaidi.
I believe the med students either choose a faculty member that they jived with or a family member who is also a physician to come hood them. There were even some couples and parents who got to hood the graduates! So in my case, I don’t have a family member who serves as a physician, so I will probably have a professor. In E’s case, he has a family friend that he could ask. And if his little brother follows in his footsteps, E would be super happy to hood him!
Our keynote speaker at the ceremony was an active female physician who practiced in a women’s oncology unit. She is a KCU alum and her story was incredibly encouraging and inspiring to hear. If there is one thing KCU knows how to do, it is pick alums who’ve had incredibly inspiring stories. Looking back, both keynote speakers for our white coat ceremonies for Joplin and KC were inspiring and fantastic as well!
They even had a 3 star general (who is also a D.O.) who spoke at our ceremony. He stated he was the command surgeon at the base during the Blackhawk down mission in Somalia. Talk about crazy. Also, can I say I’m thankful that I’ve only had to stay on US soil and go to school, living my happy little life? Because I am. I wouldn’t do well in a combat area. Or with pirates. Unless I pretend to be a pirate for Halloween…
But any who, let me reel it on back in from my rambling! It was encouraging to see the numerous amount of medical students graduating. It meant that someday I could too. And what do you know, I got the call to take me off the waitlist literally 3 days after we graduated that weekend.
Looking Back:
I cannot believe a year ago this is where I was. I’ve stated this before, but I really did not want to initially do a master’s program. I was so incredibly against it.
But honestly, when I made that last minute decision to move to Kansas City, it was one of the best moves I could have done for myself. Both academically and personally. I’ve said this in my Looking Back post; I needed to change the scenery, and the people.
A year ago from graduation, or the beginning of May, I was uncertain about my future. Am I getting into medical school? If not, how do I decide to use my master’s degree? Do I continue to pursue medicine? Where am I even going to live?
So many unanswered questions.
All of which I just needed to let the universe roll forward and to let life take the reins. So much has happened in this past 1 year alone (which honestly hasn’t felt like a year has gone by if I’m being truthful). Both fantastic things and some really upsetting things have occurred.
But I am grateful for the opportunities and growth that has occurred since graduating one year ago.
Cheers!
