Oh dear god... what have I done?

[T-bone]

Are you in med school or are you taking graduate level classes?

If in Med school, when I was in veterinary school, we had "Big Brothers and Sisters" who were students from the prior class who acted as advisors and mentors to help the incoming class. Go talk to your Big Borther to see what he can provide in the way of guidance. The best part was they often provided a test library from prior years that was invaluable as a study aide. This helped me greatly during the first year. If there is no test library they can usually remember what was important material and what was fluff. But really, in Vet/Med school, they typically expect you to find a way to know all the material. Ultimately you learn how to learn and it is amazing the amount of material you can assimilate in unbelievably brief periods of time. It is not like undergraduate where you have the time to simply memorize everything. I remember being able to memorize the notes and the chapters for most of the tests in undergraduate courses.

Oh, as unbelievable as it may sound, it only gets harder, but like I said, you learn how to learn and you will look back on this year and long for the days when you had the time to review a lecture six times.

It gets better. Keep working hard and it will pay off!

[Jennings]

Are you in med school or are you taking graduate level classes?

If in Med school, when I was in veterinary school, we had "Big Brothers and Sisters" who were students from the prior class who acted as advisors and mentors to help the incoming class. Go talk to your Big Borther to see what he can provide in the way of guidance. The best part was they often provided a test library from prior years that was invaluable as a study aide. This helped me greatly during the first year. If there is no test library they can usually remember what was important material and what was fluff. But really, in Vet/Med school, they typically expect you to find a way to know all the material. Ultimately you learn how to learn and it is amazing the amount of material you can assimilate in unbelievably brief periods of time. It is not like undergraduate where you have the time to simply memorize everything. I remember being able to memorize the notes and the chapters for most of the tests in undergraduate courses.

Oh, as unbelievable as it may sound, it only gets harder, but like I said, you learn how to learn and you will look back on this year and long for the days when you had the time to review a lecture six times.

It gets better. Keep working hard and it will pay off!

I'm in Nurse Anesthetist school, which is the equivalent in 28 months of what an MD anesthesiologist gets in six years. The class that's snowing me under is a first year med school class that we have to take along with the budding doctors-to-be. Unfortunately the "big brother" thing doesn't really work, because I'm 150 miles away from the main campus at a distance ed location with four other students (watching the stuff on synchronous TV connection). The class above us are all super busy as well, and they just keep saying "we felt the same way, you'll get through it". At this point, I don't know how. There is no way I can pass if I can't get a single practice problem correct. I have old tests from the 1980s and early 1990s, which is fine, but I don't begin to get the details of the stuff to even be able to use them yet. The irritating thing is, I totally get the concepts involved, just not the math (gobs of equations with lots of Greek letters) used to get into their minutiae. It doesn't help that the instructor makes this WAY more complicated than it needs to be because this is his "thing" and he assumes everybody is as up on all of it as he is.

I've never had any difficulty learning large volumes of new material, but this takes it to a level I never thought possible. I had a 3.78 GPA in nursing school, so I know I can do this kind of stuff, but holy cow already...

J

[Arkasha]

Just remember:

The toe bone connects to the foot bone

The foot bone connects to the ankle bone

The ankle bone connects to the leg bone

The leg bone connects to the knee bone

The knee bone connects to the thigh bone . . .

Simple, ain't it?

[RKic]

Jennings, I was a TA for anatomy and physiology for 1.5 years. Contact me by PM if there is something specific you need help with.

[Jennings]

Jennings, I was a TA for anatomy and physiology for 1.5 years. Contact me by PM if there is something specific you need help with.

Thanks. If you could shoe-horn all these formulas, how and when to use them, and all the variables into my head before the test on 9/10/10, I'd be MOST grateful. I'm utterly lost. I'm swimming in Greek letters. This guy is going at breakneck speed. His first two lectures could make a very tough exam all by themselves, and they're two out of ten that will be on the first exam.

Oy vey...

:D

J

[RKic]

So long as you remember that lambda is equal to the function of theta -1 divided by the square root of the sum of n-1 + the inverse function of gamma.

easy :D

Actually, the human physiology I taught was focused mostly on skeleto-muscular systems (hence having an acrhy for a TA). We did do vascular, pulmonary, renal and reproductive units though. There wasn't much in the way of formulae, unless they were directly applied to the experiments we were running.

What exactly are you guys working on right now?

[Frank Mitchell]

Jennings:

One of the things I do in non-modeling time (retirement is good) is interview applicants and do some lecturing for one of the local med schools. If it is any consolation, everyone goes though the same thing (and lives in the same state of panic for the first year), but look at it this way: If some of those folks you are with (and me) can do it, so can you. Same applies to us curmugeons who made it to suvive and even get to join IPMS---

I also agree fully with the advice to get some down time. One of my favorite stories (this one is even true), is that I actually got back into modeling during my second year in med school. It was a Monogram Avenger bought at a local drugstore.

Hang in there; this too, shall pass.

Frank

[Arkasha]

Hang in there; this too, shall pass.

So will Jennings.

It has been decided.

[Jennings]

What exactly are you guys working on right now?

Thus far it's been diffusion, transport (all types), membrane potentials, capacitance, etc, etc. Things like the Nernst equation, the GHK equation, equation, equation, equation. The problem for me specifically is, the last time I even thought about a logarithm was in 10th grade. Back then you had to look up logs in a big table in the back of the book. I didn't even have (nor could I have purchased) a calculator that would do them, or at least not one that would fit inside the average sized car back then. I think Jimmy Carter was president :) The prereq list for the med students taking this course includes things like O-chem (haven't done it), biochem (haven't done it), a 300 level physics course (haven't done it). I'm not sure why the nurse anesthesia program opts out of all those prereqs for its victims... er.. students, but they do. And they have a pretty good pass rate overall. It's a do or die class for us too. You don't pass, you're out the door.

Thanks for all the encouragement guys. If I ever see another Greek letter I'll stop eating humus and spanakopita forever! :)

J

[RKic]

The thing with transport, diffusion, crenation, etc. is that if you get the concepts you're more than half way there. Focus on getting that all down, then you can work on the formulae

[TomcatFanatic123]

Your class is about 1,000 times harder than mine, but I'm feeling the same way about my College Algebra class right about now. I had the same AWESOME math professor for Algebra 2 and Geometry, and his exams were various even-numbered (no answers in the back) problems in the book, and to make it even nicer, they were take-home, use your notes/book, get help if you needed it, work-with-a-buddy tests. His philosophy for memorizing formulas; "If you ever have to use this formula in real life, chances are you are going to have access to a book/internet/friend or co-worker, not have to pull it out of your memory bank right then and there."

This professor: memorize formulas, no book/notes on tests, and to make matters worse, despite the fact that she's a very nice person, she's a PITA to understand with her Russian accent. This class is making me really re-consider "challenging myself" into getting an aeronautical engineering degree...and this is only College Algebra. BUT, despite the fact I feel like I'm in Math Hell right now (as you probably feel like you're in Advanced Mammalian Physiology Hell at this point)...I just keep telling myself, "James, hang in there...you can do this. You wanted a challenge, well, here it is...don't run from it, embrace it."

Edited September 1, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[MillenniumFalsehood]

Tomcat: I'm the same way about an Engineering Physics professor I will have to put up with. He's a nice guy, but he has an *extremely* thick Middle Eastern accent that I can't understand in normal conversation. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to understand him in class either, and to make matters worse it's a required course for Pre-Engineering and he's the only professor who teaches that subject.

Lucky for me my Calculus professor is a great teacher who is making learning a branch of mathematics which can best be described as Trig, Geometry, and Algebra rolled into one actually a fun process. He actually schedules time in the beginning of the period for him and the class to just chat about cool stuff (we talked about Myan number systems and then got into Schoolhouse Rock. I'm not sure where that came from, but there ya go).

Jennings, I know Calc is a whole different animal from Advanced Mammal Physiology, but if there's one thing I've learned in every class I've taken in colleged it's this: in every class, like a good joke, it's only necessary to know the beginning. Everything after that is an application of the beginning stuff, so if you can just concentrate on memorizing the core fundementals and figure out what's core and what's an augmentation of the core, then the rest of the course should be easier. Also, unless your professor is from the seventh circle of hell (and I've had my share of those), he shouldn't mind you calling him up or using Skype to help you understand the difficult concepts. It's a given that most teachers get into teaching to pass on what they know to others, so he should be thrilled to help you like that. :wacko:

[richter111]

On the other side of things, I just dropped $400 on textbooks for three classes. The bookstore only wanted 650 plus for the same books.

If you need textbooks, give bigwords.com a try and see what they can do for you. It saved me a bunch.

[BadCop]

I'm doing the Mature Age student thing as well and have started studying a law degree externally while still working full time. I've even decided to go at enough subjects to finish the full time four year degree in three years. It's overwhelming at times with all the facts and figures being thrown at you, but it just takes time to work it through in a way that works for you.

I find doing up a study plan with the schedule of all the assignments and due dates and what I need to do during the various weeks helps a lot. At times I haven't felt like I was keeping up with it, but it worked for me for my first semester, and so far second semester is going well enough (although September promises to be a hectic month with the majority of the non-exam assessment due during this time.)

[Jennings]

I'm going to try a completely new way to study this stuff over the holiday weekend. My plan is to go back to the first lecture and just start fresh with it. I don't have any idea if it will work or not, but I don't have much choice. I wish someone had told me a little bit of how to prepare for this course (at least the beginning of it) - refresh advanced algebra, refresh physics, etc, etc. I could have spent a lot more time doing those things and it would have helped immensely. There are no assignments or anything in this course. It's purely a case of attend lectures, read the book and the class notes, then take the exams. Fortunately there are seven exams plus a final (comprehensive), so I at least stand some chance of bringing up a low score on a given exam (like I suspect is in store on the first one the end of next week).

I know I had that 800 number for the truck driving school here on my desk someplace...

[TomcatFanatic123]

I know I had that 800 number for the truck driving school here on my desk someplace...

:)

I LOL'd ...