School has gotten to the point where it feels like something is looming. That “something” is final exams. We have one more midterm before finals are pushed to the forefront of our minds. That also means that we’re in the main “meat” of our classes…the topics are more interesting and the instructors expect us to know things.
This reminds me of a quote I jotted down in pathology lecture today. My instructor was apologizing for giving us lists of brain and spinal cord diseases. She felt bad for just throwing information on the screen and not telling us what to do with it. She shared, “I was a math major in college. I was always looking for the theme to everything. Then I got to veterinary school and I couldn’t find the theme. So you really expect me to just memorize all this shit?”
I’ve spent the past semester and 3/4 memorizing lists in one form or another. What causes mastitis in a dairy cow? What causes coughing in a dog? Which diseases do you have to report to your state veterinarian if they are diagnosed? What is the clinical presentation of kidney failure? I didn’t know I had room in my head for all of this stuff.
It was nice to have an instructor validate my feelings about memorizing lists. Every other class has just put the information on the screen and expected me to commit it to memory in one form or another. Bacteriology apologized for being a “bug parade” and pharmacology was proud to call itself the “drug parade.” There was a second bug parade in parasitology. Unfortunately, there is no witty title for toxicology. You just have to know it. All of this memorization makes me wonder how much I will remember 5 years down the road. This is why I am holding on to my course notes…
I have mixed feelings about the upcoming final exam season. I had such a horrible time at the end of last semester (lots of exams, the last of which was on 12/23) that I’m afraid I will develop some sort of finals anxiety before the tests even begin. I suppose acknowledging the elephant in the room is the first step to avoiding a real problem. I’m going to do my best to study along the way and hope for the best. At the end of this semester, I’ll be half a doctor.
