I was going to send this as a response to a PM from cold front, but then I ended up writing a novel, so I thought Id share it with all you fresh meat. Can you tell how much I want to study right now that I'd rather write long messages on SDN? 😀 Dont let this get you stressed out, but this is my recollection of my 2 years at BU so far. Just a little glimpse of you future. Enjoy.
1st year, 1st sem: 1st semester will start out pretty slow. You will have a lot of free time. Use it. That is my advice. Go out and have as much fun as possible. 👍 The end of every semester will be pretty rough.
1st year, 2nd sem: Much harder than the 1st semester, if I remember correctly. Gross anatomy was very difficult for me because I had never taken an anatomy course before. Again, the end of the semester is very condensed and stressful. Im pretty sure this was when I figured out I wasnt in undergrad anymore.
APEX I. I stayed here and did mine at a community health center by the school. It was a really good experience. Your experience completely depends upon where you do your rotation. Often, if you are in a private office, you will not get as much experience because you will be slowing down the practice. But, then again, not having much responsibility could be nice, too. There are some annoying papers to write. Again, use your free time wisely; APEX is mostly a vacation with a little unpaid work experience. Go out, have fun. There will soon be months at a time when you cannot really do what you want because you will have to study.
2nd year: 1st semester. Class is pretty laid back relative to 1st year. There are a lot of breaks every day (sometimes annoying). The course load is reduced because you are supposed to be studying for part 1 of the boards. You have a bunch of finals, then you get 2 weeks off of school to study for the boards.
Part I: I didnt study too much during the semester, and used the 2 weeks as a very unpleasant cram session. The dental decks are pretty much all I used, I went through them all front and back twice, parts 3 times. I started reading the Kaplan book they bought for us, but it was too much. Hopefully they will buy you the decks instead of the Kaplan book. Go over several old released exams. That was very helpful as well. The Kaplan exam is not a good replication of the real exam. The decks and old exams ARE. The test is 8hrs long, it sucks (I dont know how it works now that it is computerized, we took the written on the same day all together). Then you get winter break. Again, enjoy it.
APEX II. Make sure to collect enough teeth for the endo week 2nd semester. Save any maxillary anteriors you find, and premolars. Get a few decent maxillary and mandibular molars, too. Again, use this time as vacation. There are more somewhat pointless papers and journals, get them done early if you can so you don't have to stress about them at the end.
2nd year: 2nd semester. From day one you will have class from 8:30-4 or 5, M-F. 20 classes. You will have summative exams every week in operative, not a bad thing if you have your pre-clin operative skills down pretty well, but it's likely you will spend some nights and weekends in the SLC practicing. You WILL have to practice quite a bit for fixed prosthodontics outside of class time doing crown preps and temps.
There is a one week endo crash course, 5 days all day, and night if you are struggling (which I was). This was one of the most stressful weeks of my life (mostly because I didnt know what I was doing for a few days and I dont like feeling like an idiot). The first couple days I had NO IDEA what I was doing, and it seemed very unorganized, and you have to wait in line for 20 minutes every time you need to take an x-ray and develop it. Don't worry, you will survive it. Just be patient.
Oh yeah, and one day a week you will have to stay until 7 pm for perio preclin where you learn periodontal instrumentation on each other. Do not take this as lightly as I did. Learn the correct positions and uses of each instrument. I barely passed the practical because my resident didn't care if we were learning the stuff or not. MAKE your resident teach you. And read the periodontal instrumentation book before the practical, not just the written. It will help a LOT. I felt like an idiot during the practical.
Then you have finals month. Which I'm directly in the middle of right now. NOT FUN. And, they throw in a bunch of clinic orientations in the middle, as well as our pain control lab (giving local anesthetic injections on each other)--I have that this Tuesday.. even though I have a final that day and the day after. So, Ill be drooling out of one side of my mouth while I study partial dentures. And hopefully finals month eventually ends, and you can breathe again. Then you get 2 weeks to prepare to do it all over again, but with the added responsibility of treating patients.
Ahhh.. look forward to it, kiddos. 😉 You'll all be fine. There are some good times to be had when everyone is in the same boat.
Oh, and NEVER, I repeat, NEVER miss a seminar session for IPPM or IDP. Youll know what those classes are soon enough. The professor will fail you.
Ok, back to studying, only 7 more tests. 👍
