CLASS OF 2014...how ya doing?

[StartingoverVet]

it's all good, that final is long done with - the whole class passed and i was personally more than pleased with how i did. compared to that 4-day sh*tshow (8 hour 35 pg written, 2 oral exams, 2 hour lab practical), the multiple choice and true-false midterm we have coming up on friday almost seems like a joke.

insanity. 'nuf said

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[GellaBella]

Don't worry blacKat. I put "ileal papilla of the cardia of the stomach" for one answer. Even though I KNOW the ileal papilla is at the cecum and that obviously the esophagus goes into the stomach not the ileum. Blah, I dunno what I was thinking when I was standing there. I wrote and crossed out simple "cardia of the stomach" like 3 times and then I was like "Ahh ha!"....but no. Not so much.

I didn't mind the exam though. I felt like I knew a lot of it but definitely had problems over analyzing things/confusing myself

 

[Braki]

Ok, after reading these, I promise to no longer complain about tests every week and sometimes multiple tests in a week. As hard as it seems sometimes keeping up, the amount of information in a cumulative vet school exam after a whole year must be so overwhelming . Good luck to you in April!

And on a happier note: anatomy practical on Thursday, written on Friday and then off for a whole month. And besides getting a much needed break, I finally get to go home and see Riley! Haven't seen him since August.

Haha, we still have tests every week. We haven't had a week without a test since early-mid October. Behaviour midterm, histo midterm, biochem midterm, anatomy midterm, surgical skills final, physiology midterm, histo quiz, embryology quiz, genetics midterm, then next week are the second anatomy and physiology midterms.

A fairly similar schedule starts late February/early March and ends with a finals week at the end of April. I'm trying not to think about it right now because I have to admit, the burnout is pretty high for us right now with our courseload as it is. I mean, a lot of the material is super interesting and I still wouldn't give up my spot for the world but this schedule is brutal.

 

[squibby]

I would like to hear from Minnerbelle....

I remember your long post last December about how one of the reasons you wanted to go to Colorado was so your bird could be nearby. How did that turn out?

 

[Buckeye1206]

A little update from Ohio State...... We only have 1 exam left and then we get a WHOLE MONTH OFF!!!- This is the best time of the year to be on a quarter system in vet school

This is how our final exam schedule went

Monday-Anatomy (practical and written)
Tuesday-Histology
Wednesday-Epidemiology and Animal Behavior
Thursday-Cell Biology
*and take a radiology final by Thurs at 5pm online


Good luck to everyone else preparing for/completing finals!!

 

[Minnerbelle]

I would like to hear from Minnerbelle....

I remember your long post last December about how one of the reasons you wanted to go to Colorado was so your bird could be nearby. How did that turn out?

Aw thanks for asking! Being near them has helped with my mental health big time. When I was far away from them, I constantly thought about them, and always had this lingering dread over what would happen if this org could no longer take care of my babies. I worried about them nonstop, and it affected me deeply.

Now that I'm here, I don't worry about them at all! Obviously I would be in deep **** if I found out all the sudden that my birds were getting kicked out... but at least I'm just a 90 min drive away and can appropriately deal with the situation and won't be so helpless. I plan on volunteering every other weekend starting next semester so I'll be able to see them regularly! I decided to wait until then since I went out of state for Thanksgiving week and will be gone for a month for the holiday break, and I didn't want to be flaky right off the bat.

I visited both of them when I came to visit CSU in March (1st time I saw them in 4 years!!!) and they were doing so well! I think that's helped me feel much better about the whole thing too. I know they're very happy right now where they are so I don't feel horrible about keeping them there until I graduate. Now that my cockatoo has made some great friends, I will probably adopt one when I take them back, so that this time around she won't have to rely on me to be her mommy/lover/entertainment. I nearly cried though, when my grey said something that he must have remembered from over 4 years ago! I couldn't believe it! Back in middle school I taught him to whistle at the appropriate times when I'd sing "give a little whistle" from pinocchio. I'm almost positive he hasn't heard the song in 4 years, yet just after I sang it a couple of times he whistled on cue.

 

[squibby]

Back in middle school I taught him to whistle at the appropriate times when I'd sing "give a little whistle" from pinocchio. I'm almost positive he hasn't heard the song in 4 years, yet just after I sang it a couple of times he whistled on cue.

What a great story, it almost brought tears to my eyes! I'm glad it all worked out for you.

 

[HopefulAg]

One final left in T minus 7 hours.

 

[skittles12]

After 7 exams, the UTK Class of 2014 is officially done with the first semester!

 

[katryn]

Done with finals, didn't fail anything, actually managed to get no C's! I'm actually kind of shocked by this, I've always been a good student, but it's been so long that I really thought I was going to take longer to adjust and was expecting to barely pass this semester. Now for a month of sitting at home, playing World of Warcraft(yay for expansions), and getting some repair work done on the house.

 

[HopefulAg]

Done with finals! Got two grades back and get two more back tomorrow.

 

[Lissarae06]

We have our first final tomorrow...anatomy practical boo. I am so jealous of everyone that is already done.

 

[nyanko]

Also checking in as DONE with our first quarter!

 

[GellaBella]

I'm also jealous of everyone who is already done!

We have a histology practical tomorrow and despite being in histo lab since 10am (with an extended break when I had to grab lunch, go home, then go to the bank) I just do not feel like it's sinking in. I'm tired and I'm going through things without actually learning any of it. grrr.

Written histo is on monday and THEN we're done! ugh it is just SO close and SO far away.

 

[racccjlm]

Bad freaking day. The midwest is so frustrating sometimes.

Finals will be done in a week - finally! Congrats to all those done with finals

 

[Minnerbelle]

I'm also jealous of everyone who is already done!

Ditto! We haven't even started taking any of our finals yet. First one is next Monday, and it goes on until Friday. I just want it to freaking be over with!

Congrats to everyone who's officially finished their first semester/quarter of vet school!

 

[flyhi]

I wonder if they focus more on clinical stuff when testing?? because i know 3/4 of what i learned this semester will not be useful once i graduate lol.
How do they test anatomy? all species, full body+head in 1 exam?? this just doesnt make any sense. maybe there is a huge curve??

no, not really. We 'sit' exams. 3-4 days of exams like Chii Chan said. One day of essays, one day of spots, one day of short answers, an oral exam and interpretives (shown a table or graph from a lab we've done and have to 'discuss' it).

There is no 'curve', so to speak. You don't get graded against your peers, it's just a different grading system. No letter grades.....which, is fine with me honestly.

AHHHHHHHHHH .

I know we dissect the dog and horse limb. Not quite sure what other comparatives we will have.

 

[turnbackhelly]

Ditto! We haven't even started taking any of our finals yet. First one is next Monday, and it goes on until Friday. I just want it to freaking be over with!

Congrats to everyone who's officially finished their first semester/quarter of vet school!

also jealous (but congrats guys )! although, for those of you (like myself) who have yet to finish, maybe this will make you feel better: we have a midterm tomorrow (that's right, midterm), and then a final a week after our measly 2 week winter break. really, how much am i going to be able to enjoy that break?

good luck to everyone still plugging away - we'll be done soon!!

 

[lunajett]

Holy crap, we got the best news of the entire semester today - I almost feel guilty about it! Our microanatomy final is now optional. If you think you can do better, take the test; if not, skip the test and stick with what you've got now. Well, I'd have to get a 94% on the cumulative final to move my grade up to the next letter, and the chances of me getting a 94% on that thing are pretty nonexistent. So, no final for me and I can forget about the test which I was most worried about! Woot! And, to make it even better, that final was to be our last, next Fri morning. Without that test, my last final is Wed morning, so I can hit the road for the SoCal sunshine two days earlier!

Seriously, I think the whole freshman class is on cloud nine tonight.

 

[Braki]

I still have another week to go, but today was awesome. The Emergency and Critical Care club hosted a sheep CPR lab. It was a terminal lab where you basically killed the sheep and learned how to bring it back to life. We did chest compressions, augmentation, and gave drugs. After that, we cut open the chest cavity, spread open the ribs, performed a pericardiectomy and got to stick our hands inside of this sheep's chest and manually compress the heart and it was so. freaking. cool.

It basically took away from studying from my anatomy midterm on Monday and I'm probably screwed for that test but holy crap it was so worth it.

 

[rileyroo]

4 finals down, 3 to go.

Histo - tomorrow
Anatomy - monday
Physiology - wednesday

 

[lalzi22]

IM DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and now its wine time...

 

[BlacKAT33]

4 finals down, 3 to go.

Histo - tomorrow
Anatomy - monday
Physiology - wednesday

i'm curious rileyroo (or anyone else taking histo)-how do they test you on the lab portion? we have a "point and shoot" where they call something out and u take the slide and have to point to it within 90 seconds. i hate it!! it is so old school and unrealistic because you'd never need to find something that fast in real life. I'm curious how other schools are doing their lab curriculum for histo.

 

[MSUspartan]

i'm curious rileyroo (or anyone else taking histo)-how do they test you on the lab portion? we have a "point and shoot" where they call something out and u take the slide and have to point to it within 90 seconds. i hate it!! it is so old school and unrealistic because you'd never need to find something that fast in real life. I'm curious how other schools are doing their lab curriculum for histo.

we have a lecture exam one night (usually 5PM) and then the next day we have a lab practical. usually the lecture exam is worth ~60 points, and the lab part ~20. Basically for the lab part, we each get a box of slides, and for each slide, the question is "identify the organ/tissue type". sometimes she'll have things circled on the slide and say "are these myelinated or unmyelinated" or something to that effect. also for some things (like specific types of cells on a blood smear) we might have questions on our lecture exam pointing to a specific cell that say "what type of cell is this (monocyte, lymphocyte, basophil, etc)". We take the lecture exams on a computer (the exam is in the form of a powerpoint so the pictures are good) so it works out.

we start finals at michigan state tomorrow with our animal handling exam in the afternoon, after our last day of classes. then next week we have:
monday - histology lecture & lab final
tuesday - immuno final
wednesday - anatomy lecture & lab final
thursday - theoretically, our neuro final was scheduled for this day, but since it ended up being take-home (148 questions, holy balls) we have this day 'off'
friday - animal science final & neuro final is due right afterwards

the only good thing is that our immuno and animal science finals aren't cumulative, and neither is the histo lecture portion (although the lab is).
i'm super jealous of everyone who is done already good luck to everyone else!

 

[Allthingsequine]

i'm curious rileyroo (or anyone else taking histo)-how do they test you on the lab portion?

Our histo exams are done on powerpoint. Most of the power point slides contain pictures similar to the slides in our slide boxes. Structures that we need to identify are marked. Some slides also have question about function, species variation, etc. We also have 1 microscope question on each exam where we look at a slide and have to identify what organ it is, then write a full explanation of how we identified it as that organ. These aren't timed.

 

[nyanko]

We don't really have a "lab" test here at Okstate.
1 exam covers lecture/practical. The practical part is basically an overhead projection with pictures, and he points to things, circles things, says identify the tissue, etc. There's usually a second part to the question that's a little more complicated, like a function of whatever you just identified.
We never actually have to use the microscope on exams. Honesty, our labs are pretty useless. I learn more from looking at the pictures in the book and lectures than the slides themselves.

That's kinda how our histo is too, except lab is even more unnecessary because we have a "virtual slide set" online where we can zoom in on pictures of the slides in our slide box and there are narrated (by our profs) tours for the ones we cover in lab...

 

[alliecat44]

i'm curious rileyroo (or anyone else taking histo)-how do they test you on the lab portion? we have a "point and shoot" where they call something out and u take the slide and have to point to it within 90 seconds. i hate it!! it is so old school and unrealistic because you'd never need to find something that fast in real life. I'm curious how other schools are doing their lab curriculum for histo.

Since nobody from K-State has chimed in...we had a timed exam with microscope stations (I think around 30 stations), just like anatomy. The buzzer would go off each minute and you'd rotate. At each station, there'd be a microscope set up with a slide and the arrow would be carefully positioned. A question is written on a piece of paper taped next to the scope and might be asking about the name of the cell type, its function, or whatever. You were only allowed to adjust the focus/eyepiece and absolutely not move the stage (for obvious reasons). A few questions were asked on still images on TV screens with post-it arrows pointing to features. These images were really, really blown up and much larger/more detailed, so it was always challenging studying for the different levels of "zooming"--but we had labs where we went over these images as well.

 

[Minnerbelle]

i'm curious rileyroo (or anyone else taking histo)-how do they test you on the lab portion? we have a "point and shoot" where they call something out and u take the slide and have to point to it within 90 seconds. i hate it!! it is so old school and unrealistic because you'd never need to find something that fast in real life. I'm curious how other schools are doing their lab curriculum for histo.

we have slides set up in the histo lab on the double headed scopes. Some of them say do not touch, and you can only look into the scope. Others you can cruise around.

We go around with partners, kinda like speed dating with microscopes so we rotate every 90 seconds from one scope to the next. after we've been through all of it, we have 40 min of "free time," where you can go around to whatever slide you need more time on.

So that's for the final.

We had weekly quizzes that were on the computer, and we also had 3 glass slide quizzes, where we were given a box with 10 slides and a test sheet. We just had to go in and take it on our own time at some point during a designated week on the honor code.

 

[rileydog]

i'm curious rileyroo (or anyone else taking histo)-how do they test you on the lab portion? we have a "point and shoot" where they call something out and u take the slide and have to point to it within 90 seconds. i hate it!! it is so old school and unrealistic because you'd never need to find something that fast in real life. I'm curious how other schools are doing their lab curriculum for histo.

That sounds hard to do. For the last histology test we had a 3 hour test. First part was written, second part was a lab powerpoint projected up on the screen with certain things pointed to or circled, and the third part was with microscopes. For the microscope part, it was only identifying the organ, so we could move the slide however we wanted and change power. I think we got 90 seconds per station and then rotated to the next microscope with 5 minutes at the end to go back and look at any of them again. Good luck on finals everyone! I will officially be 1/8 of a veterinarian in 7 hours!

 

[lalzi22]

That's kinda how our histo is too, except lab is even more unnecessary because we have a "virtual slide set" online where we can zoom in on pictures of the slides in our slide box and there are narrated (by our profs) tours for the ones we cover in lab...

This is exactly how it is at Ohio State. For our lab part of the class we spend an hour in the computer labs looking at the online slides, and then we go down to the lab to look at glass slides. For the exams though, they will put up like 20-25 slides and say what tissue is this/what is the arrow pointing to etc..., and they are all online kind of pictures (although we can't zoom or anything during the test since we are all in the lecture hall). This means that for lab, the glass slide portion is kind of just free time ish.

 

[bunnity]

That sounds hard to do. For the last histology test we had a 3 hour test. First part was written, second part was a lab powerpoint projected up on the screen with certain things pointed to or circled, and the third part was with microscopes. For the microscope part, it was only identifying the organ, so we could move the slide however we wanted and change power. I think we got 90 seconds per station and then rotated to the next microscope with 5 minutes at the end to go back and look at any of them again. Good luck on finals everyone! I will officially be 1/8 of a veterinarian in 7 hours!

Yeah none of us like the point and shoot. It is so much pressure. On top of that we also have an "unknown slides" section where we have 13 unlabeled slides with questions about them "what organ is this? would you see X type of cells on this slide? what is the function of the X cells on this slide?" And THEN there is a completely written test on another day with no slides that is all about function.

 

[StartingoverVet]

So jealous of everyone else who doesn't have to spend the better part of 2-3 days staring into a microscope.

We have online stuff and a book to review but those aren't nearly enough because they always have "perfect" pictures to look at. The real slides on the exam (known and unknown) are rarely the best examples.

And I never, ever want to look at chicken tissue ever again unless it is cooked with vegetables!!!!

Ok, back to the chicken crop and the cow rumen, etc.

 

[nyanko]

Yeah none of us like the point and shoot. It is so much pressure. On top of that we also have an "unknown slides" section where we have 13 unlabeled slides with questions about them "what organ is this? would you see X type of cells on this slide? what is the function of the X cells on this slide?" And THEN there is a completely written test on another day with no slides that is all about function.

Our practical exams are like the ones at OKSU and OSU and wherever else they do the powerpoint/projector slides with stuff circled or pointed to or whatever, but for the final exam some of them were "what is this organ" as well, and she did pick slides that we didn't go over in lab. In fact, for the final she didn't tell us what organ most of the slides she put up were as we were expected to be able to tell. The point and shoot sounds hellish, though.

And our written exams covering function were directly after the practicals, on the same day. Same goes for our anatomy written exams - the class is divided into 4 groups to take the lab practical and split in half for the written portion, on the same day.

 

[luplodw]

Our histology class was TERRIBLE. I feel like I learned nothing. It was just a bad teacher I guess. We had just written tests and 3-10 pictures projected we had to identify up on the screen (3 for the first test...and it got more for every test ending with 10 on the final). I don't feel like I could identify something on the microscope if I tried. It's crazy because alllll of my other classes have been fabulous, and I've learned so much!!

 

[BlacKAT33]

so i just got back from my histo lab final and i'm so mad. It started off ok until the part of the eye and i SWEAR i had the right layer pointed to. My prof was like no no its wrong its the opposite way. I really freaked out and i was holding back tears. Of course I don't have time to recover my emotions so the next question I get wrong. Parietal cells, I KNOW THEM!! wtf was my brain doing. I was just so upset and it was a downhill spiral. I ended up missing 3 which doesn't seem like a big deal, but each one is worth 4 pts so that means i got a 32/48 which is actually failing. There is still the "mystery" slides part to add to that grade though, but who knows how i did on that one.

So now i get home from the exam, i look up the eye layers and I SWEAR I WAS RIGHT AGAIN. wtf. jeezus. i think she was just walking around so fast and didn't glance at my layers well. And she is so stubborn she didn't even double check it, she told an assistant to check who also claimed it was wrong...but i think the assistant was just peer pressured into agreeing with my prof I'm not just mad that she graded that question wrong but it sent me thru an emotional spiral for the rest of the exam leading to my other mistakes!!! AHHHHHHHH

 

[BlacKAT33]

ok i feel a little better now, i realized i am very sleep deprived and did my math wrong, so i really did pass with a 75% lol but i'm still angry that she graded me wrong!!

 

[katryn]

Thankfully, our microanatomy class wasn't too bad. We had written function questions and computer slides with what is the circled structure type questions. My only complaint is that they are big on the virtual microscope slides. I miss my microscope work.

 

[bunnity]

ok i feel a little better now, i realized i am very sleep deprived and did my math wrong, so i really did pass with a 75% lol but i'm still angry that she graded me wrong!!

noooo that sucks I'm sorry

 

[lei325]

OMG, i am sooooo jelly belly...we don't have our first exams until FEBRUARY!!! 5 months of information.....ahhhhhhhhh

I know the feeling. We have two end of term exams that only count for 5% each, and then an end of year exam that spans over a 2 and a half week period and accounts for 90% of our grade. It's like having two sporadic quizzes and then 14 finals at once.

So end of term exam = , and end of year exam = .

But at least I get some semblance of an exam before February...eek.

 

[HopefulAg]

Our histology tests are actually three tests. You have the written test which is theoretical information, the microscope test which is 'identify this organ' or 'name 5 tissue types found on this slide', and then the powerpoint portion which is identification of individual structures/cell types.

 

[parietal]

Our histology tests are actually three tests. You have the written test which is theoretical information, the microscope test which is 'identify this organ' or 'name 5 tissue types found on this slide', and then the powerpoint portion which is identification of individual structures/cell types.

Ours is basically the same as this except instead of powerpoints we have printed photos set out on tables. The microscope and photo parts are scored together as our lab test, however.

 

[BlacKAT33]

I'm done!!! and ive passed everything so far!! This last test was a killer though (histo) the questions were really random and i have no clue how bad i did i'm realllly worried i may not have passed this class but for now...IM FINISHED!!

for everyone else still in their finals...keep on pushing thru!

 

[GreennWhite]

One more exam left for us at VMRCVM. Biochem was today, not as bad as most of us were thinking. My study group came up with a lot of practice questions that ended up on the exam in some form or another.

Histo on wednesday and we've survived!

 

[bunnity]

I'M DONE! I can't even explain how happy I am. I already went to my favorite restaurant and walked around center city Philadelphia and took my foster to a new place and more fun in store later. I <3 break

 

[rileyroo]

Physiology Final on Wednesday and we're done! This is the final I'm most concerned about. I can't wait to be finished with this semester!

 

[twelvetigers]

How do I poof for three weeks and come back feeling like I missed two months?

Congrats on everyone finished with finals, and good luck to those with battles left to fight. It will be over soon, for better or worse.

As an undergrad, I'm thankful that I only have one final I'm actually worried about. But, I speak these words with a bitter tongue. Pause a moment and recall how you all felt this time last year...

(Lemme at 'em! I can do it, damnit! Grr! etc.)

 

[BlacKAT33]

How do I poof for three weeks and come back feeling like I missed two months?

Congrats on everyone finished with finals, and good luck to those with battles left to fight. It will be over soon, for better or worse.

As an undergrad, I'm thankful that I only have one final I'm actually worried about. But, I speak these words with a bitter tongue. Pause a moment and recall how you all felt this time last year...

(Lemme at 'em! I can do it, damnit! Grr! etc.)

YOU'RE BACKKKKK!!!!!!!

we missed you!!

ah yes last year at this time i was probably freaking out or nervous. it feels so weird now that i dont have to study!! i'm not sure what i should do lol maybe christmas shopping... (not as fun when i dont have a job anymore haha)

 

[racccjlm]

You're right TT. Way to make us keep perspective

Guess who nodded off during her phys final today? I spent a little too much time on anatomy this weekend and not enough on phys, so had to compensate last night. Crazy - because I never get so tired that that happens - not driving, not anywhere. I woke up and was like where the *$%& am I - it was a really weird feeling, and not one that I will be repeating ever hopefully. I hate it when your grade is teetering on the edge and the final has real possibilities of dropping you. At least we have +/- in phys. Anatomy is strict letter grades. And I found out that I missed the grade I wanted by a whopping 5 points. Lesson learned. The next time I have two grades on the line, I will NOT try to overachieve and do well in both. Anwyay, two more finals and then I can sleep for three weeks!

 

[HandD42]

2 down 2 to go.

Finished up anatomy this morning which I wish I felt better about but our two hardest tests come up tomorrow and Thursday.

 

[skittles12]

Good luck to everyone who's still taking exams! I am definitely enjoying my time off--and I think maybe I am starting to realize how much I am learning. I don't even look at my dogs at home the same anymore, haha.