Class of 2016....how ya doing?

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How to make sure that vet students will get quick reflexes....

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nyanko said:
Prediction: A- at the very, very worst. 🙄
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:laugh: I truly promised you I'm not that person, and I meant it lol. This was pretty bad. Everyone left speechless. One of those exams where he asked everything you didn't study 😎. The exam was written by our professor, but all the lectures were done by guest lecturers... it was pretty brutal. I literally couldn't even understand the questions, let alone which answers were right 🙄 I'm sure I passed the class, and I'm fine with that considering everything going on right now, but definitely definitely not an A 👎
I am far from the person you have me labeled as, but think what you will 😛
 
Trying to cram embryology into my head by Monday 😱
NOT workin so good.
:help:
 
abbercadaver said:
Sneak peek! Surprise for classmates Monday. 🙂

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Is that your main auditorium for classes? It is so tiny! I so wish that OSU had a smaller class size, but I'm adjusting. I hate that you don't really get to know the professors like you do if there are only 15-20 people in a class like I'm used to. Our O. chem professor had us all go around and introduce ourselves and say what we wanted to do on the first day of class. I miss that so much. Now I don't think a single one of my professors even knows my name 🙁. I knew that would be how it would be, though, but I didn't think I'd like it and I was right. I wish there were a vet school out there that had say 100 people in a graduating class or even the 164 that OSU has, but instead of teaching you all at the same time, had different class schedules so only 1/5 of the class is in the given class at a time. So, you'd have different schedules and mix and match with different classmates each class and rotate around with a random schedule of the semesters classes, like undergrad was.
 
squirrelsrule said:
Is that your main auditorium for classes? It is so tiny! I so wish that OSU had a smaller class size, but I'm adjusting. I hate that you don't really get to know the professors like you do if there are only 15-20 people in a class like I'm used to. Our O. chem professor had us all go around and introduce ourselves and say what we wanted to do on the first day of class. I miss that so much. Now I don't think a single one of my professors even knows my name 🙁. I knew that would be how it would be, though, but I didn't think I'd like it and I was right. I wish there were a vet school out there that had say 100 people in a graduating class or even the 164 that OSU has, but instead of teaching you all at the same time, had different class schedules so only 1/5 of the class is in the given class at a time. So, you'd have different schedules and mix and match with different classmates each class and rotate around with a random schedule of the semesters classes, like undergrad was.
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That's about half our classroom, but yeah. We have 88 in our class. 🙂 I dunno how you guys all do it but we have one classroom each for first, second, and third years. Our teachers rotate in and out all day long. We only leave for labs!
 
abbercadaver said:
That's about half our classroom, but yeah. We have 88 in our class. 🙂 I dunno how you guys all do it but we have one classroom each for first, second, and third years. Our teachers rotate in and out all day long. We only leave for labs!
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Same for us.

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They want to increase UGA's class to 130. Don't like that. 🙁
 
squirrelsrule said:
I wish there were a vet school out there that had say 100 people in a graduating class or even the 164 that OSU has, but instead of teaching you all at the same time, had different class schedules so only 1/5 of the class is in the given class at a time. So, you'd have different schedules and mix and match with different classmates each class and rotate around with a random schedule of the semesters classes, like undergrad was.
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they'd need to hire like 3x the faculty to do this, or else one prof has to give the same lecture 5 times to 5 different groups. seems terribly inefficient.

don't you have smaller group labs/discussions? that's where we get to know our professors the best in preclinical years
 
It would be inefficient, but we pay a ton to go to school, so I feel they could make it work. I'd be willing to pay a little extra for that as well.

Our anatomy lab is insane! We ALL have lab at the same time in a HUGE anatomy lab. We have 5 TAs to answer questions, but they have so much to do that you really just ask the question, they leave, and that's it.

For Histo. and Clin. Path. labs we are split in half, but that's still over 80 people and for Histo. lab there is just the professor and for Clin. path. there is just the two professors and sometimes one TA. If you have a question you can expect a 10 minute wait and the class is only 50 minutes, so you better figure it out yourself and move on or move on and remember the question.

Only time we're split into smaller groups is when we go for animal handling labs in which case there are 5 groups so just over 30 in a group.

I am not a huge fan of the setup, but I honestly don't think I'd feel different if there were only 88 people in my class, OK, maybe 88 would be nice, that's half the number we have!
nyanko said:
they'd need to hire like 3x the faculty to do this, or else one prof has to give the same lecture 5 times to 5 different groups. seems terribly inefficient.

don't you have smaller group labs/discussions? that's where we get to know our professors the best in preclinical years
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squirrelsrule said:
Now I don't think a single one of my professors even knows my name 🙁.
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You'd be surprised! I sent Mr. Frasure an email last week about a question I had before the exam, and HE came up to ME in lab about it! I had no idea he knew who I was! And he was able to recognize me in my lovely safety glasses!


And Abber - I love it! 👍👍
 
squirrelsrule said:
It would be inefficient, but we pay a ton to go to school, so I feel they could make it work. I'd be willing to pay a little extra for that as well.
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I don't think they could really make it work in a way that doesn't either way overburden faculty (that have clinical, service and/or research obligations as well - to give 5 different lectures you are taking 6 hours out of their day plus preparation time) or provide students with an unequal learning experience (by having different faculty lecture/test on the same topic) similar to undergrad.

Honestly I feel like the burden should be on the student to get to know professors if they want. Ask questions via email or ask when they'll be available to meet if you don't understand things or need help. Otherwise, I guess I don't understand why it's a big deal if your first year physiology lecturer doesn't know your name, date of birth, favorite color and sign. :laugh:

Our anatomy lab is insane! We ALL have lab at the same time in a HUGE anatomy lab. We have 5 TAs to answer questions, but they have so much to do that you really just ask the question, they leave, and that's it.
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That actually sounds pretty awful. Hiring TA's OTOH, that's cheap, and probably it would be more realistic to split the class for lab than for lecture.
 
nyanko said:
I don't think they could really make it work in a way that doesn't either way overburden faculty (that have clinical, service and/or research obligations as well - to give 5 different lectures you are taking 6 hours out of their day plus preparation time) or provide students with an unequal learning experience (by having different faculty lecture/test on the same topic) similar to undergrad.

Honestly I feel like the burden should be on the student to get to know professors if they want. Ask questions via email or ask when they'll be available to meet if you don't understand things or need help. Otherwise, I guess I don't understand why it's a big deal if your first year physiology lecturer doesn't know your name, date of birth, favorite color and sign. :laugh:



That actually sounds pretty awful. Hiring TA's OTOH, that's cheap, and probably it would be more realistic to split the class for lab than for lecture.
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I actually like it. We are in professional school and they expect us to take our education into our own hands. If you have a question, the professor will eventually get to you. But in the mean time you can consult other groups around you to see if they have it figured out and maybe a classmate can explain it to you. Or you can move on to some other part of the dissection and when the professor comes by, you can go back to the part that was confusing and ask about it.

And the professors here do know your name. They each have a copy of the baby book and have "studied" it. On the 3rd day of anatomy, I had a question for question for Dr. I and she knew my name without me having to tell her. So they do know who you are!
 
marino0213 said:
I actually like it. We are in professional school and they expect us to take our education into our own hands. If you have a question, the professor will eventually get to you. But in the mean time you can consult other groups around you to see if they have it figured out and maybe a classmate can explain it to you. Or you can move on to some other part of the dissection and when the professor comes by, you can go back to the part that was confusing and ask about it.

And the professors here do know your name. They each have a copy of the baby book and have "studied" it. On the 3rd day of anatomy, I had a question for question for Dr. I and she knew my name without me having to tell her. So they do know who you are!
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I hate the way anatomy lab is set up (and ours is similar). I pay a lot of money to get an education, and sitting there and trying to figure it out when nobody knows what is going on and the book randomly skips details on parts we need to know is really, really annoying to me. Just like having to know random anatomical parts that ancient professors have decided they like to quiz on (trabeculae septomarginalis? really?) rather than things that actually have any clinical significance. 🙄 Us being professional students and being able to figure things out on our own (eventually, maybe) is not an excuse for shoddy teaching imo...
 
Trilt said:
I hate the way anatomy lab is set up (and ours is similar). I pay a lot of money to get an education, and sitting there and trying to figure it out when nobody knows what is going on and the book randomly skips details on parts we need to know is really, really annoying to me. Just like having to know random anatomical parts that ancient professors have decided they like to quiz on (trabeculae septomarginalis? really?) rather than things that actually have any clinical significance. 🙄 Us being professional students and being able to figure things out on our own (eventually, maybe) is not an excuse for shoddy teaching imo...
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I'll give credit to UTK's anatomy structure. Things are taught with emphasis on clinical relevance, and the professor says he regards his class as pre-surgery. The lab is all of us at once, 87, but there are 3 veterinarians in there always to answer questions. Everything on exams is straightforward and not tricky. (and I say this having bombed the first test...)

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Knee surgery yesterday! I'm not super mobile, so I guess all of this bed rest will force me to sit here and study for our first block final (and the end of our pass/no pass section of the curriculum. Yikes!).
 
orca2011 said:
Studying for anatomy with some friends...we're all so cracked out right now it's not even funny.
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Yep, sitting in the library studying embryology with my friend and we are in the laugh like hell delirious stage :meanie:
 
orca2011 said:
We're listening to the Disney Pandora station and just did some planking all over our library...
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Nice :meanie:
Only the cool people hang out in the library all Saturday night 🙄
 
Time for my weekly check-in. Apparently it's becoming tradition for me to only update on weekends! 😛

I have to say that I am OH SO THANKFUL that I have a fantastic anatomy lab group. Not only are they awesome people, but they're all about teamwork and don't mind staying a little late if necessary. We're meeting tomorrow for some studying and froyo 😎

Also, OneNote is awesome. I also just downloaded this program, VueMinder Lite, that is a really great organizational tool. I had a planner that I was using, but it became inconvenient since we have so little table space in class and it's just easier to have my schedule on my computer.

Hope all is well with everyone else 🙂
 
Trilt said:
I hate the way anatomy lab is set up (and ours is similar). I pay a lot of money to get an education, and sitting there and trying to figure it out when nobody knows what is going on and the book randomly skips details on parts we need to know is really, really annoying to me. Just like having to know random anatomical parts that ancient professors have decided they like to quiz on (trabeculae septomarginalis? really?) rather than things that actually have any clinical significance. 🙄 Us being professional students and being able to figure things out on our own (eventually, maybe) is not an excuse for shoddy teaching imo...
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Trabeculae septomarginalis was on our exam as well. Our class emphasizes the clinical aspects of anatomy, but we also have to learn a bunch of other stuff. Some of it seems like it will be important, other stuff, not so much. Like not quite sure why we'd need to know all the papillae of the tongue. It feels like they are now trying to cram as much as they can down our throats and are giving us no time to actually learn it and dissect. Finally catching on to last weeks stuff now, but come Tuesday morning it will be a whole bunch more stuff and I am far from having the other stuff down. Most likely because we have a lot of midterms coming up so I haven't been giving anatomy the time of day, but hopefully I'll catch back up soon. My anatomy group is awesome! I couldn't have chosen a better group if I tried! They are all great and willing to come in at other times, we all help eachother out, study together, share our study guides, it's just been really good. I think our group spends the most time in the lab outside of class, but we also have one of the best dissections and can really learn a lot from our dog.

Nyanko, have you ever gone to a small school where professors knew you and would say hi and actually know who you are outside of class? I just felt so much more connected to the school and like I belonged. Now I feel like one of 162. I'm dealing with it and it's not that the school isn't awesome, it is, it's just that's my personal preference and there are no options for that in vet school. I knew that going in though and it's been about as I expected, so it's not the end of the world. Just saying what I wish could happen. My perfect vet school would be a graduating class size of about 100 but individual courses with 30-35 per class. We'd have class for an hour and 50 minutes instead of 50 minutes, and we'd have a set schedule where we meet at X time Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday and Thursday (lab classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday because labs would be Friday). I have a lot of autistic tendencies and I think the set schedule alone would help me out a ton, I hate not knowing what's going on each day of the week.
 
I am so glad to be done with anatomy!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀


Our GEP class was 56 students when we started, we are currently up to 62 due to some people having to retake some of the courses. We get broken down into smaller groups for animal handling things (about 12-14 per group) which is really nice. Next year, we will join the current 2nd year class to become a big group of third years, not sure how many will be in the class in total, but I am sure it will be over 100.

Now I must go study immunology since I missed way too many classes over the past two weeks.
 
DVMDream said:
I am so glad to be done with anatomy!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀


Our GEP class was 56 students when we started, we are currently up to 62 due to some people having to retake some of the courses. We get broken down into smaller groups for animal handling things (about 12-14 per group) which is really nice. Next year, we will join the current 2nd year class to become a big group of third years, not sure how many will be in the class in total, but I am sure it will be over 100.

Now I must go study immunology since I missed way too many classes over the past two weeks.
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👍 me too! I have an immuno test tomorrow morning (yikes!!! :scared:) but I literally paid no attention to a few lectures that were on the same days as other tests...Now I have to go back and re-listen to them...
 
Embryology midterm tomorrow. HOW is this class a 4 week class? :bang:
 
DVMDream said:
We did it in three days... I know how you feel.
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We did it in just a few days first year too. I got through by sheer memorization/brute force and forgot it all immediately after the exam.
Now its coming back to haunt me in therio 🙁 Only three embryology lectures, but holy crap he crammed a lot of info in. Add in two basic repro phys lectures and seven lectures of reproductive pathology and I am about ready to go get my tubes tied 🙂
 
cowgirla said:
We did it in just a few days first year too. I got through by sheer memorization/brute force and forgot it all immediately after the exam.
Now its coming back to haunt me in therio 🙁 Only three embryology lectures, but holy crap he crammed a lot of info in. Add in two basic repro phys lectures and seven lectures of reproductive pathology and I am about ready to go get my tubes tied 🙂
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:laugh:

Don't want kids anymore?
 
squirrelsrule said:
Nyanko, have you ever gone to a small school where professors knew you and would say hi and actually know who you are outside of class?
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No, because I know that I would hate that type of environment (my high school was very small and insular) but I've gone to plenty of large state schools with huge classes where the professors still knew me and would say hi and know who I was outside of class, if I cared for them to. But then again, I'm perfectly content to blend in if I'm not terribly interested in the particular course. I kind of prefer to have that choice personally. That way I don't feel like I'm disappointing anyone when I blow off an exam and end up just passing. :laugh:

My perfect vet school would be a graduating class size of about 100 but individual courses with 30-35 per class. We'd have class for an hour and 50 minutes instead of 50 minutes, and we'd have a set schedule where we meet at X time Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday and Thursday (lab classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday because labs would be Friday).
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lol and to me this type of setup sounds like absolute boring hell (aka what high school was like). I hope you can find your rhythm in time.
 
Trilt said:
2.5 hours till anatomy exam on thorax, abdomen, pelvic cavity and some cumulative stuff on limbs. Eeeeeeeeek. There's just so much material....
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i have an anatomy exam wednesday too!!!!!!! on the whole dog eeeeeek 😱:scared:

there's so much material to memorize/know, i think my brain has reached way past its full capacity
 
Just completely annihilated that embryology exam. :banana:
I almost want to apologize to it... almost.
 
abbercadaver said:
That's about half our classroom, but yeah. We have 88 in our class. 🙂 I dunno how you guys all do it but we have one classroom each for first, second, and third years. Our teachers rotate in and out all day long. We only leave for labs!
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I am so glad we aren't in the same classroom all day long. We only have three classrooms we really rotate through, but it is nice to change it up sometimes.

Trilt said:
I hate the way anatomy lab is set up (and ours is similar). I pay a lot of money to get an education, and sitting there and trying to figure it out when nobody knows what is going on and the book randomly skips details on parts we need to know is really, really annoying to me. Just like having to know random anatomical parts that ancient professors have decided they like to quiz on (trabeculae septomarginalis? really?) rather than things that actually have any clinical significance. 🙄 Us being professional students and being able to figure things out on our own (eventually, maybe) is not an excuse for shoddy teaching imo...
Click to expand...

I actually like how the lab is set up in general. I like that we have to figure things out. The professors are really helpful if you ask them. One of them even stayed after one night to meet with me and another student. It was really nice. :xf: it paid off on the exam.
 
orcagirl said:
I am so glad we aren't in the same classroom all day long. We only have three classrooms we really rotate through, but it is nice to change it up sometimes.



I actually like how the lab is set up in general. I like that we have to figure things out. The professors are really helpful if you ask them. One of them even stayed after one night to meet with me and another student. It was really nice. :xf: it paid off on the exam.
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Oh they're all super, super nice - no complaints about the personalities of our professors. I'd just prefer a bit more guidance, as I personally don't really like the book or learn very well off it (never been a book person), and I feel like we tend to weirdly emphasize some things in lecture vs. lab. Definitely a different strokes for different folks situation.

Don't feel like the test went too bad at all! 😀
 
I had my anxious stage about our anatomy exam last week... and now I progressed to the zen stage. Which would be good, except it makes me not care about studying.

My critters are super cuddly tonight, so I gave up on studying and just have my dog's head & front legs in my lap. lol. She's not little either!
 
Well, I did okay on anatomy (lower than class average) but >C so I'm pretty content. Just can't stop comparing myself to other people. I'm aiming for a residency, so grades are super important (I think...someone please stop me from worrying. I've heard that lately LORs are > grades in internship/residency determination...anyone have any info to share?). *sigh* Just keep on trucking...
 
NStarz said:
Well, I did okay on anatomy (lower than class average) but >C so I'm pretty content. Just can't stop comparing myself to other people. I'm aiming for a residency, so grades are super important (I think...someone please stop me from worrying. I've heard that lately LORs are > grades in internship/residency determination...anyone have any info to share?). *sigh* Just keep on trucking...
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I was talking to a faculty member about this recently. It seems kind of like the grades/class rank are more of a 'cutoff' type thing where if it's too low, they probably won't really further review the application, but above a certain level it doesn't matter quite so much and your letters are way more important.
 
nyanko said:
I was talking to a faculty member about this recently. It seems kind of like the grades/class rank are more of a 'cutoff' type thing where if it's too low, they probably won't really further review the application, but above a certain level it doesn't matter quite so much and your letters are way more important.
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Ugh. That would be a problem for me, then. A 2nd year told me that even with a 3.8 something, she wasn't even in the top 20% of the class.
 
I had the exact same type post typed up earlier, minus the residency talk, but didn't post because I felt I was being too hard on myself. I truly feel your pain though, it is so hard to give it your all and come up below average. I was sure I had the 92% that I wanted to bring myself up to an A, but no such luck. There is always next test. I am trying to instead of look at the highest grade in our class look at the lowest and feel grateful that although I am not happy with where I am, I at least not struggling and giving it my all and not making it to satisfactory. I am used to being number 1 though, and I've always had to work really hard to be number one (doesn't just come to me like it does some), but when I put in the time and effort, I've always gotten the results I wanted to see. Not so much anymore. We'll get through it and it'll be OK. Well, at least I'm hoping to survive cell, path, and Histo within the next 11 days 😱. Histo truly has me worried, I really really need to seriously start studying that. I'm just hoping his statement that if you look over the review questions and his slides you will get an 80%. That is one class where anything that is passing is good enough for me 😀.

Anatomy is the big one that gets me, I bet I spent more time in the lab than anyone else, I can ID stuff really good, then the written part and I thought I had done good enough, but not so much. I feel if there was more fill in the blank and essay type questions, I'd do better. With questions like how many phalanges are on the carpal bone 1, I'm left going 😕, do you mean number of bones, or number of digits? Multiple choice is not my thing, slightly better than true false, but not that much better I'm finding. Another advantage to smaller classes, more essay questions 😀. Like Cell Bio, I would have totally Aced that if it had all been essay type questions like the last two.

Oh well, I'm learning a ton and that's the important thing. We really need to shift our focus towards what matters, which is learning everything we can and working towards being awesome vets! We will get there 👍
 
maybe take this with a grain of salt, but my mentor here at penn (who is interested in pursuing internship/residency) told me that she was told from people at penn that for that kind of stuff, LORs and how you doing your CLINICAL rotations matters a lot too (like how you interact with patients, clients, other doctors, etc). this is only our first semester and we have a lot of time to pull our grades up.

i'm interested in pursuing a residency in emergency/critical care eventually, so i have the same concern as you guys!

also, one of the ER doctors i work with (who is one of the best doctors i know) did his internship at Angell in Boston, and he told me he was in the bottom half of his class. An intern I worked with, who is a Penn grad, told me she was also in the bottom half of her class. She did her internship at a specialty hospital in my area that is very well known locally and is very busy.

so, there is still hope you guys!
 
sunnex3 said:
maybe take this with a grain of salt, but my mentor here at penn (who is interested in pursuing internship/residency) told me that she was told from people at penn that for that kind of stuff, LORs and how you doing your CLINICAL rotations matters a lot too (like how you interact with patients, clients, other doctors, etc). this is only our first semester and we have a lot of time to pull our grades up.

i'm interested in pursuing a residency in emergency/critical care eventually, so i have the same concern as you guys!

also, one of the ER doctors i work with (who is one of the best doctors i know) did his internship at Angell in Boston, and he told me he was in the bottom half of his class. An intern I worked with, who is a Penn grad, told me she was also in the bottom half of her class. She did her internship at a specialty hospital in my area that is very well known locally and is very busy.

so, there is still hope you guys!
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Thanks sunnex...that makes me feel a lot better. I'm looking at places like AMC/Angell for internship so you definitely gave me a lot of hope!
 
Yeah we were told by a professor that the connections you make and your LORs are much more important. He was explaining this as part of his "study to learn and don't worry about your grades" speech. I am gonna study and work hard, but not at the demise of my life. I will still try for As but be ok not getting them. I want to enjoy my experience and make connections. Sometimes people spend too much time focused on grades instead of A) learning material that we need to use the next 50 years and B) Making those connections needed for great LORs for residencies.
 
also, i've been told that especially for residencies, your LORs and connections you make and how you are with people (probably evident from your internship experience) are most important.
 
NStarz said:
Ugh. That would be a problem for me, then. A 2nd year told me that even with a 3.8 something, she wasn't even in the top 20% of the class.
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Top 50% was the "cutoff" sort of deal. And it has wiggle room, if someone did like, a lot better in medicine/surgery courses and clinical rotations and got all of their worse grades in first 2 years. Don't worry about it (and that's how things are here too - at 3.5-ish I'm sitting slightly below the 50th percentile).

Incidentally there are places with a reputation for caring more/less about grades. If we're naming specifics, I've heard NCSU is pretty grades-oriented for their internship program.
 
nyanko said:
Incidentally there are places with a reputation for caring more/less about grades. If we're naming specifics, I've heard NCSU is pretty grades-oriented for their internship program.
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And I was about to chime in that our internal med internship coordinator definitely bashed us over the head about GET THE HIGH GRADES when we had our specializing careers talk, so hey, that makes sense. Really glad to hear that some other places aren't quite as hardcore about that as him - I've always done well in classes, but I've never been a straight A person, ever.
 
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