Finals... yuck!

[prettygreeneyes]

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Hello fellow opt students, and those senior docs who know the hip and happenin' optometry forum to hang out in...

So, the countdown to finals has began. I can safely predict that the week of December 11th-15th could be the worst of my life (until spring finals). We have 7 two hour exams over the span of 5 days. 😱

I'd like to hear how finals week is shaping up for others at our fellow optometry schools across the country. Do you guys have it better? Worse? About the same?

And mostly important, advice from those of you who have been through this before? 😕

Let the ranting and whining begin...and please feel free to use multiple emoticons in your replies. 😳

 

[sco1styear]

We're in the middle of finals right now at SCO - thanks to the quarter system I've had them three times a year...at least it doesn't seem that long ago from our first tests so that the comprehensive ones don't seem so overwhelming.
But only two more times really for me! Yea!!!! This week we've had a final a day. Most every other time we've had a final on the saturday before so that we usually have one of the days off during the week.
Finals are tough - study as much as you can before because when the week actually gets there - as much as you know you need to study, you just really don't want to! Trust me...

 

[Kristene9]

UAB has finals right now too! blahhhh I hate the quarter system. I think we might have had 1 week this quarter without a test.

 

[sethuel1]

We already had finals a couple weeks ago at ICO (quarter system). they sucked, but we survived. You will too.

Good luck everybody.

 

[alferec]

Yep, we just had finals also (last week)...ohhhhhh man that really sucked. Our school gives us a "reading week" though, which gives us a week of prep time before finals. Do any other schools do this too???

 

[odstudent]

you guys are lucky~ at UHCO we have exam weeks...its like having finals 3 times a semester. 😡

 

[4Eyes]

We don't have a reading week. 🙁 Just the weekend.

And sco"1st"year speaks the truth...studying for finals that week is sooo hard to do. I didn't think that would be the case...I thought it would be easier knowing I'm almost done. But it was not the case. So as much in advance as possible is good advice.

We only have 4 finals this semester...I guess that's good.... They'll be killer though.

Tangent: sorry I'm a little ellipsis-happy tonight. 🙂

 

[alferec]

you guys are lucky~ at UHCO we have exam weeks...its like having finals 3 times a semester. 😡

Would you prefer that or having 1-2 midterm exams every week!!! 😱 It pretty much kills every weekend...🙁

 

[sco1styear]

I wish I would have taken my own adivce - finals are pretty much kickin our ...you know what... this time. The funny thing is that none of us seem to really care. My theory is that because we passed boards we no longer feel the need to learn anything more just kidding...sort of

 

[sco1styear]

double post

 

[swiftiii]

I love it. I see this post and am thinking about how I can't sleep anymore. Then I scroll to the bottom and there is an advertisement for insomnia!! Too funny!

We don't have "finals" till the 10 days after Thanksgiving. I say finals, because a lot of them are just tests. Of course, there is one everyday, be it cumulative or not.

I was wondering something about the other schools though. We had checkouts this week. For those that don't know or don't use the term, it basically makes sure that we are proficient in our optometric techniques. Fail them twice, and you're out of school (so I suppose that could be the reason I don't sleep anymore....) Anyway, what I was wondering was: do the other schools teach you to do a total refraction with subjective? I think it's pretty cool. I'm not even done with my first semester and I can already give a reasonable prescription to someone (not that I am saying I should, just that I can 🙂 )

 

[swiftiii]

Would you prefer that or having 1-2 midterm exams every week!!! 😱 It pretty much kills every weekend...🙁

Trust me, you don't want every weekend to be a viable one. We have 1-2 tests almost every Monday. But when we don't, we live it up. It's more than enough for me (and I should think, the rest of my classmates, though this IS south FL....)

Besides, like I said in my previous post, then you don't end up with a bunch of finals to be stressing about! 😍

 

[iiiimonica]

so yes finals are just around the corner but first...PRACTICALS!

yep your time to show what you have learned or not

in 2 weeks we have (over the course of 2 days):

retinoscopy on 2 schematic eyes in under 6 minutes
keratometry on 1 eye in 3 minutes
slit lamp, including Van Herrick angle in 6 minutes
BIO, pull a pole and 2 mid periphery views of the instructors choice - 3 minutes
refraction both eyes- including balance in 13 minutes

so holy cow! this is what is keeping me up at night - i wish i could have an exam lane in my condo, too bad i don't have anywhere to put it though

and then 2 weeks later we have our written finals (but only 4, so PGE you have my sympathy😍 ) though we do have a final from 9-12 on saturday! that should just be illegal

good luck all - and can you believe how much we have learned?

 

[EyeBaller]

I'm in the middle of 7 finals.. 3 down 4 to go... (one a day!)

And I thought 3rd year was supposed to get easier.... at least we don't have those practicals anymore!!


Also, swiftiii, here we do ret and subjective in 1st quarter too, the 1st years just had their practical assessments on it too.

Good luck everyone!!

 

[r_salis]

And I thought 3rd year was supposed to get easier....

The next two quarters *will* get better -- of course all your free time will then get eaten up by extra clinic sessions. 😀

Good luck with finals, everyone!

 

[prettygreeneyes]

😀 It is very interesting to hear about how each school does everything differently! At Pacific, we have two rounds of midterms... and those weeks sucked. Our first round ended on a Tuesday, and the next round began on that same Thursday and ended a few hours ago! For finals, we will get a couple days off plus the weekend to prepare. Nothing like ripping that Band-Aid off in one fast pull, right?

As far as skills go, we have had two proficiencies this semster, and have one more coming up. We don't seem to be learning the cool things everyone else is though...😡 Our first proficiency was Case History/VAs. Next was Entrance Skills/External Exam. Our last one will be on Visual Fields. I believe we start slit lamp and ret next semester.

Just curious... people who have experienced both the semester and quarter systems, do you have a preference? Not that I could do anything about it now...

Best of luck on finals everyone!!!

 

[swiftiii]

so yes finals are just around the corner but first...PRACTICALS!

yep your time to show what you have learned or not

in 2 weeks we have (over the course of 2 days):

retinoscopy on 2 schematic eyes in under 6 minutes
keratometry on 1 eye in 3 minutes
slit lamp, including Van Herrick angle in 6 minutes
BIO, pull a pole and 2 mid periphery views of the instructors choice - 3 minutes
refraction both eyes- including balance in 13 minutes

so holy cow! this is what is keeping me up at night - i wish i could have an exam lane in my condo, too bad i don't have anywhere to put it though

and then 2 weeks later we have our written finals (but only 4, so PGE you have my sympathy😍 ) though we do have a final from 9-12 on saturday! that should just be illegal

good luck all - and can you believe how much we have learned?

I can't believe you have to ret a schematic eye...too funny! Otherwise your school sounds pretty similar to ours...though I don't even know what you mean by"BIO, pull a pole." And let me ask you this. Would you prefer to have an exam on Saturday (which, BTW, I had done in undergrad) or classes the morning of afternoon CUMULATIVE finals? Because we do!

For whoever asked, I personally have not done quarters, but I love our schedule at NOVA. Well, except for that classes/finals thing....

BTW...very slightly off topic, but did everyone here get that C=O.D. speech? While true, I just don't feel comfortable allowing myself to get by. I wish someone could convince me otherwise. It might make finals a "non-event."

 

[swiftiii]

...though I don't even know what you mean by"BIO, pull a pole."

Oh, Lord. I found out what BIO was today the hard way. If anything is going to make me think twice about optometry school, it's that! I think I am going to have nightmares of some kind of torture chamber where my eyes are always dilated, there's a megawatt light shining directly on my eye and I am never able to blink. I mean, forget what the Pentagon wants. Let's just make all prisoners subjects of 2d year's BIO practice....

 

[Kristene9]

so yes finals are just around the corner but first...PRACTICALS!

yep your time to show what you have learned or not

in 2 weeks we have (over the course of 2 days):

retinoscopy on 2 schematic eyes in under 6 minutes
keratometry on 1 eye in 3 minutes
slit lamp, including Van Herrick angle in 6 minutes
BIO, pull a pole and 2 mid periphery views of the instructors choice - 3 minutes
refraction both eyes- including balance in 13 minutes

so holy cow! this is what is keeping me up at night - i wish i could have an exam lane in my condo, too bad i don't have anywhere to put it though

and then 2 weeks later we have our written finals (but only 4, so PGE you have my sympathy😍 ) though we do have a final from 9-12 on saturday! that should just be illegal

good luck all - and can you believe how much we have learned?

well since you brought it up, let me tell you about UAB. This summer we actually did our retting of schematic eyes. The final was you had 15 schematic eyes and got 4 minutes for each eye. That was fun, we did that this summer.

For fall we first had to ret and refract 4 people in ether 10 or 12 minutes including balance. And our final consisted of Keretomy of both eyes in 4 minutes. A full slit lamp exam including membomin glad expression, flipping the upper lid, TBUT, van harric angles, lids, lashes, conj, 2 cornea scans, iris, anter, nucleus, and post lens and vit. and 2 types of tonometry in ten mintues but that wasn't as bad 🙂 and its over now..sigh

 

[iiiimonica]

so i finished my first practical and i did ..okay. yep all that practicing, doing refractions in my head before i went to bed and when i woke up, and just okay! the funny thing is that i got mad skillz, it's just i get so darn nervous! i don't understand it... oh well, i finished and i did not fail (though i did forget to do final power jcc on the left eye - i mean really! how could i forget that (her VA's were still 20/15-1 it should have clued me) i caught my mistake but i had already begun to fog and i couldn't remember how many clicks i put in, in theory i had the time to go back (i finished whole thing in 11 min) but i did not want to risk not finishing to go back, i also forgot to remove the prisms after balance (which i never did in practice🙄) i think slit lamp went well, and keratometry seemed fine.

on Monday the whole class does BIO on one of our instructors (poor dr w, all of us nervous first years blasting away at her eye) and schematic eye retinoscopy which i really don't like. so many people bang the chair with the schematic eye that i don't trust that it's still neutral. that's my story and i'm sticking to it🙂

hope everyone else is doing well and good luck on your finals!

our last day of class is thursday and our finals start on Tuesday. i think that's just evil. we used to get a week between finals at Cal, but that eneded with budget cuts a few years back. it really screws the undergrads more because they are competing for grad school spots with schools that get that dead week, but it still sucks for us grad students beacuse you have no time off to study. instruction for our clinic course ended last wed, perception ended this thursday (we have 2 days of review) anatomy and optics go to the bitter bitter end. hmmm i really should be studying😉

 

[iiiimonica]

For fall we first had to ret and refract 4 people in ether 10 or 12 minutes including balance.

you had to do ret and refraction in under 4 minutes? what are you psychic? 4 minutes!! man, i breaking in a cold sweat right now! let me think...my best refraction time has been 7 minutes, my best ret about 5 - thats 1 patient in 12 minutes -i need to speed up

 

[Kristene9]

no no no, 1 ret and refract in 10 or 12 minutes. Then 1 minute to switch rooms and start on the next one.We did 4 people total (in about 40 minutes). sorry!

 

[iiiimonica]

i only got 2 views - arggg! my hand started shaking so bad. but i did get the other 2 views. and let's just say i got some really mad BIO skillz (picturesque as 1 classmate said) i just got so nervous🙄

ret went okay (i think🙂 now on to studying for finals!

how do you guys deal with nervousness during practicals? i'm seriously thinking about taking a shot or getting some anti anxiety meds

 

[4Eyes]

i only got 2 views - arggg! my hand started shaking so bad. but i did get the other 2 views. and let's just say i got some really mad BIO skillz (picturesque as 1 classmate said) i just got so nervous🙄

ret went okay (i think🙂 now on to studying for finals!

how do you guys deal with nervousness during practicals? i'm seriously thinking about taking a shot or getting some anti anxiety meds

I'm sure all your practicals went marvelously. 🙂

I asked the same question one time and here are the responses. I am eager to hear what else people have to say. So far I've had rather good luck with practicals/proficiencies, but I do get sooo cripplingly nervous. Ironically, I am feeling kind of iffy on my trial frame refraction practical I had today! I did fine on 3-mirror, 4-mirror, plugs, BIO...so it would be just like me to blow something like trial frame refraction. LOL! I knew how to do it, but I was nervous enough that the proctor thought I needed some prompting. This particular one was pass/fail so I'm hoping it was good enough. 😛

 

[iiiimonica]

i can't believe how fast this semester has gone by🙂

i got my grade for practical ~B+!!! I am so happy, I thought for sure I'd get lower - I 😍 😍 😍 our instructors they didn't ding me too bad for missing the last BIO view.

most of my lost points came off the refraction, so that's where i'll work to improve over break. my ret went great, as did slit lamp, k's i worked really hard and it payed of - now if i could just stop shaking i'd be golden

final 1-3 were good - so only optics to go🙂 and then sweet sweet uninterrupted sleep, scrabble and movies.


good luck to you all (especially pge, my sdn buddy!)

 

[prettygreeneyes]

good luck to you all (especially pge, my sdn buddy!)

Thanks for the well wishes iiiimonica!!!!!! 😍 I finished the last of seven finals in five days yesterday... and it feels fantastic! Two weeks off... and then 1 week in Baja, Mexico on a AMIGOS trip (Pacific's student VOSH)! (I know... xmattODx wouldn't approve...😳 )

I hope everyone finals go (went) well... enjoy some much needed R&R!👍

 

[iiiimonica]

finals are OVER and final grades are in. i did it!! yep it's on to spring for me😍 i am sooooo happy🙂 and so looking forward to the break.



hope everyone else is doing great😍