First week of school

Started by Armymutt25A
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Armymutt25A

Armymutt25A

Cranky VSST OIC
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Figured I'd take a minute to give everyone an idea of the first (partial) week of school. A little background on me: I haven't been in a classroom since spring '99. I haven't thought about anything biological, other than weaponized agents since the same time. We started the week finishing off orientation. On Wed, we started "fake Monday" - Wed with a Mon schedule. Basically gives you the sucky part of the week without the reward of playing with live animals at the end. By Fri afternoon, I had dissected my way through 33 pages of little Millers, received a crash course in Immunity (which left most of the class feeling like they had gone through the spin cycle of an Immunity washing machine), re-visited genetics, relaxed and looked at histology slides, covered the basics of bacteria, and discussed how to solves clinical cases. Right now, I can say that most of the concepts are pretty easy - I think some of them will clear up a bit more once I actually can read the slides rather than watch them fly by on the screen - but the volume is massive. It truly is like drinking from the fire hose. Depending on the type of student you are, you can probably kiss most social engagements goodbye. I feel guilty sitting down to eat dinner, and consider throwing laundry into the washer a "study break". As I fell asleep last night, my first dreams were filled with watching a blade clear fascia from muscles. I cannot say this is the hardest thing I've ever done - not by a long shot - but it definitely is an intense brain exercise.
 
Armymutt25A said:
Figured I'd take a minute to give everyone an idea of the first (partial) week of school. A little background on me: I haven't been in a classroom since spring '99. I haven't thought about anything biological, other than weaponized agents since the same time. We started the week finishing off orientation. On Wed, we started "fake Monday" - Wed with a Mon schedule. Basically gives you the sucky part of the week without the reward of playing with live animals at the end. By Fri afternoon, I had dissected my way through 33 pages of little Millers, received a crash course in Immunity (which left most of the class feeling like they had gone through the spin cycle of an Immunity washing machine), re-visited genetics, relaxed and looked at histology slides, covered the basics of bacteria, and discussed how to solves clinical cases. Right now, I can say that most of the concepts are pretty easy - I think some of them will clear up a bit more once I actually can read the slides rather than watch them fly by on the screen - but the volume is massive. It truly is like drinking from the fire hose. Depending on the type of student you are, you can probably kiss most social engagements goodbye. I feel guilty sitting down to eat dinner, and consider throwing laundry into the washer a "study break". As I fell asleep last night, my first dreams were filled with watching a blade clear fascia from muscles. I cannot say this is the hardest thing I've ever done - not by a long shot - but it definitely is an intense brain exercise.
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Thanks for your perspective on it! I like the "drinking from a fire hose" as far as how much information there is, but another analogy that I've heard about the work you have to do is that it's like you're given 40 pancakes a day to eat. It's manageable, but if you don't keep up with it, you have 41, 42, 43, etc. pancakes the rest of the week which becomes even more difficult to squeeze into your stomach.

Another thing that I learned from my SO (who's an M2 now) is that a significant portion of his class suffered anxiety attacks/depressive episodes/mental breakdowns at some point in their first year. They had a big group discussion just past halfway through their first year and he was surprised at how many people battled these kinds of things and didn't say anything. In short, don't be afraid to talk to people around you or counseling services. It's likely you'll find someone who's experiencing something similar; the nature of these programs make it easy to become overwhelmed.
 
Nice inside look at the first week, even though it sounds a little hectic.

scb44f said:
Another thing that I learned from my SO (who's an M2 now) is that a significant portion of his class suffered anxiety attacks/depressive episodes/mental breakdowns at some point in their first year. They had a big group discussion just past halfway through their first year and he was surprised at how many people battled these kinds of things and didn't say anything. In short, don't be afraid to talk to people around you or counseling services. It's likely you'll find someone who's experiencing something similar; the nature of these programs make it easy to become overwhelmed.
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I know that some schools have their own counselor specifically for the vet students, for sure WSU does. Some students seem to think that the general counselors provided for the undergrads might not be able to help them, but I think either can correctly instruct students on how to control stress levels whether they deal with vet students specifically or not.

Didn't mean to steer off topic here, but I'm sure all of this in crucial within the first few weeks or months of school.
 
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Armymutt25A said:
As I fell asleep last night, my first dreams were filled with watching a blade clear fascia from muscles. I cannot say this is the hardest thing I've ever done - not by a long shot - but it definitely is an intense brain exercise.
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Haha, I definitely dreamed about anatomy dissection! The first few weeks can seem overwhelming. But I thought that second semester of first year was a lot easier. I felt like I had a better grip on how to study effectively without feeling too overwhelmed. First semester, I thought, was about learning how to adapt to vet school and keep up with a ton of material at the same time.
 
skittles12 said:
Haha, I definitely dreamed about anatomy dissection! The first few weeks can seem overwhelming. But I thought that second semester of first year was a lot easier. I felt like I had a better grip on how to study effectively without feeling too overwhelmed. First semester, I thought, was about learning how to adapt to vet school and keep up with a ton of material at the same time.
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This definitely. And one of our professors used the quote "eat your dragons one bite at a time". In short, internalize what you can, don't bite off more than you can chew(it only makes it worse), and by the end of the semester you'll find that you ate a lot more of that dragon than you thought you ever could.
 
Armymutt25A said:
I feel guilty sitting down to eat dinner, and consider throwing laundry into the washer a "study break". As I fell asleep last night, my first dreams were filled with watching a blade clear fascia from muscles. I cannot say this is the hardest thing I've ever done - not by a long shot - but it definitely is an intense brain exercise.
Click to expand...

It gets better. Soon, basic hygeine like showering becomes your study break. And the fascia dreams turn to anatomy lab nightmares 🙂
 
The anatomy dreams are the worst. Somehow one night I convinced myself that I was snuggling with a human-sized sagitally sliced dog head instead of with my girlfriend ... yes I'm crazy.

Try to be nice to yourselves the first couple weeks, don't feel bad if you don't feel like socializing after all that class time, remember to eat sleep shower ... 🙂
 
My first week of school as a first year starts in Monday. We actually have 2 weeks of orientation before the first real classes get started, so hopefully that helps me ease into the routine a bit ( been out for 5 years). I looked at the syllabuses last night for our first block after the 2 week orientation and it looks similar to yours - a lot really fast. I'm going to have to assume when I'm in the classroom that I may not get to review that material again until the exam and that might help me focus.
 
Ugh, I start class on Wednesday and the dean already said that we will feel behind by Friday. I am a little nervous, but also excited to actually start. Although I remember Gen Chem and dreaming about electrons and orbitals the whole first year of undergrad. I really don't want to repeat that!
 
Armymutt25A said:
Figured I'd take a minute to give everyone an idea of the first (partial) week of school. A little background on me: I haven't been in a classroom since spring '99. I haven't thought about anything biological, other than weaponized agents since the same time. We started the week finishing off orientation. On Wed, we started "fake Monday" - Wed with a Mon schedule. Basically gives you the sucky part of the week without the reward of playing with live animals at the end. By Fri afternoon, I had dissected my way through 33 pages of little Millers, received a crash course in Immunity (which left most of the class feeling like they had gone through the spin cycle of an Immunity washing machine), re-visited genetics, relaxed and looked at histology slides, covered the basics of bacteria, and discussed how to solves clinical cases. Right now, I can say that most of the concepts are pretty easy - I think some of them will clear up a bit more once I actually can read the slides rather than watch them fly by on the screen - but the volume is massive. It truly is like drinking from the fire hose. Depending on the type of student you are, you can probably kiss most social engagements goodbye. I feel guilty sitting down to eat dinner, and consider throwing laundry into the washer a "study break". As I fell asleep last night, my first dreams were filled with watching a blade clear fascia from muscles. I cannot say this is the hardest thing I've ever done - not by a long shot - but it definitely is an intense brain exercise.
Click to expand...

I'm at the same school as ArmyMutt and we're actually in the same anatomy lab group 🙂 I think he summed it up pretty well. Vet students and vets always told me that you wouldn't have a life in vet school. I just kind of brushed it off, but it's only taken me 3 days to realize that they were right. I still go out to the barn every night (about 10 minutes away) and brush my horses and occasionally have a quick ride, but I'm only able to do that because I study during our hour and a half lunch break.

I will recommend something that I have already found helpful (and I'm sure ArmyMutt has too). Our anatomy lab group stays after lab every day (for about an hour) and goes over the muscles that we learned that way, and right now I feel pretty confident about identifying all of the muscles we have done so far (which, by the way, is about 25 in only 2 days!). I think that's really helped solidify the muscles for me, so I would recommend that way. I know most of our class spent today in the anatomy lab, but I stayed at home studying lecture notes and memorizing origins, insertions, and innervations of muscles.

But overall, it's not bad and I still enjoy it. I think now I know that this is something I have to do, and will benefit greatly from. It just requires a buttload of work!
 
hunterjumper12 said:
but I stayed at home studying lecture notes and memorizing origins, insertions, and innervations of muscles.
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You're ahead of me on the finer details. I've got the general geography down, but not the details - i.e. sternum, but not quite 1-3rd sternabrae. I have a plan to help us out - going to laminate the "Jessica Somebody chart" so we'll have it with us in lab. Figure that the reader can also easily point out the features of a given muscle while the other two have their noses buried in the cadaver.

We also have a school shrink - she was the director for orientation. I've learned that stress is a very relative thing over the years. Right now, I'm just stressing about the volume of info we need to have learned for the first test in 10 days. The second test, over the pelvic limb and associated structures is 2 weeks after the first one.
 
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Armymutt25A said:
You're ahead of me on the finer details. I've got the general geography down, but not the details - i.e. sternum, but not quite 1-3rd sternabrae. I have a plan to help us out - going to laminate the "Jessica Somebody chart" so we'll have it with us in lab. Figure that the reader can also easily point out the features of a given muscle while the other two have their noses buried in the cadaver.
Click to expand...

Hey Armymutt, that's what we are doing, too. When we get to a new muscle, we say the attachments, then try to guess the action based off of the attachments (which seems like the more logical way to learn, at least for me, since once you know the attachments, you pretty much know the action). That "Jessica" chart is a good handy thing to have to do it quickly. I put my in a plastic sheet protector, along with some of the other charts in plastic sheet protectors, and then put them together with a binder ring.
 
The first three days of vet school has certainly given me new appreciation for my free time.
 
Pelagia said:
I put my in a plastic sheet protector, along with some of the other charts in plastic sheet protectors, and then put them together with a binder ring.
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You're way ahead of the game - it took me a month to figure out how handy these are. Much better than having gross/stained wet papers!
 
Pelagia said:
I put my in a plastic sheet protector, along with some of the other charts in plastic sheet protectors, and then put them together with a binder ring.
Click to expand...

I picked up that trick last semester in my comparative lab, quite handy! I highly recommend too! Its like wiping down a menu when you get done with it.

First week of school sounds brutal.
 
Pelagia said:
Hey Armymutt, that's what we are doing, too. When we get to a new muscle, we say the attachments, then try to guess the action based off of the attachments (which seems like the more logical way to learn, at least for me, since once you know the attachments, you pretty much know the action). That "Jessica" chart is a good handy thing to have to do it quickly. I put my in a plastic sheet protector, along with some of the other charts in plastic sheet protectors, and then put them together with a binder ring.
Click to expand...

The "Jessica" chart will get you through anatomy. Most of our class quickly quit trying to learn from the book and used the chart for everything. It's a God-send!!!
 
racccjlm said:
It gets better! The feeling of guilt will soon go away, replaced by the feeling of: "I study all the freaking time, I deserve a damned sandwich!" 😉
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For me, it turned more into a "well I worked really hard, and I know it's not the best for me but it saves time and gives me lots of satisfaction, off to Mickey D's I go" routine every day. Resulted in a Freshman 30. Ugh. Don't do that. Lost 10 of it over the summer... but the rest looks bleak, esp on a 5'0 frame.

I think I did the supersize me thing (though more like 2 meals a day) on my way to and from school everyday for like 5 months.
 
Yah the material itself is (relatively) easy, but the sheer volume of it is just ludicrous at times. Several of our physiology tests would've been two or three separate undergraduate tests.

I'm really hoping that second year is better because last semester was pretty rough.
 
Minnerbelle said:
For me, it turned more into a "well I worked really hard, and I know it's not the best for me but it saves time and gives me lots of satisfaction, off to Mickey D's I go" routine every day. Resulted in a Freshman 30. Ugh. Don't do that. Lost 10 of it over the summer... but the rest looks bleak, esp on a 5'0 frame.

I think I did the supersize me thing (though more like 2 meals a day) on my way to and from school everyday for like 5 months.
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I totally understand! I've done that same thing the last couple months this summer with being so stressed with work, the GRE and my summer classes...I've managed to switch myself to Subway but working out time is so hard to find. 🙁
 
Did this thread fill anyone else with worry/doubt/dread? I don't want to give up my life waaaahhhhhh!!! Haha
 
This thread actually makes me more excited to get in and get started! We'll see if I still feel the same way after I get in and am actually getting ready to start though.

Can't wait to hear how second week goes. And first week for those of you who haven't started yet.
 
Bacci said:
Did this thread fill anyone else with worry/doubt/dread? I don't want to give up my life waaaahhhhhh!!! Haha
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At the risk of sounding like just another jackass flexing out on the forum, I honestly envy their situation.

Undergrad is 90% tedium and Mickey Mouse nonsense, punctuated by 10% abject fear and legitimate challenge. I personally prefer the fear.

In most classes, currently, the worst case scenario is a B+. And you almost have to work at laziness to get that.

I'm looking forward to being completely destroyed by academics. There are not many better feelings in the world than winning at something that's completely beyond your current capabilities.
 
Bacci said:
Did this thread fill anyone else with worry/doubt/dread? I don't want to give up my life waaaahhhhhh!!! Haha
Click to expand...

I'm actually kinda terrified now . . . :scared:

It'll pass, though. I'm sure as soon as we're in it we'll be too busy to think about what a crazy idea this was in the first place. I've just gotta survive the two weeks between now and then. 😉
 
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Dsmoody23 said:
At the risk of sounding like just another jackass flexing out on the forum, I honestly envy their situation.

Undergrad is 90% tedium and Mickey Mouse nonsense, punctuated by 10% abject fear and legitimate challenge. I personally prefer the fear.

In most classes, currently, the worst case scenario is a B+. And you almost have to work at laziness to get that.

I'm looking forward to being completely destroyed by academics. There are not many better feelings in the world than winning at something that's completely beyond your current capabilities.
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I admire your attitude but I don't think vet med will provide this to you. I love to be challenged intellectually, but 1st year is not challenging intellectually. It is a challenge in overcoming the tedium of repetitively cramming information into your head that has little apparent bearing on the goal you are working towards.

BTW, I think 1st year is great for people who go on jeopardy (or are good at trivia nights at the bar).....learn lots of meaningless info and spew it back out!
 
StartingoverVet said:
I admire your attitude but I don't think vet med will provide this to you. I love to be challenged intellectually, but 1st year is not challenging intellectually. It is a challenge in overcoming the tedium of repetitively cramming information into your head that has little apparent bearing on the goal you are working towards.

BTW, I think 1st year is great for people who go on jeopardy (or are good at trivia nights at the bar).....learn lots of meaningless info and spew it back out!
Click to expand...

It's not even intellectual challenge, so much as just simple ...challenge.

I always get giddy at the beginning of a semester, looking at the 2 foot tall pile of books I just bought, and thinking, 'I don't know any of that, but that 80lb pile of paper is going to be mostly inside of my head in 4 months.' It's scary, but exhilarating at the same time.

It's the same thing at a job, or in athletics, I want the hardest job, the heaviest weight and the longest run. And I think many of us share the same attitude.

This doesn't seem like the career path for people who choose the clif notes or the elliptical machine.
 
Dsmoody23 said:
It's the same thing at a job, or in athletics, I want the hardest job, the heaviest weight and the longest run. And I think many of us share the same attitude.

This doesn't seem like the career path for people who choose the clif notes or the elliptical machine.
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You might be a bit disappointed. First year material for vet school is pretty much the cliff notes for science... Think of it as if you're buying 20 cliff notes and needing to memorize everything in it, instead of cheating off of 4.
 
Minnerbelle said:
You might be a bit disappointed. First year material for vet school is pretty much the cliff notes for science... Think of it as if you're buying 20 cliff notes and needing to memorize everything in it, instead of cheating off of 4.
Click to expand...


Cool. So it's easy?

I like difficult things. I think most of us do. That was the moral of the story.
 
I'm not sure I would call anatomy "cliff notes". I don't know how much more detailed you can go and still call it gross anatomy. The biggest challenge is coming up with an orderly process to get all the material in. I think I've already studied more than I did in all of undergrad, if I include the summer course. It's fun, but my changed outlook on life over the past decade + has increased the stress.
 
all i can say is after anatomy day 1 (4 hours of lecture and lab) this is how i feel 😱😱😱

the other two classes were boring syllabus classes and a brief overview of cell membranes😴
 
The Jessica chart is an NCSU internal thing. The last date I saw on it was '07. It basically is a spreadsheet of every muscle, attachment, action, blood supply, and innervation associated with the forelimb.

I actually feel the need to know everything on every test. There's a bit of a competition in my house. My wife has a pretty high GPA in pharmacy school, so there's the requirement to out perform her. Not saying that's going to happen, but I'm going to give it my best shot. Six days into this thing, I've noticed a lot of improvements to my knowledge base. Little bits of random knowledge are coming together to provide me the answer to a question. Now if I could just get my genetics knowledge to come back, that would be nice. I realized that most of my class wasn't quite in kindergarden when I took that course. Supposedly some things have changed. It would probably help is the instructor didn't take 35 minutes to state the different results that come from mating heterozygous and homozygous pairs. Took me 20 minutes to figure out what he was on about, when a simple Punnett square would have been more than sufficient. At least anatomy lab is straight forward. Today I did palpations - hopefully we use the same dogs on the exam. I could pretty much see the structures we were after. With my luck, they'll bring in a dog like mine who has the muscle tone of pizza dough.
 
Armymutt25A said:
The Jessica chart is an NCSU internal thing. The last date I saw on it was '07. It basically is a spreadsheet of every muscle, attachment, action, blood supply, and innervation associated with the forelimb.
Click to expand...

I hate to turn this into an NCSU thread but FYI, she made charts and study supplies for every single class (they should all be in the study guide files sent to you guys). Definitely make liberal use of them in BacT, virology, and immuno in addition to anatomy. Some classmates chucked the class notes and just used those to study last year. I can already tell they will save me a ton of work in parasitology this year as well. She is my freaking hero!

/hijack
 
Armymutt25A said:
How would you rate their success? Just survival, or did they thrive? I just scanned through a decade of Bact quizzes and saw a lot of repetition.
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In general...

Anatomy - chart + minor additions? THRIVED.
BacT - chart + old exams? THRIVED.
Virology - chart + a few class slides? THRIVED.

It wasn't so much, "OMG the chart is just perfection and I learn stuffs waaay bettuuuur!" It was more, "Holy crap, I don't have enuff times to get this shizzle doneskis by myself. The chart's a time savvvvvur!" Plus everything you really need to know is on there in a condensed, organized format which prevents getting bogged down with all the extra nonsense.
 
Dsmoody23 said:
There are not many better feelings in the world than winning at something that's completely beyond your current capabilities.
Click to expand...

I will agree with this statement 100%. If that is what brings you fulfillment, vet school certainly will bring you a sense of accomplishment. I always feel like even if I didn't get an A (or a B), I still accomplished something really important, that is the kind of challenge that a lot people won't ever understand or have to face in their lifetime, and something that I thought I wouldn't survive, but somehow ended up alive and well when it was all over.

StartingoverVet said:
I love to be challenged intellectually, but 1st year is not challenging intellectually. It is a challenge in overcoming the tedium of repetitively cramming information into your head that has little apparent bearing on the goal you are working towards.
Click to expand...

I think this was my issue. It is so repetitive. I was used to not having to study to ace classes, and the whole study routine of vet school really grated on me after a few months... study for 3 or 4 days, don't go to bed before 3 AM, take the test, take a deep breath, begin study for next test in 3 more days... and over and over and over again. I could never just sit and turn my brain off, or enjoy life without thinking of some looming exam or practical coming up, or how behind I was in dissection. But I got through it and I feel much more prepared this year. I feel like first year is just a rite of passage... everyone has to go through it but most of us survive and only get stronger 🙂
 
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Dsmoody23 said:
Cool. So it's easy?

I like difficult things. I think most of us do. That was the moral of the story.
Click to expand...


To be honest, if there were an easy way to become a vet, I would have done it that way.

But theres not, so I'll suffer through this.

That may make me weakminded or whatever - I just like having a life. And low blood pressure. And no anxiety...
 
Somewhat OT, but....I know Jessica!! We even share the same last name. She is amazingly wonderful and super-brilliant. 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wasn't surprised at all that she made all those charts--for almost each class, if I remember correctly.

Anyways, hijack over. 🙂 She's lovely! Glad you guys appreciate all of her hard work. 🙂
 
alliecat44 said:
Somewhat OT, but....I know Jessica!! We even share the same last name. She is amazingly wonderful and super-brilliant. 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wasn't surprised at all that she made all those charts--for almost each class, if I remember correctly.

Anyways, hijack over. 🙂 She's lovely! Glad you guys appreciate all of her hard work. 🙂
Click to expand...

That's right! Are you guys at the same internship or what? She is just amazing - I spent a week following her around neuro at Christmas and she was great.
 
Why doesn't Jessica put her sheet on-line so people in other vet schools can use it? Or is it only applicable to one vet school? Just wondering. 🙂
 
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