My most embarrassing pre-med moment- What was yours?

[clc8503]

I would consider myself to be fairly competent in the lab. However, one time in my Clinical Chemistry lab I was about 5 minutes late for class. When I approached the classroom door, I saw many of the students walking out of the classroom with small cups (the same kind that urine samples are collected in). I automatically assumed that we were going to be doing a urinalysis on our own urine, because you would run such a test in Clinical Chemistry. I assumed this because all the students in my class were going to the restroom with these cups. I immediately searched for my specimen container to get started. By the time I found the specimen containers almost all the students were back in the laboratory. By the time I finally made it to the bathroom, everyone’s specimen had been collected. Realizing I was running a little behind everyone else as a result of being late, I had made a quick dash to the restroom thanking God I didn’t use the bathroom before class. Keep in mind we never really know what experiment we are going to do in this laboratory ahead of time. The instructor gives us a handout at the beginning of the class and then goes over it. As I was saying, I went to the restroom, urinated in the cup and made a quick dash back to the lab. When I returned, I noticed that a good friend of mine, which set right next to me, had a urine sample that was much clearer than mine, as well as filled to the rim. As I looked around the room, I noticed that everyone’s urine fit the same description as my friends. Realizing something was up, I asked my friend where he obtained his sample. He then looked at my cup and gasped. This set off a chain reaction of laughter as the rest of the glass realized what I had done. Mouths literally dropped as my friend said to me, WE ARE TESTING TO SEE HOW MUCH LEAD IS IN THE SCHOOLS WATER!!! I felt so stupid. Let that be a lesson to you, always try to be on time for your classes, especially the labs!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[titoincali]

I would consider myself to be fairly competent in the lab. However, one time in my Clinical Chemistry lab I was about 5 minutes late for class. When I approached the classroom door, I saw many of the students walking out of the classroom with small cups (the same kind that urine samples are collected in). I automatically assumed that we were going to be doing a urinalysis on our own urine, because you would run such a test in Clinical Chemistry. I assumed this because all the students in my class were going to the restroom with these cups. I immediately searched for my specimen container to get started. By the time I found the specimen containers almost all the students were back in the laboratory. By the time I finally made it to the bathroom, everyone’s specimen had been collected. Realizing I was running a little behind everyone else as a result of being late, I made a quick dash to the restroom thanking God I didn’t use the bathroom before class. Keep in mind we never really know what experiment we are going to do in this laboratory ahead of time. The instructor gives us a handout at the beginning of the class and then goes over it. As I was saying, I went to the restroom, urinated in the cup and made a quick dash back to the lab. When I returned, I noticed that a good friend of mine, which set right next to me, had a urine sample that was much clearer than mine, as well as filled to the rim. As I looked around the room, I noticed that everyone’s urine fit the same description as my friends. Realizing something was up, I asked my friend where he obtained his sample. He then looked at my cup and gasped. This set off a chain reaction of laughter as the rest of the glass realized that what I had done. Mouths literally dropped as my friend said to me, WE ARE TESTING TO SEE HOW MUCH LEAD IS IN THE SCHOOLS WATER!!! I felt so stupid. Let that be a lesson to you, always try to be on time for your classes, especially the labs!

Thanks for the good laugh!!

 

[PariPari]

i just spit out my coffee on my screen. Nice one.

One time we had monday off & so you know classes start on tuesday, would be tuesday classes, I went to monday classes. I sat in a class (same prof) & I was too embarassed to leave in the begining, so I waited for them to get a break & then left Friday night I went to this party & this guy from the class I accidentally went to was like OMG! The professor made fun of you after you left & we've been laughing about it all week. He sure did, b/c I went to office hours for help & he basically had to laugh at me for 1/2hr & tell the other students there the story, funny yeah but get over it already.

 

[clc8503]

i just spit out my coffee on my screen. Nice one.

One time we had monday off & so you know classes start on tuesday, would be tuesday classes, I went to monday classes. I sat in a class (same prof) & I was too embarassed to leave in the begining, so I waited for them to get a break & then left Friday night I went to this party & this guy from the class I accidentally went to was like OMG! The professor made fun of you after you left & we've been laughing about it all week. He sure did, b/c I went to office hours for help & he basically had to laugh at me for 1/2hr & tell the other students there the story, funny yeah but get over it already.

That's pretty good! I've talked to people who have had similar experiences. It never gets old. I wish other people would post. We need more threads that are pre-med related, yet still give us a chance to cut lose and forget about the grades for about 5 minutes.

 

[dajimmers]

This wasn't me, and she wasn't premed, but I'm premed, so that counts? On the day of our final exam for a course that's met three times a week all semester in the same room, and is having the final in that same room, I saw this girl in my class walking down the hall. The room for the class is at the end of the hall, the only room there. She steps into a class two doors from the correct one, then comes running out embarrassedly a few seconds later. What the?

In orgo lab my freshman year (yay for AP! I have no chem lab experience! Lets do orgo!), I had to dissolve some unknown powder in some ether or acid or some such thing. Don't ask, I can't remember water from ethanol anymore . For some dumb reason, I did this in my weighing boat, rather than in my reaction vessel. Whatever the solvent was, it dissolved plastic as well as my powder. As this was the unknown lab, I had no other powder to get, so I had to proceed with my globby mess. Didn't do to well on that lab...

 

[kirexhana]

hm... embarassing? i probably had a lot, but they're all repressed. as soon as i come up with one tho, i will let you know.

 

[coralfangs]

they dont have tap water in the lab?

 

[MEG@COOL]

they dont have tap water in the lab?

one time i whipped it out in the lab and peed on this fat chick

 

[Oculus Sinistra]

I sorta burned myself doing gram staining. Let me explain.

It was during a practical. We had about 60 seconds to go through all the steps for gram staining, which included heat-fixing the sample to the slide.

Normally you use a clothespin for moving the slide on/off the hot plate.

Well, the clothespin we were supposed to use was far from the equipment (the last person had just tossed it and the TA was too bored to care), completely stained with methyl green dye, laying on a black table, and I just didn't see it.

Thinking the slide had only been on the hot plate for about 15 seconds, I thought it wouldn't be that hot anyway, and I went to pull it off.

Szzz.

I managed to finish all the steps and got full credit for the staining part of the practical, but ...hell.

 

[clc8503]

they dont have tap water in the lab?

We have a deonized water system, which would differ from the schools water supply when it came to such test results. However, the lab is devided between a classroom and a laboratory. It's a huge room. The classroom, that the professor lectures in, is on one end, and the lab is on the other end. We're not allowed to go into the lab untill the professor is present. We are suppose to remain in our seats and prepare for the lecture portion of the lab.The thing is that if you have taken the class before, and have a made a "B" or better, you can assist the professor in the class the following year if you need to take a filler class. The student that was assisting told everyone to just go to the bathroom and get the water samples. This is an upper level advanced lab so they take extra precausions. I should have cleared that up, but the story was so long I left out the small details.

 

[Sunflower189]

Last spring, in Orgo 1.

Well, the semester was wrapping up, and I was tearing out my hair a bit with so many things happening at once. I had an orgo test coming up and I hadn't been to class in, uh, weeks. So the night before the exam, I decide it's time for some serious cram.

I watch the sun rise from my desk, and before you know it, it's time for my nice early orgo test. Yay. I haul butt across campus to the converted gym where we take exams, with my last packet of unread notes open on the handlebars, and get there a couple minutes late. I'm puffing up the stairs when...hey wait, that guy's in my class. And he's going the other way. Another girl I know goes by. Then a TA with a box of exams. This is not good.

I double-check and triple-check my watch as I run up to the third floor exam room. WTF? Daylight savings time? Did they move the class without me noticing? Is it after drop date? Argh! The exam room is conspicuously empty.

I've only got one chance left - maybe they decided to hold the exam in the normal classroom instead. So I sprint to the other side of campus. By this point, I'm fifteen minutes late, sweaty, and panicked.

I run into the auditorium, and sure enough, there's the professor and the 300 other competent students. I jog out past the prof, out to the podium to hunt through her papers, but don't see anything that looks like a pile of spare tests. Where's the TAs? There's one at the top of the stairs. I head up there, but she doesn't have any tests either.

By this point, it has struck my poor woozy brain that something is amiss. The students all have notes out. Come to mention it, a fair portion of the answers are written up on the board. This looks a lot like...

A lecture. Oh, crap.

I sit down in the back and try to disappear. But I'm dying to know - WHERE'S MY #$% TEST?? Ten minutes later, curiosity overwhelms me, and I make another slink of shame out the door to check the syllabus.

Turns out I was a class early.

 

[Chris127]

Last spring, in Orgo 1.

Well, the semester was wrapping up, and I was tearing out my hair a bit with so many things happening at once. I had an orgo test coming up and I hadn't been to class in, uh, weeks. So the night before the exam, I decide it's time for some serious cram.

I watch the sun rise from my desk, and before you know it, it's time for my nice early orgo test. Yay. I haul butt across campus to the converted gym where we take exams, with my last packet of unread notes open on the handlebars, and get there a couple minutes late. I'm puffing up the stairs when...hey wait, that guy's in my class. And he's going the other way. Another girl I know goes by. Then a TA with a box of exams. This is not good.

I double-check and triple-check my watch as I run up to the third floor exam room. WTF? Daylight savings time? Did they move the class without me noticing? Is it after drop date? Argh! The exam room is conspicuously empty.

I've only got one chance left - maybe they decided to hold the exam in the normal classroom instead. So I sprint to the other side of campus. By this point, I'm fifteen minutes late, sweaty, and panicked.

I run into the auditorium, and sure enough, there's the professor and the 300 other competent students. I jog out past the prof, out to the podium to hunt through her papers, but don't see anything that looks like a pile of spare tests. Where's the TAs? There's one at the top of the stairs. I head up there, but she doesn't have any tests either.

By this point, it has struck my poor woozy brain that something is amiss. The students all have notes out. Come to mention it, a fair portion of the answers are written up on the board. This looks a lot like...

A lecture. Oh, crap.

I sit down in the back and try to disappear. But I'm dying to know - WHERE'S MY #$% TEST?? Ten minutes later, curiosity overwhelms me, and I make another slink of shame out the door to check the syllabus.

Turns out I was a class early.

lol, this sounds like me.

Only been in college for a year now, but this was very embarrassing for me. You see, I have an extreme difficulty in waking up in the morning. And after missing an exam last semester (which fortunately my prof allowed me to make up), I set 3 alarms in the morning. I set two alarm clocks, and then my cell phone. Now, for some obscure reason, my cell phone alarm is louder than my actual cell phone ring (no clue why, and yes, you know whats coming). So I wake up to go to my math class, find a seat, and sit down in the middle of the lecture room. Now, my prof has to be in his 60s, and his a pretty serious guy and tells us our cell phones better be on silent or off. I have gotten in the habit of making sure my cell phone is on silent before I enter the lecture room, and sure enough, this morning was no different. So class begins. About 20 minutes into class, it is dead silent, as the prof is looking over something before he continues. All of a sudden, my phone goes off, sporting the "digital signal" ringtone, and distrubing the entire lecture. All eyes were on me, and my prof stopped what he was doing and looked at me. It seriously took me about 10 solid seconds to dig my phone out of my bag and turn it off. In a class of about 100, it was pretty embarrassing.

The thing was this was a monday class, and the night before I had forgot to set my alarm, as my cell phone alarm was still set for when I was going to wake up on Sunday, and I never disabled it.

 

[OctoDoc]

We have a deonized water system, which would differ from the schools water supply when it came to such test results. However, the lab is devided between a classroom and a laboratory. It's a huge room. The classroom, that the professor lectures in, is on one end, and the lab is on the other end. We're not allowed to go into the lab untill the professor is present. We are suppose to remain in our seats and prepare for the lecture portion of the lab.The thing is that if you have taken the class before, and have a made a "B" or better, you can assist the professor in the class the following year if you need to take a filler class. The student that was assisting told everyone to just go to the bathroom and get the water samples. This is an upper level advanced lab so they take extra precausions. I should have cleared that up, but the story was so long I left out the small details.

That's a bit odd. All of the labs I've ever seen had special taps for DI water. Your lab didn't have regular taps also at each sink? Maybe your professor's assistant didn't see the regular taps.

 

[Lilah]

Last year I was doing an extraction in organic lab. I don’t remember all the specifics but I had a solution in a centrifuge tube and added HCl (I think) this step was supposed to generate a little gas so we were to shake gently then “burp” it to allow the gas to escape.

Sounds easy enough, but as soon as I shook the tube (I mean just one shaking motion) the cap blew off and I got the solution all over my face. I was totally humiliated but luckily I think no one noticed. I just ran to the bathroom and washed the junk off my face.

So after 2 years of taking labs, I finally found out why they made us wear those ridiculous, uncomfortable goggles.

 

[mychelle774]

Last spring, in Orgo 1.

Well, the semester was wrapping up, and I was tearing out my hair a bit with so many things happening at once. I had an orgo test coming up and I hadn't been to class in, uh, weeks. So the night before the exam, I decide it's time for some serious cram.

I watch the sun rise from my desk, and before you know it, it's time for my nice early orgo test. Yay. I haul butt across campus to the converted gym where we take exams, with my last packet of unread notes open on the handlebars, and get there a couple minutes late. I'm puffing up the stairs when...hey wait, that guy's in my class. And he's going the other way. Another girl I know goes by. Then a TA with a box of exams. This is not good.

I double-check and triple-check my watch as I run up to the third floor exam room. WTF? Daylight savings time? Did they move the class without me noticing? Is it after drop date? Argh! The exam room is conspicuously empty.

I've only got one chance left - maybe they decided to hold the exam in the normal classroom instead. So I sprint to the other side of campus. By this point, I'm fifteen minutes late, sweaty, and panicked.

I run into the auditorium, and sure enough, there's the professor and the 300 other competent students. I jog out past the prof, out to the podium to hunt through her papers, but don't see anything that looks like a pile of spare tests. Where's the TAs? There's one at the top of the stairs. I head up there, but she doesn't have any tests either.

By this point, it has struck my poor woozy brain that something is amiss. The students all have notes out. Come to mention it, a fair portion of the answers are written up on the board. This looks a lot like...

A lecture. Oh, crap.

I sit down in the back and try to disappear. But I'm dying to know - WHERE'S MY #$% TEST?? Ten minutes later, curiosity overwhelms me, and I make another slink of shame out the door to check the syllabus.

Turns out I was a class early.

Oooh, ooh! I didn't think I had a good embarrassing story but I do! Too bad it's gonna echo yours like crazy.

So it's time for finals at the end of the spring semester of my freshman year. Calc 2 final, blah, haven't been to class in ages, good thing I took this in high school. Like a nerdy premed freshman, I had written down the final exam time assigned for the class from the university's class schedule way back on the first day of class. Wednesday at 11am, cool. Studied, came to the regular classroom just on time. Empty, hmm. Check planner, yep Wed at 11, WTF? Ask random teachers walking through the hall, "hey do you know where my final's supposed to be?". Shrugs and disapproving looks, drat I knew that wouldn't work. Start to panic, it's been ten minutes of waiting around hoping people will show up. Think think think, if I were a Calc2 final, where would I be? Heck if I know, wait for it ... Aha! Maybe, although highly unlikely since remember doing this on the first day of class, I wrote down the wrong time. Crap that means I could have already missed it ! What am I going to do, by the time I find it, I'll have barely any time to take the test, there's no makeups, I can't believe I'm such a screw-up, WHY ME!! Ok calm down, must find class schedule book and make sure. To the library! Bust some tail, and gasp to the librarian that I need a class schedule. Made mistake of trying to explain my whole story and wasted valuable time. She looks confused, takes a really long time to process what I said. Me: You know it's the book that has all the yaddayadda ... Still no comprehension on her part, but she does try to help by nudging the books around her, none of which are what I need and I knew that. Grrr. Find a better librarian. Ask again. She takes an agonizingly long time to scrounge one up. It's now 11:30ish (!). Heart still racing, I tear through the book for the right page. Scan down, there it is Wed at 11, what the heck?!? Check again, no the numbers did not magically change. Look pleadingly at the slightly more helpful librarian. She has no idea, but "did you get the day right?" Of course I did, right here "Wednesday-(some date that is not today)". Ack, that's NEXT Wed!! Eeejit!! Close book, slide it back to librarian, "heh, thanks, it's ... not today". Exit library and head back to dorm. One week later I take the test after having to study the material AGAIN .

Ah to be a freshman.

 

[happydays]

This wasn't me, and she wasn't premed, but I'm premed, so that counts? On the day of our final exam for a course that's met three times a week all semester in the same room, and is having the final in that same room, I saw this girl in my class walking down the hall. The room for the class is at the end of the hall, the only room there. She steps into a class two doors from the correct one, then comes running out embarrassedly a few seconds later. What the?

In orgo lab my freshman year (yay for AP! I have no chem lab experience! Lets do orgo!), I had to dissolve some unknown powder in some ether or acid or some such thing. Don't ask, I can't remember water from ethanol anymore . For some dumb reason, I did this in my weighing boat, rather than in my reaction vessel. Whatever the solvent was, it dissolved plastic as well as my powder. As this was the unknown lab, I had no other powder to get, so I had to proceed with my globby mess. Didn't do to well on that lab...

I was in the same class as one of dajimmer's friends (the same person we met outside of Ashley's).

As I was talking to the TA, I heard someone scream, "Hair hair hair! Watch your hair!!!!" Next thing I know I smelled burning hair. Quickly I looked around to see what the commotion was, and it turned out to be my hair! The graduate student instructor forgot to turn off the torch, and it burned my hair as I was leaning forward to talk to him. Thank goodness it was just a small strand that was burned off.

 

[punkindrublic]

Not embarrassing for myself, but a classmate:

Our physics prof was demonstrating how a ring, when placed around a pole with a large current running through it, will get extremely hot due to induced current in the ring. So he demonstrates it in front of the class by holding the ring in place for about 20 seconds or so. Then asks for a volunteer; saying he will give anyone who can hold it there for over 10 seconds $20. So a girl goes down and holds it there for about that time. As it goes along, he gets this weird concerned look on his face and at about ten seconds says "ok, I smell burning, let go now". So she takes her hand off and is obviously in an extreme amount of pain, as she's been burned pretty badly, and she leaves to run cold water over it, I presume. When she leaves the room, he's standing there with this kind of stunned look, and tells the class that no one has ever held it that long.

Then he let us in on his secret: turns out he switched "rings". The one he held there for a while had a break in it, so it never had a current in the first place.

 

[baylormed]

This isn't related to class, but I am pre-med, so here it is.

My first semester at college, I wanted to go to the bathroom before English class. So, this building the class took place in only has one bathroom per floor, 1st floor is female, 2nd. floor is for males, 3rd floor for females, and they alternate like that until the last floor. Well, I didn't know this, and I just assumed that like any normal building, this building would have two kinds of bathrooms in each floor, one on the left, one on the right (all of them were on the far right wing). You probably already guessed it, but since my class was on the second floor, I kind of.......walked into the guys restroom. But the thing is, I didn't notice until two guys came in (urinals and so forth had stall doors, just like a girl's bathroom). My first reaction was to tell them that they were in the wrong place, but then I realized I was the one in the wrong place! So I ran out of there, where two whole classes were waiting to go into their respective classrooms. Needless to say, I just avoided eye contact and tried to walk with as much dignity as I could muster.


On another day, I was riding my bike and must have applied the breaks too late, because I bumped into the sidewalk. And you guessed it, newton's second law screwed me up. My bike jumped backwards, throwing me out. I landed on my back, but since I had my backpack on it didn't hurt as much.
I don't know if anybody saw me, I was too embarrassed to look.

 

[phoebaly]

Not embarassing for me, but funny.
I was TAing an orgo lab and we had been using hot plates with sand baths. The procedure required the solution to be refluxed and then cooled. Toward the end of the reflux I hear a hissing noise and see what I think is smoke coming from one of the lab benches. I race over there to find one of the students with a wet sponge squeezing water onto the hot plate. When I asked him what he was doing he informed me that he was trying to cool down the hot plate so that his reaction mixture would cool down. How this kid got past gen chem lab I will never know.

 

[cdngirl80]

During one of my first orgo labs I was talking to my lab partner at our bench while we were trying to figure out the next step in our experiment. All of a sudden I started feeling a burning pain on my arm. I started to rub my arm hoping to lessen the pain somehow when I noticed that when I was rubbing my arm sometimes I would feel cloth and other times I would feel my skin. I looked at my arm and realized that I had managed to burn 3 huge holes in the sleeve of my favorite shirt. Turns out that while I was standing talking to my partner someone had spilt sulfuric acid on the bench top and I'd been resting my arm on it. Needless to say I quickly learned after that to wear a labcoat whenever I was in the lab.

 

[nvshelat]

My first shadowing experience was in the emergency department. I've since learned that emergency docs are picky and don't like their work space to be called a "room" - no, it's a department. Or, ED, for short.

Doc: Meet me at 9 am in the lobby of the ED.
Me: Sorry, where?
Doc: The lobby of the ED
Me: (prior to engaging in that crucial activity known as thinking) Sorry, doesn't ED stand for erectile dysfunction?
Doc: Yes. It also stands for emergency department.

 

[clc8503]

lol, this sounds like me.

Only been in college for a year now, but this was very embarrassing for me. You see, I have an extreme difficulty in waking up in the morning. And after missing an exam last semester (which fortunately my prof allowed me to make up), I set 3 alarms in the morning. I set two alarm clocks, and then my cell phone. Now, for some obscure reason, my cell phone alarm is louder than my actual cell phone ring (no clue why, and yes, you know whats coming). So I wake up to go to my math class, find a seat, and sit down in the middle of the lecture room. Now, my prof has to be in his 60s, and his a pretty serious guy and tells us our cell phones better be on silent or off. I have gotten in the habit of making sure my cell phone is on silent before I enter the lecture room, and sure enough, this morning was no different. So class begins. About 20 minutes into class, it is dead silent, as the prof is looking over something before he continues. All of a sudden, my phone goes off, sporting the "digital signal" ringtone, and distrubing the entire lecture. All eyes were on me, and my prof stopped what he was doing and looked at me. It seriously took me about 10 solid seconds to dig my phone out of my bag and turn it off. In a class of about 100, it was pretty embarrassing.

The thing was this was a monday class, and the night before I had forgot to set my alarm, as my cell phone alarm was still set for when I was going to wake up on Sunday, and I never disabled it.

Thats funny! It's ironic but I also set two alarm clocks as well and a third if you include my cell phone. I do this because I too missed an exam that I was fortunately able to make-up. Craziness!