Hi, all. Just checking in now that I’m a few weeks into my fall semester. First exam has come and gone so that is always a nice hump to get over. It was in BIOII and I finished in maybe 10 minutes. Everyone was looking at me like I was nuts, but I just knew the material and didn’t need to dink around on this exam. Grades came back and sure enough I got 100% so I was and am pretty stoked on that.
Cell Bio/Genetics lab is a real bear. I feel like I’m doing some pretty high level lab work and it’s gratifying in ways because I’m learning alot but it is difficult at times and certainly time consuming, but I’m holding my own thus far.
Organic started nicely. I wasn’t overwhelmed, confused, or freaking out. However, we are coming up on exam I next week on chapters 1-5 and now I’m starting to be a bit worried. Naming compounds doesn’t bother me but some of the conformations get my head twisted around a little. Even some of the more “complicated” Newman Projections are just not completely intuitive to me even though the simple ones are completely straightforward no-brainers to me. So, it’s odd. We haven’t even had any lecture material on chapter 5 yet. That will be “covered” in Friday and Monday’s lecture and then the exam is Wednesday morning. So, I’m basically living and breathing Ochem until Tuesday night. Though, Monday and Tuesday are long school days so I will be too busy in class and lab to actually study for Ochem so we’ll see. It will just be a relief to have that first ochem exam out of the way. One never knows what to expect until that first exam is done. All our homework is online through the textbook’s website so I will just keep working the problems there and going back over the old ones for review. I may hit Khan Academy, too, but he has just a lot of naming videos(ALOT! I don’t need much help with that) and every other video there is beyond where we’re at in class right now so not sure it’s worth checking out at this point. Maybe Freelance teacher’s sites… we’ll see.
Other than that I have Cell Bio lecture which is going really slow but is interesting nonetheless.
Hope everyone else’s fall semester is shaking out nicely and for those of you on the edge of interviewing, GOOD LUCK! I’m attending a mock interview night tonight at the local medical school so I’m really excited just to get my foot in those doors. I can feel butterflies in my belly already!
Cheers!
Shannon,
We are literally on the same schedule in Ochem. We just finished the lecture last week discussing the confirmations and Newman Projections. I feel your pain! We start Ch. 5 on Monday and then a test covering Chs. 1-5 in two weeks.
The semester is speeding by isn’t it? I’m starting to investigate which MCAT prep course I will take: The Princeton Review or The Berkeley Review.
Ahhhhh…June 1st is the date for submission; exciting and scary at the same time. Good luck with everything!
TJJ-two more weeks until your first exam?! That is very nice! Best of luck! The semester does feel like it’s starting to speed up. Our 1st Orgo exam is tomorrow. Chapters 1-5. We just finished up chirality. As it figures we spent way too much time reviewing gen chem and now that things are getting meaty it has sped up and getting a little crazy. Thank god for Khan and Freelance Teacher! We’ll see how the 1st exam goes, though. No one in the class (all 175 of us give or take) seems prepared, of course. I hate the first exam. One never knows what to expect until it’s over.
I have 3 exams coming next week, too, so there will be little sighing of relief over here when the orgo exam is done tomorrow because I’ll just have to dive right into studying for the other classes. We’re doing botany in GenBioII right now and I don’t love botany and I’m not super familiar with it so I’m not thrilled with it right now. Cell Bio lecture is good. Lots of stuff I remember from other courses so far so that helps but it does go more in depth (which I love) so I have been digging in a bit more. Cell Bio/Genetics lab is pretty intense, but it’s going well so far. I am not really looking forward to my first lab report for that class, though. Another time eater! Lab reports are such a bear…
My onsite Kaplan course that I was going to take one day a week from Oct-April has been canceled so I had to find an alternative. Turns out the online (but “live”) course works best with my schedule so I will be starting that in November and it goes through March or April. I plan on a May MCAT so it’s full speed ahead now.
I cannot believe it’s really all getting close. Time goes so fast. In just over 6 months and I’ll be sweating over taking the MCAT and applying. It’s crazy close! Yikes!
Better get back to some last minute orgo review but gosh if I’m not ready for tomorrow morning’s exam now then I’m in trouble! Cross your fingers for me!