Somebody just peed in the gene pool!


Hello! So glad to be at this site. Excuse me humor, I think I have burnt out to many brain cells this week. I am 29, married, no kids yet, an ICU RN, and finally a pre-med student. biggrin.gif I am so excited but I also feel like every nerve in my body is being twanged like a guitar. blink.gif I have been out of school for 5 years and have never worked and gone to school at the same time so a this is new to me. I am going to the Univeristy of Minnesota(anyone else there?) and plan on studying biochemistry. So what do I do when I first go back to school? Well, I wiggle my way into O-Chem AND biochem at the same time! I love both subjects and that is the only two I am taking(except for 3 distance education courses which I have 9 months to complete, so I can put them on the back burner for a bit). Ok, I am bending over , now you can all take a crack at kicking me in the arse. I’m really excited about the classes but I sign up two weeks late for school and so am behind that much. Not to mention that biochem requires o-chem pre-req, but the instructor let me in and I have confidence(occasionally) that I can do it. I cannot drop the classes now due to money and fin.aid so I am jsut going to try and buckle down and do my best. I’mnot expecting A’s and I willbe taking more biochem classes, i just wanted to get my feet wet with biochem and see if it is the path for me to study. I am a 2-year RN so I need a bachelors, which is totally fine with me. love going to the U. tongue.gif ButI am having trouble buckling down and getting in the habit of studying, partially cuz i am not used to it and partially caused I am scared crapless(no enemas needed here!). Has anyone been in my situatuon when they first started back? Any suggestions? I have put everything on my Palm Tungsten to keep myself organized, any recommendations for freeware for school would be great too. Well, I have babbled long enough, hoping to meet some good friends here too! Time to go clean up the pool, uh-oh that is not a piece of wood floating is it? this will take a while. blink.gif

Hi there,
Welcome to OPM. I spent a little time in Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic. Flew in and out of the Minneapolis-St.Paul International more than I liked but it was all good. Learned to love that cold weather!Seriously, things will settle down and you will fall into the routine of studying. Try to use this time to set some good solid study habits. Since you are working and going to school, you have more than enough to occupy your time. You might also get an MCAT review book like Flowers and Silver (if it is still around) and do a little MCAT prep in your spare time i.e. while you are waiting for that patient to come up from the ER.
Biochemistry is a good start and has a little relevance to medical school. O-Chem has no relavance to medical school (I was a non-carbon friendly chemistry major) but a right of passage for the pre-med types. Try to become as efficient a studier as you can manage. This is a good time to practice and toss out anything that is not working for you!
Feel free to let us know how you progress. Our convention will be in Denver, CO in June 2004 (not really that far away) so start planning on attending. You can pick up lots of energy and good info there. When you feel like emoting, drop by too. We all understand and some of us have been there. rolleyes.gif
Again, welcome!
Natalie cool.gif

Don’t worry about getting in the groove, necessity will slam your butt right down in there!!!
I just gave my blurb about Ochem on another thread, but I really really liked Biochemistry! It’s relevant to what you do everyday.
Taking more than one “hard science” at a time is a good plan to prove to med schools you can do the work. Juggling work and hard science is also proof.
However, you must make the grade too.
wmkayak

Hello and welcome from the Land of Scorched Earth!
At least with those arctic winters, you’ll have plenty of time to buckle down and study! wink.gif Seriously, you’ve got two tough classes to succeed in, so study, study, study - no time for leaps into the gene pool!! Welcome again. I think you’ll enjoy the gene pool here!
Kathy

Hello. Welcome to OPM! Your post was funny. laugh.gif Keep us posted as things progress.
Love,
Stacy
P.S. I have my first math test (PreCalc–my lone class while working FT) in 2 days. Wish me luck!

Hello and Welcome!!!

Howdy, howdy! biggrin.gif

Phew! Cleaning out the pool was hard work, need to go put on a clean pair of genes. blink.gif Thanks for all the responses! I really appreciate them and nice to meet all you. I’m grateful and lucky because my husband is very supportive of my going to med school and he plans on being a stay at home dad when we have a baby…hopefully nobody peed in my gene pool. I was able to drop my biochem class and pick up a biology that i need. I am muchmore relaxed because I didn’t get a lot of the biochem sinc eI have not had the pre-req chems. It looked very exciting though and i look forward to the class when I do take it. laugh.gif Again, thanks for the support and glad to have met all of you! Take care, Mehgan
"Go on a Journey from self to Self, my friend…
Such a journey transforms the earth in to a mine of gold"-Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, Islamic (Sufi) poet
"Taibai once asked Baso, "What is Buddha?"
Baso answered, “Mind is Buddha.” -Teachings of the Buddha

Welcome, glad you found this site.
Michelle

Hey, welcome!!!
Probably a good thing to not take biochem before getting thru o-chem–although I did, but I got C,C and A (that last due to a different, and sympathetic, instructor smile.gif in biochem. I really didn’t understand o-chem the first time through. I have no idea what I was thinking. I re-took o-chem (lecture) about 9 years ago and it made a great deal more sense to me. O-chem is about ==> Electrons (not simply carbon-based chemistry, as it is advertised). My 2nd tour through o-chem my instructor recommended a very good book called “pushing electrons”. If you can learn what is happening on the electronic level, it will save you a lot of rote memorization–you will be able to figure out reaction mechanisms. Then, when someone asks you what reagent would be used in a specific reaction (as was true in the last MCAT administration–look at the comments on the discussion board at http://www.examkrackers.com ) – you can figure it out electronically, not just by rote memorization.
I like chem quite a bit–and I realize now that I like a lot of what I learned in o-chem more than I did in gen chem. I also liked o-chem because it was very challenging–it’s good to have a study group! It did, however, take a LOT of time—lots of study–but very doable.
Good luck!!!
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