Week 1

First Day of School

I've officially made it through the first week and am barely into the second, even though I feel as if I've been in vet school for years.

Where do I begin? Let's start with the less than positive stuff and then I'll tell you how great it all is :)

1.  I have all of my classes in the same building.  In fact, all of my classes are on the same floor.  All of my lecture classes are in the same room and for lab I walk right across the hall to the only other room on the floor.  Not only are we confined to these two rooms - there are no windows in either of these rooms.  Not much for scenery :)

2.  We are supposed to dress "business casual" for classes, and dress up for "Professional Monday's."  This has required me (really, my mom) to invest in almost a completely new wardrobe.  The Nike shorts and Kappa tanks I used to wear to class won't really cut it here.  However, I'm finding that they really are pretty lax about the dress code.  Nice jeans or khaki's and a dress shirt are my typical apparel.  I'm starting to get used to wearing makeup everyday (but not quite).

Lab: Night 3.

3.  When they say most first years study 4 hours a night - they aren't exaggerating.  I've never felt so busy or so overwhelmed.  We have tests every Friday (starting this week) for the rest of the semester.  Our first test is over the entire skeletal system.  It didn't sound bad to me at first... scapula, femur, radius, etc.  Little did I know all of these bones have at least 20 different nooks and crannies that all have their own specific names.  Last week we spent all of our Gross Anatomy labs looking at the bones of the thoracic limb, pelvic limb, and vertebral column, and identifying on our own all of the parts.  This week we are solely studying the skull.  I can honestly say that by the test on Friday, I will have learned at least 500 new vocabulary words.  I've spent a good couple of hours each night in the lab working on memorizing all of these parts (and keeping them straight... tuber? tubercle? tuberosity?)

Before...

...After!

4.  Each freshman is assigned a "second year buddy."  After being in a sorority, I naturally think of pledge mom and daughters... This? Not so much.  My second year is a boy.  He was nice enough to give me copies of all of his old tests to study, however, he had about 10 years worth of tests in no order what-so-ever, shoved into 2 three-ring binders - not in the rings.  I've managed to at least sort them into what classes they are from (most of them) :)

Now that I'm done complaining (that wasn't complaining, was it?).  Here's all of the great stuff :)

1. I'M IN VET SCHOOL!  Sometimes when I'm sitting in class, I wonder if this is really my life.  I definitely don't feel old enough or smart enough to be in these classes.  Less than a year ago I was still working on my application.  I'm so blessed to be able to be learning about what I love and to have a career doing what I've always wanted.  (I try to remind myself Cole reminds me that when I get cranky).

2. I've met some really wonderful people.  This group of 112 students is honestly the most diverse group I've been in.  Someone in my class was a stay at home mom for 9 years and taught day care before coming back, there are people from New York City, people who've never seen a cow in real life.  As many "interesting" people as there are, there are so many amazing people I'm really looking forward to getting to know better.

My study buddy - so distracting.

3. When we study in lab at night people are allowed to bring their dogs!  Correction: they're not actually allowed, but they do because no one is going to stop them.  I mean, if you're in vet school, chances are you like dogs.  It's kind of nice to see real live dogs - considering the only dogs we'll be working on for the next two years won't exactly be fidgeting patients :)

I know there were fewer great things than not-fun things - but the greater things are SO great they make up for it... AND I only have so many hours to "relax" in a day.. (like 1).

Happy Monday :)

Information OVERLOAD

I've successfully made it halfway through week one.  Let's just say you probably won't hear from me again until Christmas Break (just kidding.. but maybe).  I've spent almost every day in class 8-5 and then give myself an hour of relaxing/dinner before I start studying again.  So far - I haven't been getting nearly enough studying, and maybe too much sleep (even though it never feels like enough).  So tonight my plan is to be studying a good 4 hours in lab.  I'll try to update more on everything this weekend.

Sneak preview: I will have every nook and cranny of the skeleton memorized for next Friday. 

Happy Wednesday :)

Orientation Day One

Happy Wednesday!

Today was my first day of orientation for vet school!  I am already beginning to wonder if I'll have time to keep up my blog (let alone sleep, eat, and exist outside of Trotter Hall), but I promise to do my best!

Here's a quick update of the day:

We began with an introductory session where we each had to introduce ourselves and give a unique fact about ourselves.  In the past my fun fact has always been that I want to be a vet - that didn't seem to be a very unique fact today.  I stuck with the fact that I was once in show choir :)

We also learned some statistics of our class:

My "study carrel" - aka my personal desk in the building

-112 students in my class out of over 1300 applicants
-24 men and 88 women
-the youngest person is 20 and the oldest is 38
-47 students from Kansas

To end the introductory session we all took the Veterinarian's Oath, which we are to memorize for graduation. 

We then split from our parents (who they referred to all day as our "support team") and got our class schedules, which I had already seen online.  We also got a run down of all of the procedures for missing class, how to find our mailboxes, where to park, etc.  Basically all of the basics.

After a quick break for lunch we came back and got our new tablet laptops.  It's an adjustment from my Mac, but am loving getting to use the stylus to write on the screen.  All of our notes are preloaded onto the computer, using a program called OneNote.  It's a little confusing, but I assume with all of the notes I'll be taking, I'll catch on pretty quickly.  We then finished the afternoon having computer orientation and library orientation.  During the library orientation we took our pictures and got our ID cards.  We will have 24/7 electronic access to the building using our ID cards to let us in the buildings.  I am proud to say that I actually took a decent picture :)

Day 1 ended with a BBQ for students and their families.  That's all for today!  Tons and TONS of information - completely exhausting and overwhelming me, but also making me really excited for school to start.  The next two days are also full of orientation activities, including getting my first rabies vaccination.  I'll try to update again soon :)