I survived the move! The drive from Iowa to West Virginia was by far the longest drive I have ever made on my own. My younger brother was kind enough to ride with me and keep me awake. If I had been alone I probably would have stopped to sleep somewhere.
There's not much to say about the first month of school. It will likely be the easiest month out of the next 24 so enjoy that while it lasts. I had only been out of school for 7 months so it wasn't difficult to switch back to "school brain." Brace yourselves though because there is no such thing as syllabus week in this program. The first day of class was January 8th and about two weeks later on January 23rd we had our first exam followed by another exam on the 26th and two exams on the 29th.
My absolute least favorite part of any semester is the first round of exams. I am a decent test taker but until I know how the questions will be asked and what kind of information is prioritized I find it very difficult to study effectively. The hardest exam out of the batch for me was Anatomical Pathology Techniques (AT) because it had both multiple choice AND free response questions. I can make an educated guess on multiple choice but that's a lot harder to do when you have to make an answer out of thin air for free response. I pulled through with a B on the AT exam which I can't complain about. The grading scale for the PALM courses is:
A: 93-100%
B: 85-92%
C: 75-84%
F: Below 75%
In my opinion if you score above a 90% you'll know in your heart that you had an A even though your official grade will be a B. The classes outside of the department like anatomy have a traditional ten point grading scale which should lift your spirits and your GPA.
I'm still working on the best way to study. I was one of those people in high school and college who didn't really have to study that much in order to do well. That was great at the time but I don't think that method will work here so now at the age of 22 I have to finally learn how to study. If I ever figure it out I'll let ya'll know.
Below: You, if you don't hit the ground running in this program
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