I had my first test in anatomy today. There were actually two tests- a lab practical at 10am and a lecture test at 1pm. I felt really good about the lab practical and fairly good about the lecture test, so hopefully I did alright (i.e, got an A). I studied a lot for those tests and I'm relieved to not have to study tonight!
As much as I study for these tests, it seems that there are at least a dozen people who know the material better than I do. When I looked at the grades for the first quiz we took, I was pretty excited that I got an A (although a low one- 91%), but then I looked at the statistics for the class and 33 out of 55 students got an A. The average for the class was right around 90%. I immediately felt worse about my grade. This made me realize something- I place great value on being "better than average"- that is, comparing myself to others and coming out on top. I'm used to taking a test and getting a grade well above the class average. But PT school is different. Everyone's smart! Everyone's driven. Mostly everyone is a Type A personality (which can get very annoying sometimes!). Anyhow, I've come to the conclusion that I have to change my value system. I have to base my success on how well I know the material, not how well I do compared to everyone else. In this course, there are no curved grades, no extra credit. Everyone can get an A or everyone could get a C. If we all master the material and we all get an A, should that make me feel any worse about how I'm doing? No way! We're all colleagues, trying to learn information that we'll use in a job one day. We should know this stuff inside and out!
Anyway, tonight was a night to celebrate getting through the first test day! After class, a group of us went out to eat at Capital Ale House, where they have dollar burgers on Monday with the purchase of a drink. Some of the class went at 4pm, right after the test was over. We ate dinner, had a drink, and some of us went to a movie afterwards. The rest of our class is pre-gaming at 5pm, then heading to Capital Ale House, then heading to bars. Yeah, we have some party-ers in PT school. I don't know how they do it, because if I have to get up at 6am during the week, I really don't want to stay up till 2am on the weekends. And in this case, we have lab tomorrow! The TA's did tell me that last year 75% of their class showed up to lab hungover after test day. Let's hope my class has better stats.
pre-gaming?
ReplyDeletehaha- drinking at home before going out, b/c it costs too much to get drunk at the bar!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your comments on having to change your values system. I think I'll probably have to make the same adjustment at Georgetown...I'll just have to be the best I can be, and be happy with that. Granted, it is a little different in a "soft" science field like linguistics, because it doesn't really matter if the graduates know the material inside and out, i.e., someone's life/well being doesn't depend on our knowledge like it does on yours. Nobody's going to die from a split infinitive! :)
ReplyDeleteYes, that's true, but I think the same concept still applies. You have to ask yourself: Are you studying because you really want to learn the material, because you have a thirst for knowledge, because you just love it? Or, is it to get the best grade in the class? For me, it has always been a mixture of the above. So now I'm trying to learn for the first reasons and not for the last one.
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