JB School

School has been interesting, these past few weeks. A&P, especially, has been enormously challenging. I got my score back from my first midterm last week, as an 87%, which is better than I thought I had done, and encouraging. The lab practical this week, however, did not seem to go well at all. Among other things, I was enormously frustrated by the phrasing of the questions - it was not clear at all what kind of answer the instructor was looking for in most cases (IE type of tissue, stratum within the skin, type of cell, etc). I honestly am not sure I passed, even with a massive amount of studying, including a 5 hour cram session just before the actual test.

My Trigonometry midterm, on the other hand, seemed to go very well. This time around the rules for manipulating terms seem to make sense. A 100% grade is conceivable, although I suspect the actual score will be in the high 80s to 90s due to a misapplication or two. Regardless, there were no questions where I didn't have a clue. I did take a good 20 minutes to remember the right way to find the answer to the last question, and a further 20 minutes to find my car again after that, so my memory issues are still well in place :/.

The online chemistry course continues to be weird in application. While I am understanding the principles we're discussing, the format for expressing that understanding in quizes and homework continues to be beyond annoying and finicky. The sheer volume of homework is daunting, requiring at least 3-4 hours at the computer just for entering the answers each week. Oh well, at least I don't feel like I'm struggling here, so very much.

Eden and I did get a chance to visit OIT a few weeks ago, and got some questions answered. Bottom line, the courses I need for the medical imaging degree are offered only once a year, in lockstep, so I'm going to be in school for four years, technically. The fourth year will actually be an externship at a hospital, with tests and so forth along the way, leading up to a single make or break licensing exam at the end of senior year. Fun, fun.

I've submitted my deposit and bid for dorm space this fall, but won't find out anything about where I'll end up until July - the school will be opening some new dorm spaces then that are more or less apartment style - four bedrooms with a single shared kitchen/living space. After seeing the existing dorms, I think that it would be a good compromise between living alone and in the midst of chaos. If I don't make it into the apartments, the fallback is a dual room in the existing dorms, as I understand it - not great, but I can put up with it for a term if I need to.

The actual courses are pretty daunting - there's going to be a huge amount to absorb. On the plus side, the student to teacher ratios are just awesome, if they're true. Average is 10 to 1 in lecture and 5 to 1 in lab. There's also a lot of out of class availabilty - the students for our program actually have the keycodes to work in the lab after hours, and from what the students we spoke to said, the instructors are very supportive of getting you what you need to work through things. The equipment is only a few years old; the actual building is technically still under construction in parts.

I guess the fact that I'll be taking longer than I'd hoped to get through this ends up being a good thing. I'm certain that I would not be able to maintain a part time job as well as the 15-17 credit hours of this level of courses and still get a passing grade. The way things land, I should be able to do a lot of the support coursework during my freshman year and keep the number of credits per term closer to 12. Finances are still going to be mighty tight, so I'll be looking for scholarships as well.

One item that might end up being critical is the fact that the location of the senior year externship is based on a random drawing during the Junior year. There is a potential loophole to this, however. If you are sponsored by a hospital (functionally, you've gotten a hospital to say "yeah, we'll take him during senior year and put him to work") before you're officially accepted to the medical imaging program (which should be late freshman year), you don't draw your externship - you're spoken for. Given that, I'll be trying to find a job or a volunteer position this summer, preferably at Southwest Washington, where Eden spent most of Friday. Ideally, I'll be able to show my potential value and get them to speak for me. We'll see how that lands later, I guess.