Yes, you read that correctly. Our final exams took most of our time for three weeks. Luckily, this means that they were spread out over the three weeks, instead of having six finals during finals week, which I am extremely grateful for. This month was very long and stressful, but it was important to solidify the concepts that we learned over the year. I am sure they will be built on over the next coming semester. I can say with relief that we successfully made it through this month. I want to thank caffeine and the support of those around me for helping me get through this.
The first final exam we had was our cadaver lab final. To me, this was the most stressful exam of them all because of how much of your final grade it is worth, but it was one of the easier ones to study for. This exam was 200 questions, with about half of the questions derived from new material. Our class as a whole, did pretty well with this exam. It was a great pleasure to be able to have these cadavers to study from all semester.
Our microanatomy exam was very stressful. We had a short amount of time to look at normal tissue and then move on to the next station. The other half of it was our instructor pointing out structures on the scope for all of us to see and writing down what it is. I did very poor on this exam, and I think that was the general consensus. We had an opportunity the next week to have a surprise re-do with a different set up. And I gladly took the chance to improve my grade. So next year, the format may be different.
The last part of our anatomy grade was our anatomy lecture final. It was mostly new material with about 10 questions that were cumulative. That takes care of our anatomy class. 3 finals in total.
Our finals week consisted of three more exams. The first one was our mechanisms of disease exam. Some new material, mostly cumulative out of 100 questions. This was the hardest exam to study for because there is so much material that was covered. The next morning, we took our histology exam. Just like all year, this class was pretty straightforward. Just study the notes that are given to you. Our final final exam of this semester was the daunting anatomical techniques exam. This exam was different from previous ones, in that it was about 100 questions and mostly multiple choice, whereas past ones were mostly essays and short answers. I performed a lot better on this exam than I had thought, which made going into the break start off with a great feeling. After a long, long nap.
I am extremely proud of how hard my classmates and I worked over this first semester. We have leaned so much in a relatively short amount of time. This last month was very challenging, but getting through this gives me confidence going forward. I know that I can get through any challenges that are to come. We get to have a well-deserved, much needed week and a half off of stress-free vacation. Then it's on to round two.
