So earlier this year I was having trouble with staying motivated. It sounds immature but I was content with making a bit of money and using it to do fun stuff with my friends, like small trips and stuff like that. I use the word immature given what my goals are, and I know doing those things won't help me achieve my goals. I really just wasn't motivated to change anything, because things felt pretty good. And add in the fact that once I do get accepted I will be tremendously busy throughout my training, so I was actually dreading towards starting my training (because I could've applied this past summer). So a part of me didn't even want to get accepted this year. I imagine it will be quite difficult in med school, and residency even more so. So I know that I was definitely thinking, do I even want to do all of this right now? I guess you could say I wanted to achieve what I wanted to achieve, but I didn't want to start it because really that's when the real hard work starts. It was quite demanding to work for 50-60 hours a week in parts of my undergrad, and I wasn't looking forward to starting that again to finish my undergrad, and then doing even more hours in med school. And it goes without saying that I was aiming for perfect grades, which is quite daunting to me mentally, because of my past failures.
But now, I can't pinpoint what has changed lately but I'm feeling so reinvigorated. So much so that I can do work for 10 hours straight and not even think of anything else except the task at hand. Seriously, aside from going to the bathroom once or twice, I can literally work on stuff for at least 6-8 hours without a break. It hasn't been science studying for exams though, it's all been working on tasks and assignments. But still last week was so productive for me.
I'll keep it up throughout December to meet my deadlines. I'll post more on my progress soon. Talk soon and take care.
Monday 28 November 2016
English Improvment
Not submitting a long post right now, but I'm happy to say I got 95% on one of my English assignments. The assignment was worth a decent 10% of the final mark.
I'm basically finished the term paper and it's worth 25% of my final mark but I haven't handed it in yet. My prof extended the deadline for the class so I'm going to make some adjustments and edit it tonight. There's also this really wonderful librarian at the school I met the other week, and she said she'd be willing to look over my work. So tomorrow I'm going to take the assignment to her and hopefully she can look it over.
Aside from the term paper I also have one last essay to hand in as well which is worth 5% and one more discussion worth around 2%. Then it's the final exam in a couple weeks. I've started calculus and plants (that's the bio course), and once I can sit down and put in more time to those after I'm done my English work, then I think both those courses will go really fast. For calculus I just need to work on my algebra and functions but I already know most of the calculus itself. I just need to improve my skill is all, the knowledge is there. And the plant science course seems super interesting as well. Half of the course is on plant science basics and bioactive chemical aspects of plants. I'm guessing medicinal aspects will be in the latter. I love learning about medical knowledge, and honestly I really truly believe any knowledge is good knowledge. Some people don't seem to realize how diverse knowledge can be useful in their careers. Anyways I'll post updates as I get them. Talk soon and take care.
I'm basically finished the term paper and it's worth 25% of my final mark but I haven't handed it in yet. My prof extended the deadline for the class so I'm going to make some adjustments and edit it tonight. There's also this really wonderful librarian at the school I met the other week, and she said she'd be willing to look over my work. So tomorrow I'm going to take the assignment to her and hopefully she can look it over.
Aside from the term paper I also have one last essay to hand in as well which is worth 5% and one more discussion worth around 2%. Then it's the final exam in a couple weeks. I've started calculus and plants (that's the bio course), and once I can sit down and put in more time to those after I'm done my English work, then I think both those courses will go really fast. For calculus I just need to work on my algebra and functions but I already know most of the calculus itself. I just need to improve my skill is all, the knowledge is there. And the plant science course seems super interesting as well. Half of the course is on plant science basics and bioactive chemical aspects of plants. I'm guessing medicinal aspects will be in the latter. I love learning about medical knowledge, and honestly I really truly believe any knowledge is good knowledge. Some people don't seem to realize how diverse knowledge can be useful in their careers. Anyways I'll post updates as I get them. Talk soon and take care.
Friday 18 November 2016
Upping the Course Load
So I registered for 3 more courses this week. One of the courses starts in January though and runs until April. The other two are self paced and my books arrived today!
So on the immediate schedule is English, organic chem I, calculus and a bio course. I'm almost done English except for the final exam. I have some prior calculus knowledge so I'm hoping that will benefit me in calc. The bio course I'm looking forward to, and I think it's going to be a challenge in completing organic chem at a high level.
But now I'm glad I'm finally in a proper course load. Orgo I started before September, so I need to finish 3 other courses before next term so I can be eligible for Queens and UofC. Also on a subjective level, the more I'm in a full time load then the more favourable it will be for my med school applications.
I think English, bio, and one of either calc or orgo will all be done by Christmas for sure.
But another thing I have on my plate is doing CARS practice. My CARS tutor that I mentioned a few months ago is meeting with me over the holidays to do some CARS tutoring (Yes!!). I'm really looking forward to this so that I can fine tune my CARS strategy and improve some of my analytical reasoning skills.
It's a busy winter but it's honestly so awesome. I can't wait to see my final marks on my transcript come Christmas time. Happy Friday and Talk soon and take care!
So on the immediate schedule is English, organic chem I, calculus and a bio course. I'm almost done English except for the final exam. I have some prior calculus knowledge so I'm hoping that will benefit me in calc. The bio course I'm looking forward to, and I think it's going to be a challenge in completing organic chem at a high level.
But now I'm glad I'm finally in a proper course load. Orgo I started before September, so I need to finish 3 other courses before next term so I can be eligible for Queens and UofC. Also on a subjective level, the more I'm in a full time load then the more favourable it will be for my med school applications.
I think English, bio, and one of either calc or orgo will all be done by Christmas for sure.
But another thing I have on my plate is doing CARS practice. My CARS tutor that I mentioned a few months ago is meeting with me over the holidays to do some CARS tutoring (Yes!!). I'm really looking forward to this so that I can fine tune my CARS strategy and improve some of my analytical reasoning skills.
It's a busy winter but it's honestly so awesome. I can't wait to see my final marks on my transcript come Christmas time. Happy Friday and Talk soon and take care!
Thursday 3 November 2016
English Midterm Mark
Remember my English midterm I was talking about a couple weeks ago? Well I got my mark back and I was pleasantly surprised that I got 80% on it. I was trying not to get my hopes up because I really wasn't sure how I did. Our midterm was an essay on a piece we read in class.
The weird thing is, my professor emailed a marking sheet with her criteria on it, and then at the bottom it says my mark which reads: "Grade: B+ 76%, 12/15" . The weight of our midterm was worth 15% so 12/15 is the raw score or weighting achieved for this evaluation. The thing is, 12/15 is 80% not 76%. So I guess there could be a small possibility that I got a weight of 11.4% but I don't think that's the case.
What I think is going on here is that the grade of a B+ vs an A- can be open to interpretation for an English professor, so maybe I was on the cusp of an A-, but because of the mistakes I made, she was forced to not give an "A-" grade but a "B+" instead. But I'm thinking despite my mistakes, the quality and effectiveness of the argument and piece of writing on the whole was so good that she didn't want to deduct too many marks from it. So the result is a B+ piece of writing by definition because of my mistakes, but the the high level of cohesiveness, unity and style meant I should be deserving an A- raw score. I know that English professors can be very principled when it comes to handing out grades in the "A" range for essays. I know that it isn't really a checklist of right and wrong, but more of a holistic evaluation of how "good" the writing is. I've always got this sense when speaking to English instructors about how to get an A (which I did with this particular professor as well). It is notorious that at UBC very very few people get high "A" marks in first year English. And I'm not at UBC for this English course, but the standards feel the exact same.
Anyways, in this example the 12/15 is very clearly the percentage of weighting that I achieved, so I'll go ahead and go with that when calculating my final mark. So far my marks are looking pretty good in this English class, which is making me look forward to writing the final exam in December and getting a final mark. But this week I've got a lot to do. I've got 2 assignments and one quiz to do by Monday morning, so another 16% of the course will be complete by Monday morning, about the same weighting as my midterm. Hopefully I can get much higher than 80% on these new tasks though. I always do better at the end of courses than the beginning too. Anyways talk soon and take care.
The weird thing is, my professor emailed a marking sheet with her criteria on it, and then at the bottom it says my mark which reads: "Grade: B+ 76%, 12/15" . The weight of our midterm was worth 15% so 12/15 is the raw score or weighting achieved for this evaluation. The thing is, 12/15 is 80% not 76%. So I guess there could be a small possibility that I got a weight of 11.4% but I don't think that's the case.
What I think is going on here is that the grade of a B+ vs an A- can be open to interpretation for an English professor, so maybe I was on the cusp of an A-, but because of the mistakes I made, she was forced to not give an "A-" grade but a "B+" instead. But I'm thinking despite my mistakes, the quality and effectiveness of the argument and piece of writing on the whole was so good that she didn't want to deduct too many marks from it. So the result is a B+ piece of writing by definition because of my mistakes, but the the high level of cohesiveness, unity and style meant I should be deserving an A- raw score. I know that English professors can be very principled when it comes to handing out grades in the "A" range for essays. I know that it isn't really a checklist of right and wrong, but more of a holistic evaluation of how "good" the writing is. I've always got this sense when speaking to English instructors about how to get an A (which I did with this particular professor as well). It is notorious that at UBC very very few people get high "A" marks in first year English. And I'm not at UBC for this English course, but the standards feel the exact same.
Anyways, in this example the 12/15 is very clearly the percentage of weighting that I achieved, so I'll go ahead and go with that when calculating my final mark. So far my marks are looking pretty good in this English class, which is making me look forward to writing the final exam in December and getting a final mark. But this week I've got a lot to do. I've got 2 assignments and one quiz to do by Monday morning, so another 16% of the course will be complete by Monday morning, about the same weighting as my midterm. Hopefully I can get much higher than 80% on these new tasks though. I always do better at the end of courses than the beginning too. Anyways talk soon and take care.
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