MBBS Year 3: Semester 1......The other half (Trauma, Tears, and Chronic Fatigue)

"So Dee, how was Year 3 Semester 1 for you overall? Can you describe your experience?"

MY oh MY! Sit tight, and lets have a recap of my experiences! 

1. Seniors and Upper Termers DID NOT disappoint, when they had ALL said it was one of the worst, and hell of a semester, out of ALL the years you would go through. 

2. Forget Basic needs, you are training to have lack of sleep JUST to finish your assignments, review whenever there's a quiz, do your group projects and be ready for a certain Pathology lab class

3. Chronic Fatigue: You'd be surprise to know! That this is actually a thing we had ALL experienced and my oh my... this semester definitely gives you that!

4. Just Pain. But imagine it as WEEKLY pain

Subjects taken:

1. Pathology

Positive

• The TA replies to your concerns, fast.
• Professor Mao replies to your concerns and needs in a timely manner.

Negative

• If you have a 'CERTAIN' Professor.... well it is just PURE HELL for you. Class 2, I feel for you... Here's two memes that triggers our trauma

• Assignments: You get weekly Assignments on selected specimens chosen by the professors of your lab, where you have to identify the key characteristics of each specimen. And..... for some class you draw the patho-histology specimen 😢.
• Lectures: Invest in two things: A proper ass-cushion and an attention span that can last 5 hours long 😂
• Tip: Make sure you take notes during lectures or lecture playbacks on 2x speed. Pay extra attention to what the Professors label during class and take note of the definitions.

2. Medical Chinese 1

Positive

• ............ (I really cannot think of one....😂)

Negative

• First of, to have majority of us... who had not passed nor taken HSK4 take this course was legit such a dog move. Not only are you busily trying to memorize the Chinese equivalent of the English medical terms.. there is approximately 1040 words you have to remember! In otherwords, F**K trying to understand it, go straight to memorizing😆
• Second, you would think... "Hey! Medical Chinese 1... so therefore, we are using Medical Chinese 1 textbook, yeah?" ABSOLUTELY NOT. They spread out several textbooks to use for Medical Chinese 1's content. (see link below)

Medical Chinese Textbook Chapter and Lectures

• There was a group project on the LAST week, BEFORE finals week. Worst of all, you cannot pick your group members and you are just given a week and under to prepare a 15 minute presentation based on the topic he had assigned for your group. Plus! you have to make the presentation ENTIRELY Chinese. 

• Lectures: From the FIRST lecture, you are bombarded with PURELY Chinese. The professor just speaks chinese and medical chinese, assuming you are already well-versed in the language after just merely studying it for just 2 years. 
• Assignments: You also get the occasional homework which ranges from writing the medical chinese hanzi or making your own sentences.
• Tip: Start an ANKI/ Flashcard Deck EARLY! Make the flashcards along with the lecture content. 

3. HSK Comprehension

Positive

• I enjoyed how our professor tries to have an engaging lesson with each of us to help us in our HSKK (speaking ability) and grammar content. I know my professor took the time to make sure we learned and understood the content well, before moving onto the next one.
• The final HSKK exam format was a BLESSING in disguise. The Professors across all 3 classes, ultimately decided to give us a question bank to pre-prepare ourselves. So, when the time comes, she can select from the question bank, and you are prepared to answer them. 

(If you want my qbank answers for this content juniors.... well....there will be a fee, since it was a time consuming preparation, but guarantees you a score above 90 😉😜.. DM me if you are extremely desperate).

Negative

• You get homework for nearly every lesson! And they are often set up in a quiz format, very close to how your finals will be (So, defs pay attention to them when answering, as they can repeat them in your final).

• Lectures: Pay attention to the grammar and the example sentences she gives during class. (No ppt is provided, i suggest you make your own notes during the lesson).
• Assignments: There are justly Quiz per each lesson and everyone has to do a 5-8 minute presentation during semester.
• Tip: Pay close attention to all the quiz homework given, they do come out as repeated questions during the finals!

4. Microbiology and Parasitology

Positive

• The lecture slides are decent and quite thorough with what needed to be covered for the exam. 
• Some professors include an after lecture quiz in class to test if we understood the content, which was quite helpful.

Negative

• There is your usual LAB reports, that you have to write after each ✨online lab✨. And some labs, particularly the parasites, where you have to draw the eggs and label them. Which is the most time consuming part of this course.

• Lectures: Reading through the lecture content itself is sufficient for ZJU exams, and definitely pay attention to the in class quizzes given for they may come out during one of the 3 quizzes during semester, or even in the final.
• Lab: You have to write alot and be as thorough as you can for this. The information pertaining the labs can often be found either in lectures, or via this handy dandy link below!

Microbe Notes and Lab Notes

• Tips: Read the lecture content thoroughly, and start early in memorizing the sheer amount of parasitology and microbiology content!

5. Survey of China

Positive

• Yu Laoshi 💖💖💖! 

Negative

• The biweekly/ fortnightly GROUP Presentations. Don't get me wrong, I love my group members and they did amazing with me throughout the semester (ya all know who u are), but we ALL agreed, that this was so time consuming and we could have each appreciated the time used here, to study the other course content! 

• Lectures: Ahaha, I think the whole cohort agrees when I say, that NO ONE actually pays 100% attention during the lectures, for we are using the time here for other course's assignments. If the course has no final... majority ain't listening! 😂
• Assignments: We have that bi-weekly group presentation, and bi-weekly quiz (answers are often in the ppt she uploads in Tron) and a Final Essay that is essentially your Final exam.
• Tips: Have easy to work with group members! (Yes, you can pick your team!) and well, during lecture, like Dumbledore said.... "Use it well"😂

So, that is all for this update! 

Stay tuned for next semester, for I have finally reached school grounds, and am keen to see the differences of offline learning vs online learning in a medical school environment! 

XOXO,

- D.