October 2021 Blog Post

    This month has been a humbling experience in terms of my presumed ability to juggle my work and home responsibilities and free time. Coming into the masters program, I assumed that I could expect a similar workload to undergrad - sure, the material might be more intensive, but having to focus on only one curriculum as opposed to the 5 or 6 tangentially related classes of an undergrad semester would be a saving grace - or so I thought. 

     However, this month was my first taste of what a masters program is really like - and it knocked me on my ass. The plethora of information that I needed to not only memorize, but truly internalize if I wanted a shot at doing well on the exams really pushed me to my limits when it comes to my notorious tendency to procrastinate. Between the hours I felt I had "lost" at the gym, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, or even just sleeping, when exam time crept up on me, I found the hard to enjoy the little things in life, as the  ever- permeating anxiety of the test loomed in the background, injecting its sense of urgency into every thing I did. I found that, while I was able to get away with it with relative ease in undergrad, my habit of procrastination was no longer sustainable, as I not only robbed me of my ability to truly learn the basics of a field I hope to make my career, but it robbed me of my ability to exist as a happy, content, individual. 

    I hope my conviction to sticking to a stricter studying regiment carries me forward not only in this course, but as a hopeful future med student as well. 

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