So far in orientation this week, I’ve had fun meeting my classmates. I haven’t met all 64 yet, but it’s been great hearing bits and pieces of people’s lives. There are people from all over the country and everyone has taken a different path to get here. Some are fresh out of college, some – like me – have taken a year or two off, and a few are starting school again after having worked for several years.
One refrain I’ve heard a few times from those who just graduated last May is, “If I’d taken time off, I never would have been able to come back to school.”
Obviously everyone is different, but I don’t think this is actually true for most people. In fact, I think having a year off after college before I took my pre-reqs (making for two years between undergrad and DPT) was very beneficial to me.
While I don’t know how it would be after returning from a 10 year break, doing homework after a year out of the classroom was as routine for me as riding a bike, if not more so since I’m not a great rider.
And while I easily fell back into routine with lectures and studying, the time off gave a chance to end the repetitive cycle of some bad habits and replace them with better ones. For example, in undergrad, I rarely had the time or the desire to do the required reading before each lecture. While I wouldn’t cram it in before tests, I would do it at my own pace, and severely ramp it up before exams. As a post-bacc, I realized that I would never be able to learn science unless I let things sink in more slowly, so I got into the routine of doing most readings before class.
What I realized was that while most people were confused during these lectures, I usually confidently understood the material since it was already my second time hearing most of it. And when tests approached, I had more time to review my notes, since all the reading was already out of the way.
In terms of answering why people come back to school, and how post-baccs in science are often different than the classes most students took as undergrads, I think this article does a great job. I found that while chemistry may not have come naturally to me, knowing why I was taking it and having better habits helped me to succeed anyway. It was exciting to be on the path to having an interesting, stimulating and solid profession.
And now after all this preparation, I am ready to finally begin school this Tuesday!