To the FUTURE medics!

I just wanted to quickly post out a congratulations to those who met their offers to get into medical school! As summer holiday slowly comes to an end (noooooo!) - that means freshers is getting closer! Get ready for a great time and don't be too nervous! Personally before freshers I was really nervous especially being an International student. I was scared I was not going to make any friends and will be going through freshers as a very lonely medical student. Those who are worried about friends in uni - DO NOT WORRY! You will find that during Freshers everyone is quite friendly as most will be in the same boat as you - looking for friends! The first people you'll meet will probably be your flatmates so get to know them and don't be shy! Be open-minded and don't be afraid to start up conversations. However, don't always just stick with your flatmates - open up and get to know your course-mates and join societies so you can meet more people! Trust me the thing you'll be worrying about during Freshers are peoples' names. I found myself saying "Hi" back to people who I have met but can't remember their name. Also later on you'll realize half the people in your contacts list on your mobile will be people you don't even remember meeting! Haha.

Freshers is a time where you will probably be both really excited and maybe a bit nervous. Pretty typical feelings. If you aren't even excited for Freshers because you are scared/nervous - don't be. Hopefully you'll find it enjoyable and a pleasant experience. However I think I've mentioned in my earlier posts (in my blog) from the beginning of last year where Freshers was a bit "overhyped". I still believe it is but every one is different. I am not the biggest party animal so I didn't go to a lot of Fresher parties - but in general I still had a great time and many of the people I met during Freshers are still my friends now and we all get along quite well!

And by the way - moving in is alright but remember don't take a lot of stuff that you do NOT need. You will regret it when you have to move out. I personally thought that I brought wayyy too many clothes with me. I probably only wore half the clothes I brought and the other half just clogged up space.

Anyways I don't want to make this post too long - but I'll link you to my previous posts where I wrote about my Freshers week and updated it pretty often:

http://crazylifemedstudent.blogspot.com/2009/09/freshers.html
http://crazylifemedstudent.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

I hope these previous blog posts will help and ease some nerves. I think you'll find the second link useful as I charted out each day of my Freshers week.

If anyone has any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Just post in the comment box and I'll reply back to you in the comment box asap or if you want you can leave me your email address and I can email you back.

Get excited for FRESHERS and a new chapter of your life!

FRESHERS WEEK - MEDICS FIELD HOCKEY

Well today was also the first day of training for the medics field hockey team! I met at the hockey pitch at 5:00pm which my massive goalkeeping bag. It was quite the hike up to the pitch as it was on the top of a hill and there were several flights of stairs I had to carry my bag up. There was lots of people at the practice, but sadly I only met a few freshers there. I have already met the club captain a month before I started uni to discuss about playing 1stXI team. Met a few people who are on the team when I got to practice so that was really cool. So all the people on the team are medics and most of em are upper years so I asked em a few questions about their thoughts on med school.

The general response that I got from them is that they thoroughly enjoy medical school and that I should try and have as much fun as I can in first year. All of them really loved first year of medical school as it wasn't too hard. The medical school tries really hard to make transition from school to university as easy as possible so a lot of the students really liked the transition and thought it was at a good pace.

Practice was a lot of fun...I haven't really trained with men as well so it was definitely a new experience. I was definitely expecting really hard shots...but wow can men shoot the ball! I thought I was going to get killed tonight. My goalkeeping shorts are not up to standard to start off as they are only suitable for low grade hockey...what a great confidence booster. I didn't really get hit anywhere with little protection which was good. Personally thought I played OKAY...but I was pretty tired.

After practice we went for a big team dinner at the local pub. Had great pub food and played some games such as "Boat Race". It was a lot of fun. We also went around the circle and introduced ourselves to each other. Can't even remember 1/8 of the names (terrible with names). Once dinner was finished I had a good chat with the older medics and asked them about intercalated degrees and what they thought about it. They actually thought that taking an extra degree will help you final application for foundation year placements and it shows interest in whatever specialty you are looking at. However, they did tell me that it is a bit too early to start thinking about it as usually people take an intercalated year. I am keeping the intercalated degree idea at the back of my head for now as I am considering it.

Hockey was really fun tonight and I managed to meet lots of people. Yay!

Tip: Don't be afraid to talk to upper years in your course. They may come in handy when you need help with course work or just have a question about the course. Don't worry they don't bite...although some of them may do look like they bite. :P

FRESHERS WEEK - SEPT 23, 2009

Sweet I have been waiting for awhile for this. It was medics freshers fair - clubs/societies for medics. There are societies ranging from surgical society, to medsex (?!), to medics sports teams. The British Medical Association and the MDU were there for us to sign up and they gave freebies which was a oxford clinical medicine handbook (which i heard are really useful as they are pocket sized). Plus today we got our MedSoc membership cards which costs 50 pounds (10 pounds a year for 5 years) and our white coats, dissection kit, and the most important: Medics Freshers Fever ticket/wristband!!!

Other than fighting the crowd and almost dying from suffocation (no air conditioning in the halls - imagine 250 students crammed in a small area), I managed to join a few societies. I joined the surgical society, st.john's ambulance, BMA/MDU memberships, medics hockey, and medics basketball. Quite hefty right? I know some people who joined every single society that was there! After being pushed around I met up with friends and we decided to chill and have some food/recover from being pushed around.

Today was a pretty light day...no lectures at all. Just another day for me to get to know the city. Speaking of getting to know the city, I got majorly lost today. I decided to take the bus and somehow took the wrong bus and ended up in this really weird place. Asked some people for directions and took another bus back towards the right direction..and walked for like ages to get back home. It was pretty ridiculous. But like I said...best way to get to know a place is to get lost and find your way again. Not much to post today but I will leave you with another tip:

During Freshers Fair/Activities Fair, join as many societies as you want. You can always not go to them. Societies are the best way to get to know people and especially medic societies help you to get to know upper year medics so if you have any questions about the course you can always ask them.

I notice that UCAS applications are almost over so good luck to everyone who is applying! Stressful times.