Tuesday, April 8, 2008

I'm paying for what exactly...

This is what I ask myself about 10 times a day. So this morning, I show up at 8 like I always do, the first lecturer gets done early (in about 35 minutes). This should be a bonus, but the 9:00 lecture had to leave town for a family emergency and so that lecture is cancelled. Again, should be a bonus, but we have a required small group from 10-12 so I'm not going anywhere. So I study for an hour then head to my small group room. Small group facilitator doesn't show up. Why am I still here? Because I have yet another required small group from 1-4. This is the biggest waste of my life ever.

I find medical school a highly inefficient process. The small groups are all required, and we have to sign in next to our photographs to prove we were there. I feel more like I'm in middle school than in medical school. I don't get a lot from small group because I tend to have looked at the material ahead of time and most of the other people in the group havent', so what's review to me is first glance to them and I sit there wondering why I am wasting 2 hours of my life listening to stupid questions (yes, there is definitely such a thing as a stupid question) that could easily have been avoided had I been at home studying. I'll never fully understand why small groups are required. First, I understand that not everyone learns the same way. Some people don't get anything from lecture and do better teaching themselves, or do better discussing in small groups. Hooray for them, they don't have to show up for lecture it's not required. Some people, like myself, get nothing from small groups but find lecture very helpful, so while I go to lecture religiously because that's how I learn, I still am forced to go to the stupid small groups where I want to pull out my hair and eyes. Oy.

Anyway, I guess it's just one of those days. I think I might go buy myself lunch with my free time here. Sitting here stewing about it is just putting me in a seriously bad mood. Hopefully this session this afternoon isn't totally ridiculous, but they usually are.

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