Hello Everyone!

Hope everyone had a great summer, been super busy these last few weeks!  A large majority of my summer was dedicated to studying for the MCAT, which stressed me out so much and is honestly the biggest test I’ve taken in my life so I was definitely stressing.  I was initially suppose to take it August 27, decided I needed at least 2 more weeks since I wasn’t done content review, and really needed to have at the very least 2 or 3 weeks to just do problems/practice tests.  So I postponed it to September 18, which gave me enough time to iron out some details.  You will always feel unprepared because a week before September 18 I was wanting more time, glad I didn’t have the choice (missed the deadline to postpone), because I pretty much prepared the most I could.  Because I was preparing for the test for the first few weeks of school, school definitely took a backseat.  Missed classes because of studying/taking classes.  Now I am so so so behind on school and I am going to have to work really hard since I have a midterm in less than 2 weeks, along with quizzes, lab reports, etc.

As for the MCAT, I found that Physical Sciences and Verbal Section went really well, they were along the lines of the AAMC practice I took, and even though my Physical Sciences section seemed really unbalanced with Physics, it went well.  For the first time ever I actually had time left over for verbal reasoning, so I was feeling good after the second break.  Bio however, which was my strongest section on the practice tests, I was ranging 11-13 on the practice tests and somehow the first passage made no sense to me, super experimental, felt like there was some missing information.  I spent too much time on it causing me to really rush through the rest of the section, managed to have like 4 minutes left at the end and rather than go back and review questions I was unsure of, I went back to the first passage to try again, and still didn’t understand it, so I feel bad about this section.  Normally I would wait for scores to come out and decide what to do, but because January is literally the last time to take the MCAT before they change it (adding Psych/Biochem/Socio), I registered for the January date to have a peace of mind.  If my score isn’t what I want it to be, then I have another chance in January.  It sucks because its another 300 being spent, but if I waited for my score to come (about a month), then there might be no seats available then.  I gotta say, this is the most expensive test ever, not just the test, but the practice tests, self assessments, books.  If you are planning on taking the MCAT in the future and using their resources (practice tests, self assessments), definitely anticipate spending over 600.

Now this semester I am taking MICB 402, MICB 408, and Bio 153.  First time ever that I am taking only 3 courses at UBC, but Bio 153 is 7 credits, year-long, and literally the lab is a course itself.  I am only taking it because so many US schools are specific about their requirements and 1 year of Bio with lab is one.  Even though Bio 140 is a lab, it was done in one semester, and I don’t know how I would explain to them that the fact that it’s a course by itself makes it equivalent to a year of bio lab along with a course.  Figure I’d rather avoid complications and just take a year long Bio course with lab.  So far, the class seems like a lot of work, and the labs are 45%.  Regardless of the late start I really hope to get my highest average this year, and hopefully get more involved too on campus.