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Finals: Learning Curve Steep enough to Kick-turn on.

So, referring to SMS’s short quarter finals, the above title is likely a wee bit of hyperbole, especially for many of my classmates. You see, SMS eats bench research for breakfast. As such, probably a tenth of my classmates already have PhDs and another eighth will soon get them as part of the MD/PhD or MS/PhD programs. The result is that frecken everybody save my five-year-out-of-college-novel-writing self could write a phonebook-thick dissertation on their favorite chaperon molecules or transcription factors. For these folks our month long crash course in biochemistry, cellular biology, and histology wasn’t anything to sweat about.

For yours truly, it meant a number of sleepless nights as I relearned how to study and translate biochem geek into English. But when the marks came back, I was more than happy. The only recorded grades are pass/fail, but that’s nothing to sneeze at. The tests were some of the hardest I’ve faced, and roughly an eighth of our class will be retaking them.

Ironically, it turns out that medical school is bad for your health: before the tests one gets too little exercise and sleep, too much comfort food and coffee. Then post-finals one hops into a cut-loose weekend of, once again, sleep deprivation and over consumption–this time celebratory dinners supplanting comfort food and alcohol taking coffee’s place. However, one does get a bit of exercise on San Francisco excursions that, for most, involving dancing until 2am.