This past Friday I went on a field trip to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN. The trip was actually pretty informative, and I’ve decided to add Meharry onto my list because of it. When we got there it was raining pretty hard, but we jumped out of the bus and went into the student center, which was pretty empty (I guess all the students were studying). When we sat down we were greeted by Mr. Atwater (I’m not sure what his title is, but I know he gives tours). We were also greeted by all the current Meharry students that graduated from Oakwood College. The testimonies of those students were very encouraging. One of the students, Lauren Lewis is on full scholarship at Meharry, and she was just telling us how much Oakwood College actually prepares us for med school. She told us that the same books we use for Gross Anatomy and Histology, they use at Meharry and most med schools. She also told us that Gross Anatomy is actually slightly harder at Oakwood because the practicums at Meharry are multiple choice while at Oakwood you have to write the answer in. That was actually pretty amazing to me. I wonder if Gross Anatomy practicums are like that at majority medical schools? After writing in my answers for the practicums, multiple just seems way too easy. Anyway, I’m sure that they have to know way more than we do, but that was encouraging. Also, some other Oakwood grads were encouraging us that no matter what score we receive on our standardized tests, or what GPA we have, we should still apply. One guy who was a current 2nd year said that he graduated from Oakwood not really being serious about anything, so he decided to teach science for a little while. Then he decided to take the MCAT after 2 years of teaching. He bought a little Kaplan book, studied, got a 22, nailed his interview, and got in with a 3.0 GPA. Things like that are encouraging to many students who do have lower scores. Anyway, it was just encouraging to see how well the Oakwood graduates are doing in medical and dental school at Meharry.
We also got a chance to tour the campus. I’m not sure how it as most medical schools, but all the classes you have in your first two years at Meharry are in one building, and I think really in two lecture halls. The freshman have their classes in one lecture hall, and the sophomores have their classes across the hall in another lecture hall. The tour guide said that all medical schools are like that, but I would like to confirm that. Anyway, the facilities for kind of drab and old but I’m not used to the newest stuff anyway at Oakwood, so that didn’t bother me too much. The whole Basic Science building is connected wirelessly, so that excites the computer geek in me. We also got a chance to see their anatomy lab, which was pretty cool.
Overall, I truly did like the school, and the tour convinced me that Meharry is a good enough school, and that they would give me a good education. I don’t like the fact that its in the south, but Nashville is city enough that I should feel alright. So when I add Meharry to the list, that is going to make 10 schools I’m applying to. I was already going to add Georgetown onto my list to make it 10, but I’m going to replace Georgetown with Meharry. Oh yeah, something that I DEFINETELY didn’t like about Meharry is that they have you in class from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. That is outrageuos to me. There is no need for all that lecture time when most of the learning comes from your books anyway.
I’ve given my teachers up to May 1st to write my letters of recommendation and mail them into Interfolio. I want to be certain that all that stuff is squared away before I leave school so that come July when secondary apps are rolling in, I’ll be ready to send them out.
My classes are going well at this point. In Gross Anatomy, we are studying and dissecting the different triangles of the neck and studying the eye, which is actually very boring to me. I guess really nothing will compare to studying the brain and the cranial nerves. But I need to get over it, because I can’t just study what I’m interested in and be a good doctor. Its getting close to crunch time in Photography class. My teacher wants seven 8 x 10 prints by Wednesday, so I need to go in the dark room today to work on that. I love the class…I just wish I didn’t have to study so much so I could just spend a whole day out in the forest shooting.
As you all know, George Mason University made it to the final four. Tony Skinn is one of the starters on that team. I played with him on our varsity team in high school. I’m actually kind of happy they lost because I didn’t like him at all. I was a sophomore on the team and he was a senior and he was just very mean to me. I don’t know if he felt he needed to break me in as a youngin on the team, but I ended up disliking him a lot. I didn’t think he would get so far in basketball, but I guess he did. Anyway I just wanted to mention my dislike for him.
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