Undergraduate work complete! and Now what?

Alright, I took my Psy Research Final today. Piece o'cake! We got our paper back as well, and the way I figure the resubmitted homeworks are going to turn out, as well as other miscellaneous points, I figure that I could have gotten a 42/75 on the final and still passed. And I'm confident of about 70 of those 75 questions. That means I didn't even need the extra credit to get an A in the class. Pretty cool.

And that's it. That's the end of my undergraduate responsibilities, besides submitting my grade from the 1 unit class I took at my community college. (Minor, but important. No degree without submitting that to SFSU. It was part of my graduation plan that I had signed off on to get the semester started.) It's not a great accomplishment. In fact it's a bit of an embarrassment, but it's done. A part of the shame I carry with me can be put aside now.

Resuming study for the PCAT is part of the So now what? I haven't done any studying. I checked the exam dates Friday night, and there are four dates to take it before next round of applications:

June 19, 2010 (Register by May 7th)

August 21, 2010 (Register by July 9th)

October 16, 2010 (Register by Sept. 3rd)

January 22, 2011 (Register by Dec. 10th)

June 19th is definitely too soon, and I'd rather have January 22nd as an option if I don't like my results. If possible, I'd like to take the exam at the August 21st date. That'll be during the first week of the Fall semester, so there won't be any other exams that I'll have to be considering.

I've already begun studying since yesterday. I'll just have to evaluate my progress as the July 9th registration date approaches. Just as important, I need to seriously research out of state schools, because I'll need to be able to say which schools I want my results sent to when I register, I believe.

More info can be found directly at the official PCAT website, including a .pdf of the PCAT Candidate Information Booklet.

Saturday, May 22nd is the graduation ceremony for SFSU. Will I be going? Nope! I'll be going to the UCSF Pharmacy Information Day instead. I went to the Preview Day back in October, and now will be the full day experience. Here's the agenda straight from the confirmation email:

Program Agenda:

- Welcome

- Career Opportunities in Pharmacy (Pharmacist Panel)

- School of Pharmacy Pharm.D. Curriculum

- Why Pharmacy? (Pharmacy Student Panel)

- Lunch with Current Pharmacy Students

- Financial Aid & Campus Tours

- UCSF School of Pharmacy Admissions Process

- Preparing a Competitive Application

- Evaluation and Questions

It cost $25 to register, and that comes with food and parking. Awesome. Parking tickets have not been my friend in the past.

I like that this event happens so soon after finals. It's easier working with momentum. That's one of the reasons why I began studying again for the PCAT yesterday (and am continuing today) before finals was even over. I'll be sure to read over my posts from the Preview Day, and see what I can take away from their day long presentation.

Psy Research - Paper, Poster, Presentation, and Final

Let's do a wrap-up of Intro to Psy Research. Grading is based on weekly homeworks, quizzes, a group research project which consists of a paper, poster, and if chosen, a presentation, and the final (and attendance).

- Attendance and Quizzes

I only had one unexcused absence this semester. That is a vast improvement on my attendance from the bad days, and better even than last year. I'm proud of that. Especially since my classes began at 8am. I have had a terrible record when it comes to attendance for 8am classes, and that's now a thing of the past. My one missed class did happen to fall upon the day we had our first pop quiz, but we get to drop one, so it wasn't too bad.

- Paper

There's not much to say besides it being excellent. We had to turn it in at various stages, and our group paper received a 44/45 the first time, then a 72/75 the second time. We strove for perfects, but never expected it. We were there to learn after all and didn't know everything before taking the class. The final paper was submitted on Friday, and I expect to get a comparable score.

- Poster

As a group we put together a poster summarizing our project, and as a class, we had a poster conference where we'd present our posters to each other and we gave each other scores on originality, methods, and poster presentation. When it comes to crafts, I always insist on a clean look, using a knife/razor to cut paper rather than scissors, and I insisted on keeping everything the same, large font for easy reading. And of course we worked to make sure the content was as good as it could be as well. And at the end of the day, it all paid off, because we got chosen as one of the Top 5 groups to make a presentation of our full study to the whole class for extra credit points.  (10-30 points possible. To keep that in perspective, the Final is 75 points, Quizzes were 20 points each totaling 100 points, and homeworks were 15 points each totaling 150 points.  30 points is a lot!)

- Presentation

I feel that our presentation was definitely the best of the 5 presentations. We had a nice flow, used actual slides rather than a shrunken down version of our poster, we had a study that was basic but well thought out, and we covered everything from what led to the development of the study to limitations and strengths. We took second place.

The group that won got to present on the second day, thereby having an advantage of seeing what the other people did, which is just how it was, but the unsatisfying part was that the winning group relied more on gimmicks and performance to get the class to rank them high, rather than actually presenting a study. But I couldn't completely fault the class, it was our TA that really taught us what a presentation was supposed to be like and how to think of them critically, while the teacher didn't even break down the scoring into three categories like she did on the poster grading sheets.

All in all though, the whole project was a great experience, and working in groups, creating a poster, and presenting in front of a class are all different experiences that I will be able to learn from and take with me going into pharmacy school.

- Homework and Final

So I've been doing excellent in attendance, quizzes, and everything related to the group project. Add that on top of the fact that we get to resubmit all our homeworks on the day of the final to be regraded for 80% of our missing points... well... my homework grade isn't as good as it could be. Adding on top of that, that I now have 25 points of extra credit... well... I can say that I've been tempted to be lazy and go into the final overconfident again. It can be seen as gaming the system, or as just knowing where to prioritize right. I'm getting an A regardless, and just as important, I knew I was learning the material.

Except I've been able to resist that this time.  I do think that I don't need that much review, but I'll make sure that I do review the material. And I have already fixed two of the three homeworks that will get me a decent amount of points back. Getting an A should be no problem. Anything less than that would be shocking.

Genetics Final

I am behind on updates. Been focusing on finals even though there's been a lot going on. Time to start correcting that.

Alright. Let's first talk Finals prep. I wanted to begin studying the Saturday before the final (scheduled for Friday), but then I received an email from my Psy Research teacher that our group project got selected as one of the Top 5 projects of the class, and would be presenting for extra credit that Monday. (More on that tomorrow.) So there went my weekend. I didn't want to let my group down, and well... I wanted to win.

So that left me Monday through Thursday to study, keeping in mind that my final paper for Psy Research was also due Friday. We had two full chapters to cover (11 and 12), and then five partial chapters to study for (in order of assumed importance - 16, 17, 13, 14, 10). I divided the chapters up to cover Monday through Wednesday, and to just review on Thursday.

It didn't turn out that way. I didn't study Monday, but I still did get studying in the rest of the three days. I'd read a section of a chapter, digest the information, study the figures we needed to learn, and then took a break. I'd write down all the info from memory, and redraw the diagrams til I could regurgitate it just fine, then moved on to the next section.

It was a nice system, and with frequent breaks, it didn't feel like it took too much time out of my day. It's nice not cramming material the night before. My study habits aren't where they should be yet, but they're certainly improving. I didn't feel pressure when it came to studying for Genetics and meeting up with my group to work on our presentation and paper, but if I went into pharmacy school now I don't think it'd be good enough. (Another thing that I did was to delete Plants vs Zombies from my computer, which was sucking up a couple hours of time each day.)

Then came the actual final. The way I calculated it, I needed to get 104 points out of 100 points + 5 extra credit, to get an A. That would be highly unlikely. I had a 21 point cushion to get that A- and not drop down to a B+. As it is right now, I feel I should have gotten an A in the class, but an A- will be acceptable. I won't be happy, but I'll accept it. Getting a B- would be dissatisfying, and a B would be somewhat devastating.

From an Admissions standpoint (at least the one that I have in my head), this is my first science class since I switched to pharmacy, and I only had a 6 unit semester, so I should have gotten an A. On the other hand, since this is my first science class since I switched majors, maybe there's some leeway there. When I'm done, they'll see my progression and recovery since the "bad days" as long as I really do get all A's and some A-'s with the rest of my classes, maybe it's not so bad. And this isn't my last science class at SFSU anymore, like I thought in the beginning of the semester, since I'll be able to take Cell Bio and General BioChem this summer. (Although it's my last first attempt science class... sheesh... I think things through way too much.)

So I went in, and took the final, and it was pretty easy. All the answers came to me pretty quickly. I didn't answer what I assume is 1 point of the extra credit, and 2 points of the regular questions, so that guarantees no A in the class (unless the professor "curves" the scores, which I will not rely on), but that was unlikely in the first place.

But... while I felt I finished with a good 10 minutes left, and was just glancing over all my answers, as soon as I walked out the door, I realized I messed up a simple part of the first question! It was a 20 point question. I tried calculating it in my head, and originally thought I'd for sure get 12-14 points wrong. Adding that to the questions I didn't answer, that left me with 4 points left of my cushion left!! But after thinking more about it, I think it's more like 6-8 points marked off, which is a little bit better.

Realizing a mistake right when you leave an exam is not a fun experience. It's been constantly popping up in my mind these past three days. I do not want a B+. I do want to see my grade now, but I'll have to wait until June 2nd. We'll see how it goes then.

SFSU Genetics Exam 2 Results

Ok, exam results in, and it's not good. I got a 62 on the exam. A 62!! Of all the thoughts that went through my head as I walked out that door, almost the wost case scenario happened. The big issue... problem number 1 which was worth 30 points.  

It was one of those problems that had multiple parts to it (5pts, 10pts, 10tps, and 5pts)  For some reason my mind couldn't just quite get the first step to the problem (figuring out the order between three genes) and that messed up my results for the rest of the problem. I changed my answer to one part losing me 5pts, missed a 10pts part, and only got half of the other 10pt part. Netting me only 5 points. (I do however think I should have gotten partial points because I did the calculations flawlessly, just with the wrong assumed order. I'll be going to my professor's office hours and discuss that.) Considering how much time I spent on problem 1 that took time away from reviewing a simple problem that I wanted to take a second look at, in total that simple mistake cost me anywhere from 20-30 points on this exam.

So where does that leave me? There are 400 points to the class. I got a 99 for Exam I + Bonus Quiz.. I have perfect attendance which should equal 50 points. I have my research paper on ALS turned in which can get me up to 50 points. With this 62 points, that's a total of 261 points of 300 taken so far, with 100 left to go.  Sort of.

Good news is that the professor is going to give us a take home exam. Open book, open notes, open people.  The score on this take home exam will be averaged with my lowest score. That means my 62 can turn into an 81. I need a 92% to get an A in the class.  So I have a 12 point window if I perfect the take home and the paper. Perfecting the paper is unlikely. I'm guessing 1 to 5 points taken away from that. If I can get some partial credit of 2 points on my Exam 2 raw score (netting me 1 point after averaging a perfect take home.) then that means I have an 8 point window for Exam 3.

That A is still possible, but I want it guaranteed.  I'll be going to my professor's office hours once a week from here on out.  I don't want a stupid brain fart to cripple my score again.  There will be no bonus quiz this time.  No take home exam.  Exam 3 is Exam 3 and that's it.

Google Docs is Your Friend - Psy Group Project Lit Review

I haven't posted in nearly a week, not because I had nothing to say, but because I was trying to focus. Had a group project due today. Pretty much we had to research, summarize, and put together a paper that describes all the related previous research for the project we chose. That sounds fairly simple. But we had to cite at least twenty peer reviewed journal articles. And that means finding and reading much, much more than twenty articles. Thankfully things are easier now with internet databases at our finger tips, but still... it's like going to a wikipedia article, then clicking on a link in the article to lead you to another, which will lead to another, and another, until you found enough useful information to tell the story you want to tell.

Thankfully my group members did their share of the work for the most part. Certainly one of the best groups I've worked with in recent memory. I did not feel like I was alone doing all the work. One of them didn't help as much when consolidating our different segments of the paper into one coherent paper with one coherent voice, but he did a lot of research, and I find that to be the harder part. I enjoy writing.

And even with just three people, sometimes it's hard to get together all at the same time, but I came up with the idea to use Google Docs from the beginning. If we found an article, we numbered it, linked it, and put it up there. If someone summarized an article, even one that they didn't find themselves, they left the notes up there for everyone to see. If we had messages to each other, we left them up there. And you can see when other people are on there the same time as you.

There is no chat feature incorporated into the software, but eventually I came up with the idea to just box off the top section of the doc with some dashed lines, and labeled it chatbox. So when we put together the final paper, and edited each other's sections, and went through the checklist of things we needed to accomplish, we could leave messages for each other fairly easily, since we knew to periodically look up and check for new messages. Not as convenient as a true chat feature, but came pretty close.

Google docs is such a beautiful program. Simultaneous editing until 3am in the morning, all from the comfort of our own homes even though we live pretty far apart. And no need for one person to do the work, email it to everyone else and have them review it, and then someone else revise and email it out again. So convenient, so useful. Google docs is your friend.

Alarm Failure... My First Missed Class

Oh man.  I already missed one day of class.  I slept through my alarm on Friday.  Well... not exactly.  I set my alarm to go off at 6 o'clock... but I set it for 6pm, rather than 6am!  What this means is that I most likely missed a pop quiz that was strongly hinted at for my Psy Research class which was worth a decent amount of points.  (Only 6 pop quizzes for the semester.)

And on top of that, I had my Saturday class today, and when I set my alarm to 8 o'clock, I forgot that it was still in the PM time range!  I woke up at 8:43, and luckily my community college is nearby, and I made it to class on time.

So I went and ordered a new alarm clock from Amazon, this one with dual alarms.  We'll see how that's going to work out for me.

First Week of My Last Semester at SFSU

My first week is over.  I'm not used to having to leave the house at 6:30am, but I'm managing.  I need a bit more work in fixing my sleep cycle but I'm getting there.

And 6:30 isn't exactly right either.  I can leave a little bit later, but 6:30 is being safe.  I'm doing the dreaded morning commute across the San Francisco Bay Bridge during the peak hours.  I actually got to a late start on Monday and left at 7:00am and got to class by 8:20am (it starts at 8:10am).  On Friday I left at 6:45am and got there by 7:30am.  That's only a difference of 15 minutes for departure time, but a 50 minute difference in arrival!

But on to my classes...

Intro Psy Research

It's hard to evaluate the class.  It's a large class, and we spent most of the time with administration issues. There wasn't much actual learning.  That ended up being somewhat convenient, since my textbook should arrive from amazon.com tomorrow.  I do hope the learning ramps up soon though.

Genetics

Now for this class I had the book before the first class started, and I was glad I did. The professor definitely expects you to read the relevant chapter before going into lecture.  There's no step by step instruction on minute details.  I like that.  This is my first science class in three semesters, and I want it to be challenging.  It's time to dive back in.

GLP and GMP: Principles & Compliance

This is just a one unit class at my community college.  I didn't really know what to expect out of it, but it seemed like it might be relevant.  And since it takes place only over three Saturdays, if I was wrong, then it wouldn't be a big deal.  After the first class is over... I'm still not sure.  We went over some of the basic history of some of the laws that I had to learn about when studying for the PTCE like the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, we learning how to write proper research notebooks, and then given worksheets and homework to help us learn how to navigate the FDA website.

I think what I'm getting out of it is worth it.  I am actually learning some stuff.  And this should help me be able to register for future classes as a continuing student, when it comes time to retake some prerequisites.


My Cat

Since I mentioned my cat a couple days ago, and how he made me late on Monday, I thought I'd put up one last update about Pouncer.  The cancer has seriously impeded his ability to eat.  I was watering down soft canned food and he still couldn't eat that.  He would start choking and then back away from food.  Now he just looks and the food and doesn't even try to eat it.  =/  Today he pretty much just drank a lot of milk after he saw that he couldn't eat the food we were trying to feed him.  So tomorrow we'll be taking him in to the vet before he starts starving.  That would be a horrible way to go.  I'm gonna miss him.

My Final Undergrad Semester Begins!

Finally my last semester as an undergrad has begun. It's a relief, but one that comes with many regrets. I wish I had more time to retake some of the pre-pharm prerequisites. But I have no choice. I have reached the end of my degree completion plan, and the school knows it.  They even sent me an email saying, "The spring 2010 will be the last semester that you are permitted to attend San Francisco State University." to let me know that they know it.

With as impacted as a lot of the programs are at SFSU, more specifically the chem and bio departments, and the push to relieve that stress on the school (so far as to no longer admit freshmen and transfers for this Spring semester), that means I'll have to get lucky if I'm going to be able to take any of the prerequisites at SFSU.

There is absolutely zero chance of being able to squeeze my way in to any class through the Open University method (which is last priority, open to everyone including non-students), so I'll have to be on the look out for any prerequisites that are offered as night courses and pay a high per unit cost.

So how did my day go?

- My Cat & Getting to School

Well... my schedule is 8:10-9:00am Introduction to Psychology Research, then 9:10-10:00am for Genetics. I was doing well this whole week prior in getting my body adjusted for the morning commute across the Bay Bridge. That meant I would need to leave the house at 6:30am to comfortably arrive at SFSU, find parking, and make it to class.

Well... problem is that my cat got sick. He's 14 years+, he has cancer in his mouth, and lost all his teeth.  We're ready to put him to sleep sometime within the next several weeks, because it's getting hard for him to even eat the soft canned food. And he got sick over the weekend, constantly sneezing and having a hard time breathing. And he likes to sleep in my bed.

What this means for me is that while I went to bed at 9:00pm, he kept me up all night. I never slept for more than two hours at a time. I didn't have the heart to kick him out of my room.  I'd wake up and the clock showed 2:10, then 2:30, 4:00, 5:05. I was thinking that I'd get up shortly after 6:00am to get ready and be out the door by 6:30am. But when I woke up for the last time, it was already 6:53!

I got out of bed, threw on some clothes, grabbed a Nutri-grain bar, and headed off to school. Some teachers  drop students if they don't show up to the first day of class. Even though I left the house thirty minutes later than I planned, I was still able to get in the door only ten minutes late.

- Intro Psy Research

As I walked through to door, the teacher commented on how students shouldn't be late. (Perhaps she's new, she definitely isn't the regular Psy Research teacher who teaches all the sections.)  I didn't plan on being late of course, but I also knew I wouldn't the last to enter. It was the first day of class, and there hasn't been a single class that I've ever attended where students didn't keep on coming in late on the first day, as students fumbled through their new schedules. Especially morning classes.

I must have been the one of the first few people to arrive late, because sure enough, people kept on coming in up to fifteen minutes after I arrived. Her reaction was also exceedingly more and more harsh, so the point that this one girl froze as she entered because the professor grunted at her, then violently waved her hand in a hurrying motion telling the girl to go find a seat.

As I don't plan on ever being late, I don't expect to get that reaction anytime soon. But who knows.  Occasionally something happens.

- Genetics

Genetics was a much more pleasant reaction. Besides haven't to stand the entire time because the room was full of enrolled students and students who wanted to add, the teacher seemed friendly, laid out some straight forward grading policies, explained the book and the associated website that goes along with it, and overall created a very comfortable environment.

Later on today I'll be downloading the syllabus, and begin reading chapter one today (and finish reading it by Wednesday's class). I'm also going to be taking all her suggestions in working on the problems in the book, even though they won't be collected for points, as well as going through the activities on the book's website.

I'm excited to be in my first science course in a while, and especially one that's fresh material.  It's nice having a desire to learn once again. And applying that desire in a class that I know will benefit me in the career that I'm pursuing.

CCC - Spring 2010

Well, I went an enrolled into a one unit class at my community college.

Course Title: GLP and GMP; Principles and Compliance 

Description:  This course will introduce students to the laws, regulations, and quality practices associated with the biotechnology industry, with emphasis on the development of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Students will gain hands-on experience navigating and using the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website.

It's only a one unit class from 9am to 3pm, and takes place for only three Saturdays during the semester.  I'm taking the class for several reasons.  For one thing, I had no idea my community college offered classes like this, and it's not something that SFSU offers.  Another is of course that it seems like something that might be useful to know.  Another reason is that I need to look for more units to take that aren't repeat classes.

And the final reason is that by taking one class in the Spring, I'll be able to get in on the early enrollment of continuing students for the Summer or Fall (whichever I do first), rather than have to wait for the new student enrollment period.  I've been through enough enrollment problems in the past.  That's not going to happen again.