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Good Morning
Good morning! I have to start off apologizing for not updating my site in a while. Even though I am not taking that many classes this semester, I am still extremely busy. This past week I have been working on my grad school applications… and let me tell you, applying to grad school is not an easy thing. It is a very different process than applying to undergraduate schools. What makes it hard is that after you determine which school you want to go to, you must then find that actual program within that school and apply to that. It may sound easy, but yesterday I must have spent at least 2 hours trying to locate the specific program that I wanted to apply to and then find the application that went with that particular program. As of right now, there are 2 schools that I am applying too: George Mason University and Johns Hopkins University. After my research, both schools have excellent graduate programs for Biotechnology/ Biodefense, which is what I think I would like to do after school.
Along with applying to graduate schools, I also have to keep up with my work for my classes. As I have told you before I am taking 3 classes + 1 lab + 1 Senior Thesis class. So far I am enjoying all of my classes. In Genetics, we are currently starting to prepare for our first exam, which is next week. Most of the focus so far in class has been on material that I have already learned in previous classes, which was a nice surprise, mainly involving the life cycle of cells. In my Genetics Lab, we are working with fruit flies. For this lab we are given mutant fruit flies along with wild type fruit flies and we are given the task of crossing them with one another so that in the end we can determine if the phenotypes from our mutant fruit flies are dominant or recessive, as well as autosomal or sex-linked. The lab itself is not very complicated but it is time consuming because it is done entirely on our own. My other classes are also going well so far. In Medical Terminology we show up once a week and take a test on medical terms so it is set up as a teach-yourself type class which I do not mind. And my last class is Values in Health Care which is based around the Ethical principles within health care issues. I have a paper due tomorrow that I must define what I consider is the most important core principle for Health care based out of: Patient Autonomy, Truthfulness, Maintaining Confidentiality, Doing What is Promised, Beneficence, Justice. Then I must define that term as my personal definition of the principle and how it will apply to my work after school. The paper only needs to be 2-3 pages but it will require some planning and thinking which I hope to finish sometime this afternoon.
Well I guess that is all for now! Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week! Feel free to ask me any questions about my classes or applying to grad schools.
Posted by Kristen on January 25, 2006 08:53 AM | Link | Email Kristen
7 Semesters Down... Only 1 More To Go
It’s finaly 2006, the year of graduation. It’s hard to believe that it starts my last semester here at JMU. The time absolutely flew by, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I had a great winter break spending most of my time with my family and relaxing. It was definitely much needed from all the stress of last semester. I did end up using some of my time at home to help decide what I will be doing next year. I took my GRE’s which is similar to the SAT’s but for graduate school and have a few applications which I will be working on over the next couple of weeks. I still haven’t decided if graduate school is what I really want to do so I will hopefully be submitting my resume to a few companies and possibly get a few interviews to help explore my options.
When scheduling for my classes this semester, I decided to go a bit easier on myself so instead of taking 20 credits like last I am only taking 13. I want to be able to enjoy the time that I still have with my friends here instead of worrying when I will be able to get all my work done. Today I have one class, Genetics, and the lab for that class. Looking at the classes that I will be taking I think this will be my hardest one, but hopefully it’s not too bad. Along with Genetics I will be taking another class in Health Administration as well as Medical Terminology. This gives me a total of 10 credits. I am also registered for my Senior Thesis class, but the nice thing about that is my thesis is pretty much all done. All that my partner and I have left for that is to give our presentation in April. I am extremely excited that we’ve finished the majority of our paper because that takes a lot of extra stress off my shoulders.
Well I hope everyone enjoyed their winter break. If you come across any questions please free feel to ask!
Posted by Kristen on January 9, 2006 10:29 AM | Link | Email Kristen
