Hello, all! Just as a disclaimer, I am writing this post neuroanatomy practical, so please forgive my typos.
I wanted to write a quick post about our wonderful professors at Ohio State. I have always loved my teachers growing up, my undergraduate professors at the University of Dayton, and now my optometry professors at OSU. A couple of weeks ago we had to vote on the professors to put our white coats on us (one month from today!), and the list included all of our professors we have had this year. I believe we have had 11 professors this year, and I found it very hard to choose just two to be part of our white coat ceremony. I am also reminded how much I love my professors when we fill out their evaluations for the year. I love the opportunity to reflect on the year and all that each person has taught me. I also find it impressive that our professors genuinely take our advice to heart. Several of my professors have made changes throughout the year to better accommodate us.
To explain my point, here are some examples of what our professors do for us. Our professors always print images for us if we have something we need to draw out. They could easily tell us to print it before class, but they go out of their way to print it. Last semester Dr. Chandler bought us some insane amount of Tim Horton’s Tim Bits because we had her class for four hours straight. Dr. VDN (Dr. Delgado-Nixon) has brought us breakfast and cookies several times throughout the year. Surprisingly, I could list others who have also brought us treats this year. Dr. Earley seems to always need to be in five places at once, but he scheduled two review sessions from 7-9am to review for our brain practical this week. Dr. Plageman has scheduled multiple review sessions for Friday at 5pm to ensure it allows all of us to come, which is time he could take to be home with his family. All of my professors email me back within the day, and they always do everything they can to accommodate our schedules for office hours. This list could go on and on!
We also become one big family with not just our classmates but our professors, too. Since there are only 66 of us in the class, our professors really get to know us. For instance, yesterday one of my classmates missed the first hour of Dr. VDN’s class and it was his birthday. Dr. VDN said we should call him to sing happy birthday, so somebody called him, put her on the phone, and then we all sang. Once was not enough, so then our epidemiology professor (Professor Mitchell) made sure we sang to him, again.
In addition to spending many hours with us in class, our professors also like to participate in many of the events that are after regular school hours. A couple of weeks ago the Private Practice Club had a trivia night at the student union, which I sadly didn’t get to go to. It looked super fun, though! Anyways, Dean Zadnik, Dr. Mutti, and Dr. Earley had a trivia team, so of course they won. We also are having a spelling bee this Thursday for fun and there are a variety of professors participating in that. As a former teacher, I know that by Friday night, I was usually pretty exhausted, and I think it is awesome that our professors are willing to spend their evenings with us.
I know this sounds so ridiculous, but I am just so grateful to have the professors we have here at Ohio State.
In other news, today I took the ominous brain practical that we have been worrying about since the start of the semester. In all honesty, I think that was the most stressed I have ever been for a test. I think it was really stressful because the amount of material is pretty overwhelming and the concept of a practical is just intimidating. It is scary to know you only have a small amount of time to look at something, identify it, and answer questions about what might happen if that structure is damaged or something. While that scares us now, it is an important thing to get used to. Soon we will be seeing patients, have to identify something, and know what happens when something goes wrong. Anyways, I am happy to report that I survived. It is always the weirdest feeling after a test you are really worried about because you want to celebrate and sleep all at the same time. For me, I was so caught up in neuroanatomy this week that finishing the practical made me realize, finals are coming!
It is a beautiful day so I think I will do my physical optics homework outside!