health psychology – Imaginary Sunshine

The end of a chapter; the beginning of the next.

Michelle — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:30:35 +0000

So today I got all of my grades in for the term (the one I was waiting on was one of my harder classes this term – Animal Ethics where the last 45% of my grade was based on a term paper and web-based presentation). I ended off with:

Animal Ethics – A-
Health Psychology – B+
Human Sexuality – A+

I ended off my last term at this school with an A average. It was also my best year (September-April) of my undergrad yet with a B+ average overall.

When I started my undergrad back in 2007 (yes, it took me 5 years to complete a 4 year degree, shuddup), my average for my first year was 57%. I got put on academic probation, I failed a few (three) classes. And every term since then, I’ve gotten my average higher and higher. The only time my grades dipped again was when I retook first year calculus and when I took organic chem (but I passed it on the first go, unlike a lot of my classmates that had to take it twice or more). I actually aced the final of my calculus course (the second time around), but did poorly overall in the course but he passed me based on the fact that I got an A on the final. Me, calculus, an A final. Who would have thought?

That said, it’s kind of bittersweet that it’s all coming to an end. My graduation ceremony is in late May, which I’m pretty excited about. I won’t find out if there’s extra tickets for the ceremony until mid-May. I ordered the cap and gown (paid a deposit). The word “science” appears in the title of my degree four times. Yeah, they really want to emphasize my science prowess.

As for the future? I’ve applied to several schools for their nursing programs. I got rejected by one school (average wasn’t high enough, even though it was well above the minimum average), didn’t get enough “education points” from another school (it’s 0pts if you don’t have a completed degree, even though I was 9 credits away from finishing mine, that was disappointing and felt like a waste of money), I’ll find out about one school sometime in May (but it has 16 spots, so I’m not entirely sure about that one… Depends on my competition) and then there’s school #4. I’ll be finding out on Monday (30th) if I’m in or not. I hope I am… I have really strong references for it, decent grades, hopefully a good Letter of Intent that I agonized over before sending it in.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Classes, graduation, excitement?

Michelle — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:53:46 +0000

What has Michelle been doing lately? That is a very good question…

I had my first midterms for both Human Sexuality & Health Psychology (just this week’s Monday and Tuesday). I’ve also been working on my ‘upgrade’ courses for Biology 12 and Chemistry 11, so yay for that. Animal Ethics is heavily involved with class discussions, we also get assignments right after class for the next class, so there’s quite a bit to do for that course. I’m not a fan of needing to speak in class, I will if I have something that I feel that I need to say, but it sucks when you’re being graded on participation and therefore end up feeling like you need to say something.

I’ve been working on knitting a lot lately, it’s what I do when I procrastinate (at least I’ll be stressed and warm? I don’t know how that’s suppose to work). I booked my appointment for getting my grad portrait done, which is kind of exciting. It means that I’m nearly done (!) and I’ll have both the degree paper and a photograph of me in a cap and gown to show for it. It almost doesn’t seem as big of a deal as graduating high school was. In high school, everyone was getting cap and gown photos, trading the wallet-size photos and there was just this huge sense of excitement in the air. For university, there is no time to pause and really go “Yeah, we are graduating this year” because not everyone in my classes is graduating. Even though I’m taking upper-level courses, not everyone is in the same year level as me (there’s even a 2nd year student in one of my courses).

Maybe I just don’t find it as exciting because I’m taking courses that involve so much more work, hah. That and I’ve been applying for programs for the upcoming school year so there’s no definite “ending” to it. It’s not like when I was graduating high school because I knew from January on that I had already been offered spots in my top 3 schools with my interim grades so I didn’t really need to worry. Plus I had been offered entrance scholarships right off the bat (it wasn’t a huge scholarship, mind you, but it was better than nothing). This time around, it’s all nerves for me because I won’t be hearing back for final enrolment decisions for August/September until about April-June and that’s still going to be a while.

And… yeah, that’s all for now. How have you been?

New year, new term, new schedule

Michelle — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:06:35 +0000

Hello 2012! I started my second term on January 5th. I’m taking three courses this term: Animal Ethics and Welfare, Health Psychology and Human Sexuality. It’s also my first time taking an online course (Human Sexuality). I’m currently waiting on my textbooks to arrive – I won’t really need them until the end of the month. My courses this term involve a group blog (Human Sexuality), a term project with a website presentation (Animal Ethics and Welfare) and nothing but 3 tests (Health Psychology).

In other news, my application for graduation means that this is my last term for my degree. And I only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday – which means I get four day weekends all the time. Yes, I’m quite happy about that. Maybe not with the sheer amount of work for 3 credits in some of my classes, but still, quite happy with my long weekends all the time (yes, I’m rubbing that in now). I’m going to be retaking three high school courses though, because it’s been more than 5 years since I took them and I need them to apply for one of the schools that I was hoping to apply to. Other applications are going well, just waiting for transcripts to be mailed from my current school to the other ones and to hand in high school transcripts. So I think I’ll be working on those three classes (Math 11, Chem 11, Biology 12) when I can, along with other course work and volunteering and other commitments.

Other than school, that’s all that is currently going on in my life (yay…). School, school and… more school.