Once again, I find myself in the unfortunate position of catching you up on a couple months’ worth of activities instead of writing a little bit as I go through the days and weeks. This entry will be shorter than my last one, since there’s really not that much to report on, outside of school.

This will be repeat information for many people on my Facebook feed, but I just completed my second semester of college. This semester I took 14 credit hours, up significantly from the six I started with last fall. I was taking Anatomy & Physiology I, one of my pre-requisite courses for my cardiovascular sonography degree program; Applied Physics, another pre-requisite; English Composition I, a co-requisite course; and Effective Learning, the college’s introductory course in learning and life skills that it requires all students to take early in their degree program. Physics and A&P are both hard classes, designed to weed out students before they get into the program. English Comp is pretty much just that – I was worried about it, though, since I generally don’t write well when assigned a topic. Effective Learning was a comparatively easy course, but outside of labs was the only instance where I had to work with other students on projects and the only instance of doing a class presentation at all. I was very worried about how I’d be able to respond to that much schooling at once.

I survived the semester! I was worried about my grade for three of the four classes – I was pretty sure I’d made at least a B in them but wanted to do as well as I could on the final exams. I must have done well enough. I got straight A’s for the semester!

Throughout all my years of schooling, I have never gotten all A’s for a grading period. While I was an intelligent child, I was also lazy, and in my early years in school was promoted from grade to grade based simply on my ability to perform well on tests, rather than taking into consideration my homework, or lack thereof. That habit started to cost me in middle and high school, though, and my grades suffered for it. I never learned effective time management skills for doing homework and studying and I was a champion procrastinator. So this accomplishment is very special to me.

It puts me on the President’s Honor Roll for the semester, the first time I’ve ever been on any honor roll at any level. It also makes my overall GPA a 3.85 and my pre-requisite GPA a 3.73. The pre-requisite GPA is important for my program application in the spring of 2019. My degree program requires a 2.0 GPA on pre-requisite courses, but I’ve been advised that a 3.5 is competitive to enter the program. My performance so far puts me in good shape heading into the fall, when I’ll take my final pre-requisite course.

So my plan for the rest of my pre-program education looks like this.

In the summer, I’m taking Essentials of Medical Terminology. While this is technically part of the degree requirement, it can be taken prior to applying for a small number of points on the application worksheet. It is an online course and will be the only one that I take for this degree. I hope that I’ve learned enough discipline to keep up with my studies without the structure of an in-class schedule.

In the fall, I’ve got Anatomy & Physiology II, Ethics, Interpersonal Communication, and Introduction to Psychology. A&P II is my final pre-requisite, the others are my final co-requisites. It’s 13 credit hours, but if I can get all A’s on 14, I can do it again this fall.

In the spring of 2019, I’m going to be taking the Certified Nurse Aide program. My degree program requires formal patient care education, and the minimum requirement that meets that is the CNA program. It’s an intense three-week program, Monday through Thursday, 9:00 am-3:30 pm, so it will leave most of the spring semester free for me to prepare for the TEAS exam that is also required by my degree program. And then it’s just a matter of sending in the application and waiting.

I’m looking forward to the rest of this path and to the work that lies ahead of me in the profession. And I’m looking forward to writing more this summer.