Remind me why I’m doing this? I swore I’d never put myself through it again.
Amid the bittersweet feelings at the end of my veterinary degree – sadness I’d never pass time in quite the same way with many of my fellow students again, nervousness about a suddenly unplanned future (I’d known exactly what I wanted to do from the moment I read If Only They Could Talk, aged 12) and anxiety bordering on terror that I would now be expected to actually do the job I had been learning about for half a decade – I had an overwhelming feeling of relief that I would never, under any circumstances, sit another exam again.
I have almost no memory of my finals…
Looming shadows
At the University of Bristol, we had no written exams – instead, we had a series of vivas on various different subjects.
When I think back, I get vague flashes of waiting rooms, nervous students and rumours spreading (“You’ve got to work out the fermentable metabolisable energy in a dairy herd”), but as to what I actually experienced, or any questions I was asked, you may as well ask me what my memories are of the Cretaceous period.
I can only remember I didn’t enjoy it much, in the same way I probably wouldn’t enjoy a road traffic collision.
I had spent the past many, many years having Easters, summers and Christmases overshadowed by the looming shadow of exams beyond them – veterinary exams, A levels, AS levels and GCSEs.
I didn’t know exactly what my veterinary future held, but I knew one thing for sure it wouldn’t – I was done with exams.
Yet, here I am, writing a veterinary blog nearly 20 years later and unable to think of a single topic except revision and exams, because I’m sitting an exam on general pathology in around three weeks’ time (at the time of writing).
Some people come away from a midlife crisis with a Porsche… I ended up with a stack of revision.
Joy of learning
Don’t get me wrong, becoming a resident in clinical pathology was the best career move I made.
I enjoyed general practice (kind of… mostly… I think my other blogs have said enough about this), but I am greatly enjoying the process of learning again. I had almost forgotten the joy of learning about biology; about these fascinating, mind-bogglingly complex meaty machines that can live, feel, and look up at the stars and wonder.
Unfortunately, I had also forgotten that dreadful, sinking, slow-burning feeling of constrained panic as exams approach; the dizzying mental roller-coaster of thinking you might actually be able to pass one moment and thinking you haven’t got a whelk’s chance in a supernova the next.
Déjà vu
It’s surprising what comes back to you, and how little I’ve changed in the intervening years.
If you’d asked me exactly how I set about revising for an exam five years ago, I couldn’t have told you, but now I find myself treading a path that brings back memories of my old student halls – making notes from textbooks, then making notes from those notes, then pacing around the room reading the notes of notes over and over again, jamming them into my brain, interspersed with moments of utter panic that I’ve somehow missed out everything important from the textbook, thinking the notes I’m learning are utterly useless and I have no time left to sort out my ghastly mistake…
This time has a few differences; however, by an unfortunate coincidence of timing, my wife – also a vet who made similar declarations of lifelong exam abstinence when she qualified – had an exam very close to mine.
She sat hers around a week ago, so our household has recently comprised one of us watching over the kids while the other desperately tries to jam more information into our obstinate, ageing brains.
Same difference
The ageing brain, as well as the wife and children, were not things I had to contend with in the run up to my finals.
So, now her exam is done, I’ve been spending days in the local library in an effort to find some elusive peace and quiet – although I’ve discovered it’s amazing how many people feel it’s okay to sidle up and chat to a stressed-looking man reading a copy of Robbins and Cotran Pathological Basis of Disease, no matter how non-committally he grunts at them when they attempt to strike up a conversation.
Another difference is the subject itself. General pathology is fascinating (really, it is!) but man do those pathologists like acronyms and esoteric names for their chemicals – all of which might pop their unwelcome heads up in my upcoming exam.
In the past few months, I’ve become intimately familiar with (among many others): SNAIL, TWIST, SNARE, MAGE, Bim, Bid, Bak, Bad, RANTES, NOD, SOD, TIMPS, Notch, FRIZZLED, Flip, Flippase, Floppase, AIRE, RAG, ALPS, SCID and, of course, Sonic Hedgehog.
It’s difficult to visualise and completely understand a lot of the pathways involved, and much more rote learning needs to be done than I’m used to (take a bow, C3bBbP).
Future perfect
As I tap away, I’m thinking of someone reading this in the future; in that fabled, unimaginable world where a Nick is walking around (hopefully) who’s finished his bloody general pathology exam and isn’t worrying about it anymore.
Did he pass? Did he fail? Did he faint during the exam? He knows, and I don’t, and I am so jealous of that future self.
One of the few things I remember from a previous exam is a vivid memory of walking down towards the Wills Memorial Building from my hall of residence, and watching other people commuting to work, settling down in their offices or digging up the road in fluorescent orange jackets and thinking, as I passed by every one of them: “You lucky, lucky bastards. You haven’t got an exam today. I would give anything, ANYTHING, to not have one either.”
This blog is dedicated to everyone – now and in the future – who has that same feeling I had walking down Whiteladies Road that day. Good luck to you all.
Remind me why I’m doing this? Plus, if you can spare a moment, some good luck vibes would be appreciated.
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