My 200 Level Transition Experience.

One of the best things, that ever happened to me was being fully confirmed as a medical student after the 100 level struggle.I was living in fear and trembling before the results came out, but God made a way for me.

The number of students in our class were more than the college should promote to 300 level.According to them they needed 50 students, but we were 104 -including 25 repeating students.

I knew it would be a great competition and rigorous selection process.It wasn’t just about passing but passing well enough to be among the first 50 students, so I was very determined to give it my all and succeed, be among the first 50.

My first three in-course test results came out and weren’t so good. They were far below what I expected, despite all my preparation. As time went on, I tried different reading patterns but there wasn’t still much improvement to the results.

I was depressed, devasted and down in spirit. Inferiority complex began to set in, I couldn’t even talk to some of my friends again.I felt so low and insecure that I couldn’t even contribute to their discussions even when I knew what they were talking about. In all these, I never got discouraged, I kept hope alive.

I believed God could still turn things around so I kept on putting my best. My friends also began to encourage me, not give up, that things were still going to be better.I also encouraged myself, I never gave up. I kept trying until I discovered what worked best for me.

Things started changing in second semester, my results were getting better.

The transition examination time-table was released and there was a lot of heresay amongst us because passing only 50 students to the next class was a big concern for everybody.I had to reduce my extracurricular activities and relocated fully to class to study hard and avoid distractions of any kind.

It turned out really bad for me when I woke up one morning and my laptop was no where to be found.It was stolen when everyone was asleep. I then had a road accident 7 days later during which my phone screen was broken.

All my study devices were all gone!!

I am grateful for my classmates who stood by me, one of them even gave me a laptop to read for the exam. And as the exam day drew nearer, we were given just a week to do revision.
Anatomy department didn’t allow us to make much of the week because they bombarded us with tests.

Preparing for in-course tests and the major exam was not too easy. I did my final revision on Sunday which was a day before the exam. I was awake throughout the night studying just to make sure that wall of Jericho fell flat before me.

On the examination day, we started with biochemistry, I was so anxious and disturbed.I sat down quietly imagining what the questions would look like.

After receiving instructions to start, the questions were not smiling.It was tougher than I expected. Do you know the worst thing?!
We were given just 1hr 30minutes instead of the normal 3 hours to answer almost 500 MCQ questions.

When I discovered that the questions on the first 3 pages were not easy, I jumped to the back, to my surprise the simple questions were carefully packaged at the last part of the paper. I managed to finish all the ones I knew before the stoppage time and left the ones I didn’t know.

We we’re given a short break before we wrote the theory which turned out to be bit better.

I answered the ones I knew. I had some rest after the paper and did my final revision for Physiology which was the next day.
It was very much easier than the biochemistry and took me some little time to answer the MCQ.

Before the theory session, I tried putting final touches to some things but it was a tug-of-war between sleep and myself as it had been three days since I had any reasonable amount of sleep.

The theory questions were a big surprise to me because most of our in-course test questions were repeated but I didn’t pay attention to those questions when I was revising. Well, some of the things I read for the exams came out, (Glory be to God!) and I was able to use residual knowledge to tackle most of the questions.

Anatomy was the last paper which fell on the third day, the MCQ was pretty easy but I was asked to submit before time during the theory session.

We were given some days to prepare for the practical. I studied well for it and had a series of discussion with my classmates. The practicals were not too difficult except histology. Projecting those slides and expecting us to answer within 30 seconds wasn’t easy

The Viva voce was the seemingly going to be the toughest part, but then I prepared for it like other papers.

On the day of the viva, my lab coat got burnt while I was ironing that morning and it left me a bit destabilized because I had nowhere to borrow another one. I had to go for the oral exam like that and I prayed as I was going to the college for the viva.

My first viva was in the Biochemistry department, and it was so clear that I was restless even to the examiner.He asked me to relax for about 2 minutes before he asked me a question. He asked me if I had eaten and I should tell me how the food I ate could be broken down to energy, which I answered perfectly and he was impressed.

The 2nd question came but I didn’t know the perfect answer to it.I was just trying to say something when a lecturer knocked the door telling the examiner to release me.That’s how I
escaped from the department.

I went straight to physiology department for my orals.
People coming out of this man’s office were not smiling at all. I went inside his office when it was my turn and I was able to answer all his questions except one. I was then angry at myself for not being able to remember a question as simple as ‘total body water’.
I quickly forgot about it and went to anatomy department. It was the easiest of them all. I was just asked to identify some bones and determine the side they belong to.

I left the school premises after the exam and went to my aunt’s house.

Waiting for the results to be pasted wasn’t an easy period for me. How would it be if only 50 students made it out of 104 students? Would I be among the first 50 students? Would I be withdrawn with all the stress I’d gone through?

These were the questions running through my mind.

I prayed to God at the point the result I realized it was out of my control.I was a bit restless at home and my aunt keep assuring that all will be fine and I never stopped praying and declaring God’s word.

Monday came, when the college staff had a board meeting but guess what?
The meeting was inconclusive. I never stopped praying.They had another meeting on Friday of that same week but the results still weren’t released. It was then that I knew that there was a problem.

When the results were taking time to be released, I traveled back home to meet my parents the following week. I heard a rumour that the results would be released the day I left my aunt’s house. When I got home, I greeted my parent and they were very happy to see me, it’d been a year since I went home last.

I wasn’t too happy because I didn’t know what my results would turn out to be. I picked up my phone to call one of my friend to ask if the results had been released.

He picked the call and started giving me some words of consolation. I was already in another realm. “Tell me if I’ve been withdrawn!”, I shouted.

He said no that my name is among the repeating student. I couldn’t cry but I felt relieved as if a burden was lifted off my head.

I give thanks to God for the second chance to do 200 level again, because many people were withdrawn.

When school resumed another session, I was very curious to know the course I failed. I went round the three department to check my results, I found out that it was Anatomy.

It was a big surprise though because I wasn’t doing bad in that department.

I felt really bad about repeating at first but I got over it with time. Besides, almost half of my set were asked to repeat, so I wasn’t alone. The juniors who used to see me as their motivation now found themselves in the same class with me.

Without much ado, I saw it as an opportunity to relearn and understand the basics of medicine and I had a deeper understanding of whatsoever I read.

By: Olanrewaju Seun
For: TSW