Yesterday the group ahead of ours graduated. Wow! Well done to all of them. However it does bring it home, that soon it will be us. Our lecturers are beginning to talk about job applications and portfolios and other paperwork that will need to be completed before we can qualify. In just a few weeks we will begin our final placement and we'll be aiming to get as much experience as we can whilst we are still students. I know I definitely feel like I still have so much to learn, and that there is no way I have enough time to learn it all. However I do feel that it is a bit like driving and passing your test. At first you know enough to pass...you've got the basics but you need experience to become more confident. You certainly can't know what you've never faced. I don't worry about it because I think it's far more dangerous to think you know it all. We are life long learners and it's important to remember that.
At times I still feel completely overwhelmed. If I think about my dissertation and assignment still to be written, my portfolio to complete, my genetics workbook to complete and everything else, I feel slightly ill. Therefore I try really hard to concentrate on one thing at a time. And that's just the academic side of things. This placement we also have to get all of our required deliveries and ensure we've got all our hours. I only need three more deliveries thankfully but I know that there are some of my cohort that need far more and they'll be pushing hard to get them now, so that they can qualify together with the rest of us.
In between studying and researching for my dissertation, I am spending quite a lot of time with my daughters Twirling group http://distinctiontwirlersofmedway.blogspot.co.uk/. I do think it is vital to have some time out from being a student midwife and for me, spending time with my family is essential. My eldest daughter has been twirling for just over a year now and my youngest joined her just a few months ago. Over the time they have been going, I have made some fantastic new friends and they too offer me support as a student. My eldest daughter used to be quite shy but her confidence has increased tenfold, through this hobby. This weekend, they both attended a competition and were both were fortunate enough to come home with trophies. A year ago I would never have thought it could be possible.
Recently I also helped at an open evening at my University. I really enjoyed seeing the potential students and their enthusiasm for midwifery. It reminded me of when I first started my journey to become a midwife and how excited I was. I am still excited about becoming a midwife and I look forward to my career and supporting women at such an important time of their lives. So when the amount of work to be done is getting me down, and overwhelmed, I just remind myself of why I set out on this journey and I battle on another day!
Showing posts with label tutor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tutor. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Sunday, 24 October 2010
A week at Uni
I began the week feeling very nervous about my exam. I was glad to have no lectures on the Monday so I could spend the whole day studying. My husband dropped me off at the library straight after we dropped our eldest off at school and I got straight down to work. The first thing I decided to do was my drugs calculation test; as I wasn't concerned about it, I thought I'd get it out of the way. I was more nervous doing it, than I expected to be so I made sure to take my time, read every question twice and double checked each answer. Thankfully I passed it first time so I could then forget about it.
Tuesday we had a full day of lectures and meetings which none of us really wanted, as we'd rather have been preparing for the exam. In fact there were quite a few empty chairs. We began the day with a cohort meeting although it was meant to be a skills lecture, we ended up switching the two around. The cohort meeting gave us an opportunity to raise any issues that had come up over placement, problems we'd come up against and also to celebrate our successes. It seems that the difficulties were things that had come up time and time before. There were quite a few girls that had had problems having their books signed off - that their mentors would repeatedly put it off, and then it would be too late. There also seemed to be a huge variation in the marks we'd been given. There is a mark guide and we'd been advised to explain that the mark scheme was based on us as first years and therefore we'd possibly need to push for higher marks if we felt we deserved it. Unfortunately some mentors would mark us as first years assuming the marking criteria would remain the same over the three years and wouldn't listen to any opinion given by the student. It certainly made me realise how lucky I had been with my mentor and how I'd been marked for my placement.
There was also some discussion about the attitude towards students from some of the midwives. It's very obvious those that are happy to work with students and those that aren't. Simply put it is an essential part of their job but like any job I guess, everyone has parts they don't want to do....doesn't make it easy for us as students however. We talked quite a lot about the different ways we had handled it and hopefully it will help us for our future placements.
We then had our skills lecture, personal tutor group meeting and finally a psycho-social lecture. It would have been far better to have had the psycho-social lecture at the beginning of the day as many people left by the end of the day, and I found it hard to concentrate by that point. Once we'd finished for the day I went straight to the library to squeeze in some final study for the exam. I must confess it wasn't very successful as I was very tired by then.
So Wednesday came and the nerves were fluttering. We were due to have a lecture for Values at 9 but I confess I skipped it in favour of some more last minute study. At 12 I made my way over to the room along with some of my colleagues. The exam was two hours long and afterwards there was the typical postmortem. I found it much harder than I'd expected in some parts and other parts were ok. I simply hope I have done enough to pass it!
The next couple of days were far nicer without the exam hanging over us, though we'll all be grateful in about 6 weeks when we get the results. We're already thinking ahead to our next assignment and also our next placement. And we're also beginning to think about our transition time when we can choose what we'd like to do for 3 weeks; well 100 hours. I've got a few ideas and it's a case of deciding which one to go for. Next year I think I would like to go and learn about fertility treatment and then potentially use that experience to follow through with my final dissertation.
Tuesday we had a full day of lectures and meetings which none of us really wanted, as we'd rather have been preparing for the exam. In fact there were quite a few empty chairs. We began the day with a cohort meeting although it was meant to be a skills lecture, we ended up switching the two around. The cohort meeting gave us an opportunity to raise any issues that had come up over placement, problems we'd come up against and also to celebrate our successes. It seems that the difficulties were things that had come up time and time before. There were quite a few girls that had had problems having their books signed off - that their mentors would repeatedly put it off, and then it would be too late. There also seemed to be a huge variation in the marks we'd been given. There is a mark guide and we'd been advised to explain that the mark scheme was based on us as first years and therefore we'd possibly need to push for higher marks if we felt we deserved it. Unfortunately some mentors would mark us as first years assuming the marking criteria would remain the same over the three years and wouldn't listen to any opinion given by the student. It certainly made me realise how lucky I had been with my mentor and how I'd been marked for my placement.
There was also some discussion about the attitude towards students from some of the midwives. It's very obvious those that are happy to work with students and those that aren't. Simply put it is an essential part of their job but like any job I guess, everyone has parts they don't want to do....doesn't make it easy for us as students however. We talked quite a lot about the different ways we had handled it and hopefully it will help us for our future placements.
We then had our skills lecture, personal tutor group meeting and finally a psycho-social lecture. It would have been far better to have had the psycho-social lecture at the beginning of the day as many people left by the end of the day, and I found it hard to concentrate by that point. Once we'd finished for the day I went straight to the library to squeeze in some final study for the exam. I must confess it wasn't very successful as I was very tired by then.
So Wednesday came and the nerves were fluttering. We were due to have a lecture for Values at 9 but I confess I skipped it in favour of some more last minute study. At 12 I made my way over to the room along with some of my colleagues. The exam was two hours long and afterwards there was the typical postmortem. I found it much harder than I'd expected in some parts and other parts were ok. I simply hope I have done enough to pass it!
The next couple of days were far nicer without the exam hanging over us, though we'll all be grateful in about 6 weeks when we get the results. We're already thinking ahead to our next assignment and also our next placement. And we're also beginning to think about our transition time when we can choose what we'd like to do for 3 weeks; well 100 hours. I've got a few ideas and it's a case of deciding which one to go for. Next year I think I would like to go and learn about fertility treatment and then potentially use that experience to follow through with my final dissertation.
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