In Short: pure hell.
Academically
All classes we’re very slow to start especially having been an previous Foundations student.
BioEthics: any student will tell you this is the most unfair course ever made, your grade is practically determined by a roll of the dice, exam questions are unfair – good thing it’s only 1 unit otherwise people might riot
Histology: Deceivingly difficult. Most students ignore this course and put minimum effort into it because the lecture schedule is not heavy and you can scoot by lab with minimum effort if you do not feel like learning the material. However there is actually a lot of detail to memorize when you sit down and finally read everything. Exam time comes and people are panicking at the volume of stuff they ignored. Bottom line: what should have been a “relatively” easy A turned out to be a disappointment for a lot of people. Although failing the course is not common.
Biochemistry: There are two ways to tackle this beast: 1 – actually understand what’s going on or 2 – memorize random facts without connecting the dots. I personally think method #1 is much easier but some people just hate Biochemistry so much they rather not think about it and just memorize facts. Understanding concepts will get you a B, but there are some borderline unfair details they ask that you will need to know to get an A. Good thing about this course is that all the professors are good.
Anatomy: “The Beast” – it’s worth about 50% of your GPA in Term 1. Between the lectures, labs, and group discussions, this course takes up an ENORMOUS amount of time. I lost more sleep to this course than any other. The sheer volume of material is overwhelming. This is the course that students worry about failing. Even if your a former Foundations student the benefit is not that drastic.
Personally
The term started out very slowly, most foundations students were very bored the first few weeks. Then things went into overdrive out of nowhere. I usually say that the average medical student is allowed to have one emotional break down or crisis per semester. But I think I had couple including an episode where I was so stressed out I couldn’t sleep for 4 days. That’s surprising given the fact that I’m usually not one to stress out. I’m more of laugh or *sigh* as your plane is crashing into the ocean kinda guy.
