Open Book Test You Say?!

One of my favorite classes this quarter has been synthesis.  I think I've mentioned it before, but every week we get case studies and have to make connections with disease processes, symptoms, risk factors, medications etc. The class really makes you put together everything we've learned in a realistic cases.  Just to think in a few weeks I'll be doing that with a real person! There is little leg work that goes into this class, you show up each week work through the case and that's pretty much it.  The best part is even the tests are open note because the purpose of this class is to make sense of the information, not just memorize it.  People literally rolled into class with carry-on suitcases filled with books.  I put my books on a scale just for curiosity when I got home and they weighed in at a whopping 31.8 pounds!  I swear I'm going to need a chiropractor after nursing school.

Everything I carried around for the exam

I really rocked it on the midterm, but that didn't matter much because the final case was worth 50% of my grade anyways.  Our teacher surprised us by assigning us to groups of 3 or 4 for the final.  I was on the fence about it though.  I was barely able to finish the three hour exam by myself and if you add the element of discussion with teammates... I was afraid time would be our enemy.  My group worked like a well oiled machine and we were able to finish with 20 minutes to spare.  I know this class is only worth 1 credit hour, but 1 hour was all it took to put me on academic probation last quarter.  Im hoping to pull out an A on this one!