If it seems like I haven’t written in a while, it’s not for the lack of events. Oh goodness, have things happened! Rather, it’s because I haven’t really found the right words for the summary of this spring semester of second year. Everything I’ve come up with up to now is rather inadequate. Even now, as I type my observations, I struggle with what to say, how to describe just how truly…complex this particular end of the semester is for me. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but let’s give it the ole’ optometry school try.
I guess the overarching motif I’ve noticed these past few weeks is perhaps why it feels so complex. This semester’s end isn’t really an end at all. It’s a beginning. No, actually, it’s both. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” as the old song lyric goes.
So many gray areas! Let’s start with pre-clinical checkouts. As you might have heard from Amy, we’re done! In a sense, successful completion of the checkouts could be construed as the “true” end of second year. But it’s also a good beginning of third year. Before the checkout, you were not yet deemed ready for clinic. After, however, you were. Off to clinic you go. Congratulations! You’re a third year! But not yet. Finish your finals first, you second year, you.
Before the checkouts, anxiously awaiting to be paired with patient and staff doctor.
Then there’s also the club transitions. As the year ends, all the clubs hold elections for leadership positions for the next year. Again, it’s an interesting transition point, as one year seems to blend into the next. Essentially, next year’s clubs and events have already begun, though second year technically isn’t over yet. We as a class will soon enough be the leaders of the school! However, as we all know, with leadership comes responsibility. That mindset is a transition in and of itself, and I have every confidence that all the new student leaders in my class will definitely rise to the occasion.
At the NOSA End of the Year Picnic, Outgoing President Adam Young told us to take care of our organization and to leave it better than we found it. Sage advice that will certainly be followed.
We have big shoes to fill, and all this started to get very real when we got our clinic schedules and assignments. Equipped with a roadmap for the summer, our excitement was palpable. Soon, we will be seeing our first patients! And with that knowledge, one could not help but think further ahead. In the summer we’ll be deciding our externships. Fourth year will be planned out very soon. So there we were, still second years, thinking about being third years in a few weeks. In turn, our future third year selves are already thinking about being fourth year externs. Crazy. The blur between the years advances.
But, second years still had a few things left to do: a few practicals, some last quizzes, and finals, of course. We weren’t quite there yet. But now, that grueling finals week is finally over. We made it; we survived. The transition is ambiguous no more:
We are third years.
In a week, we’ll be seeing our first patients. That’s a huge transition, one that I am very much anticipating. With a side of nerves, of course. But, before then, off to Honduras I go for SVOSH. Third year begins…NOW!
Or was it a few weeks ago, as mentioned earlier? Oh, never mind. Some things are just complex.