Taking the JanPlan Anatomy and Physiology course at Colby College over the past month has been an experience that I would consider not only unique to liberal arts colleges with a January program, but distinctive within the Colby environment as well. Yes, as an anatomy and physiology student of Dr. Klepach’s, pupils are given the opportunity to tour the new Maine General facilities in Augusta with a third-year medical student, to dissect a pig heart, and to apply biological sciences to fine arts in the gorgeous Colby museum. However fascinating and wonderful these experiences may have been, they could likely be replicated in similar courses at other schools. What I found most unique about the Colby Anatomy and Physiology course as a senior about to embark on her final semester of undergraduate study, was that Dr. Klepach gave us students his permission to do poorly (at least in the quantifiable sense) on assignments. Sometimes he even predicted that we would! As long as we were engaged during class and dedicated to learning the material, Dr. K. reassured us that our final grades would reflect our work and that we would have more fulfilling experiences overall.
Admittedly, this approach was initially very hard for me to stomach, and I suspect that some (or many) of my classmates shared my discomfort. As a Colby student, I’ve grown accustomed to finding academic success in the form of a percentage marked in red pen on my assignments, which is usually directly proportional to the amount of time I spend on the third floor of Miller Library. Usually, with a number of notable exceptions, I’ve been able to hammer through difficult material at Colby simply by staying up late with it, sleeping in on it, or sometimes simply putting it off until the pressure really sets in. Essentially, my learning process in college thus far has been based on repetition and revisiting material. However, as any mule can attest, we students are not afforded the same luxury of ruminative study time during JanPlan as we enjoy during the fall and spring semesters. Instead, over the month of January each year, Colby students are immersed in a single subject of their choosing, in which we are given a sort of crash course.
While many of my fellow seniors chose to pursue an independent study or to plow through a Wharton novel every day, I, along with eighteen compatriots (including some very brave first years), chose to undertake Anatomy and Physiology during the month of January. Before the course, I had no clue just how quickly a month could zip by. Sure, one single month sounds like a short amount of time to learn about the structure and function of the human body, but I still felt pretty confident at the outset of Dr. K.’s A&P class. I was bolstered by my own fading memories of my high school Anatomy class and the widespread belief that JanPlan classes are so-called “jokes,” and are engineered to allow their students ample skiing time.
My false confidence was shattered fairly quickly after I received my first quiz grade under 50%. Even though Dr. K. reassured us that the material was very challenging and that none of us should be discouraged to receive grades we weren’t accustomed to, it was pretty unnerving. Over time however, I was able to detach myself from my Colby-conditioned urge to pursue a number grade, and began to focus more on the process itself. Ultimately, human anatomy and physiology is a subject that cannot be thoroughly covered, and its information cannot be wholly retained in the span of one month. It took me a short while to accept this, but thankfully Dr. K. had been cognizant of it long before we started class on January 6th. He was constantly reminding us, his students, that our goal during JanPlan should be to absorb as much information as we could, and to whet our appetites for future study of the human body. After all, medical students spend years learning about topics to which I’ve already experienced some brief exposure. For me that was pretty awesome, and totally inspiring.
Coming into my final January at Colby, I hadn’t expected to be surprised by my JanPlan course. I had the sort of been-there-done-that attitude that comes from spending three and a half years at a small liberal arts college in a small town. Instead, over January I experienced a class that was challenging in a different sense from the other courses offered at Colby. I was asked to step out of my comfort zone not only when dissecting a pig heart, but when thinking about my own learning process and my performance in the class. Anatomy and Physiology was stimulating, inspiring, and yes, sometimes pretty stressful (sorry, Dr. K.!), but I think it prepared me for life beyond Colby College in a sense that many of my other courses have not.