Human Anatomy at Colby

This JanPlan definitely got off to a rocky start as we were bombarded with hundreds of slides, sometimes just in one day, filled with tons of new terms and concepts to memorize. I was extremely overwhelmed, but amazed at how no one else appeared to feel the burden of the courseload and instead were eager and present in every moment. Had it not been for Dr. Klepach’s endless encouragement and repeated insistence that self-care always comes first, I would have drowned for sure. Instead, I began to internalize his philosophy and forced myself to stop measuring myself by my grades. I accepted that I was doing the best I could and tried not be as hard on myself, and I made myself take breaks away from work and studying to focus on my physical and psychological health. The most precious lesson by far that I’ll take away from this class is that it’s okay to be kind to yourself, and those who truly value your education, success, and well-being will understand that and work with you.

As far as the actual course material, certain things from A&P may have gone in one ear and out the other. However, I definitely learned a huge amount overall, and I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to take this class. As a pre-health student with an EMT background, it was amazing to enrich my current understanding of the body as well as get a taste of what future schooling holds. The cardiology unit was by far my favorite, and the pig heart dissection was a really cool, hands-on way of applying everything we had been talking about to a tangible model. Along those same lines, the mini heart models were awesome as well; it was very thoughtful to get one for every student to take home and study.

Overall, I really loved this class and the topics that were prioritized, I just wish that we had had more time!!

Going into this course I was unsure what to expect. I had read some previous blog posts, and I expected that the class would be difficult, but I didn’t realize how much material was going to be thrown at us. There is quite a bit of rote memorization to do, which is something I have always regarded as one of my weak points. Even though I was not the best at the memorization piece, this class helped to convince me that I can memorize large amounts of information if I need to.

Another study technique that I will probably use forever is the idea that study sessions should be divided up into three parts. One part is looking at past material, another is looking at the material that was just learned, and the third is looking ahead to material that has not been covered in class yet. While I was not always perfect at using this method, I did better on the days that I used this strategy. Additionally, it will save you lots of time in the long run and prevent having to spend lots of time cramming before a test. That is impossible in this course because there are quizzes given almost every day.

Often the people who appear to do the best in difficult courses are the ones who get little sleep and have very high levels of stress. This class helps to present an alternative to that and helps to begin the process of learning how to retain lots of information while still doing things to maintain mental and physical health. In the long run, this seems like a great method to prevent burnout, which is especially helpful as many of the people in the class plan on going into some kind of healthcare profession. I would highly recommend taking this course if you have any interest in healthcare and are interested in developing your study skills.

-Meredith

Going into Jan plan this year, I knew that this course would be fast-paced, rigorous, and dense in material— the exact opposite of my Jan plan experience last year when I took Studio Art. While I did not have the same free time and relaxation as I did last year, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and learned valuable lessons that extended past the syllabus, and learned more about myself as a student along the way.

I decided to take human anatomy and physiology because I was genuinely interested in the subject and it was one of my favorite classes in high school. I told myself that I would give myself some leniency this month to enjoy the class as much as I can, and try my best to control the level of self-imposed stress from academics. This conveniently aligned with Dr. Klepach’s philosophy of the course, which was to learn for the sake of learning, not for the sake of the grade, and to prioritize mental and physical health.

I realized I had some unhealthy habits as a student before this class. I would skip meals and get less than 5 hours of sleep some nights, and I am now aware of how that affected my academic and athletic performance and level of stress which in turn affected my happiness. Tracking those aspects of my life this month made me more cognizant and thoughtful of the relationship between healthy living and physical and mental well being. My experience this month will affect how I approach my classes and life in the future. I truly believe that most of the time, you can strike the balance between a healthy lifestyle and achieving academic success if you put in the effort. Hopefully, I will remember this reflection when I am in the middle of the spring semester, running around between classes, activities, and spending quality time with friends.

Another point in reflecting on this past month is that I feel as though I was in the minority in terms of where my future interests are career-wise. I currently do not have an interest in pursuing a health care profession but instead am interested in law. I believe that this affected how I approached the course and helped me to “learn for the sake of learning.” While law and medicine may be two different career paths, I think that its intersection and the interdisciplinary study can be fascinating and having a brain with both schemas can help you view life through different lenses.

I had a positive experience in human anatomy and physiology and I wish the class was taught over a longer period of time so that we can learn more material at a slower pace. I am happy, however, about the takeaways from this class. I thought the grand rounds presentations were a great way to end the class and it was fascinating to learn about the various case studies researched by my fellow classmates. It would be great to take a class with Dr. Klepach again in the future— his enthusiasm for teaching and dedication to his students is exceptional.

Minori Cohan

Last summer I did an internship for an FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Center) company based in Waterville. The project I completed for this company was the establishment of the procedures and policies for their in house telepsychiatry program. Over the course of the internship, I was able to shadow psychiatric nurse practitioners and gain a deep understanding of federal and state policies surrounding healthcare. Before this internship, I was interested in pursuing a career in medicine, but I didn’t know if it was for me. Having had this experience, I felt driven to take the next steps in deciding if medical school would be the right path for me. Outside of the EMT Jan plan, Human Anatomy and Physiology seemed like the closest thing to a medical school course that I could take in terms of pace and material. So I decided to give it a shot. 

When the class started it was clear that I had never dealt with this much information all at once before. However, professor Klepach framed the class as a growth oriented, low stakes trial of this type of learning so I was not worried about the material. I was confident that I would find ways to deal with the content if I gave it enough time. Over the course of the class, I learned a lot about myself as a learner and developed some more refined study methods. More than coming up with better ways to study, I became confident that no matter what the situation, I had the ability to come up with study methods to fit any material. 

In terms of the material itself, anatomical and medical jargon also became easier to understand over the course of the month. At the start, I spent a lot of mental energy trying to remember every term individually. For example, the definition of endoneurium vs that of epineurium. What I found at the end of the class was that rather than learning the definitions of terms individually, I was treating medical jargon more like a language. To continue the example from before, I would learn the definitions of endo and epi, and then I would just know that neurium referred to neural tissue. Towards the end of the class, learning terms became far easier because I would break down the terms to understand what they meant rather than memorizing the definition. 

I was a little nervous going into this class because Jan Plan has always been a difficult and stressful time for me. The cold weather and lack of sunlight during the month of January really have an effect on my attitude and health. That being said, this year’s Jan Plan was the best that I have had at Colby so far. Despite this class being demanding, I found the material to be so interesting and the whole process of learning how to learn better was very rewarding. All while leaving time for the other passions in my life. I don’t know if medical school is the end all be all for me yet, but after taking this class I feel more confident that I could handle it.

As a first year, this class was not at all what I expected from my first January Term. All fall, people I met told me how relaxing Janplan can be. I was expecting to go skiing almost every weekend and have lots of time each day to simply relax. However, when combined with baseball, I had little time to relax and even less to sleep. This course demanded a lot of focus and hard work. That being said, I am extremely happy to have taken the class.

Because of the amazing amount of material in such a short amount of time, I was forced to develop strategies to study efficiently and complete assignments quickly. This led to the development of many good habits that I will continue to practice throughout the spring semester and my next several years at Colby. Learning how to get yourself in the right mindset to study is important. Sitting down with the materials is one thing, but in some courses, I will check my phone or browse the internet for 20 even 30 minutes before actually doing anything productive. In this course, the material was quite interesting to me so actually getting started was not too challenging. But this idea made me want to know what it is that will make me most efficient in classes that I don’t necessarily enjoy. Lastly, this course allowed me to understand what my priorities are and the order in which they fall. Family, school, and baseball are my first three priorities. When I had to choose to play basketball with friends or study, I would look at this list and choose to study. This system is a little too clear cut to deal with all decisions, but it allowed a starting point for managing my time.

A specific topic I enjoyed in this class was the Central and Peripheral Nervous System lecture. Briefly learning how nerve fibers work and produce these sensations that our minds can consciously process is ridiculous to me. This sentiment can be summed up in a quote that Dr. Klepach includes in his emails, “You don’t need the iPhone: you have the most exquisite apparatus in the known universe sitting right in your head – the most complex organization of matter in the entire universe. And here are we, feeling a little depressed, feeling like we’re not getting where we need to be, when really you might be exactly where you need to be” (Jon Kabat-Zinn). This quote discusses that all our lives have meaning and backs it up with a real and astonishing scientific fact that is often taken for granted.

At the end of lectures, Dr. Klepach would include topics of disease as they relate to material. These small bits of information were quite fascinating to me. It let me get a taste of the power of understanding anatomical and physiological relationships within the body. This interest of mind peaked during our Grand Rounds projects and presentations. Investigating a case and learning all about the causes for disease and treatments was quite interesting. Furthermore, hearing my classmates’ talks was also quite interesting. Never before had I been surrounded by so many people that shared this curiosity and enjoyment of medicine.

Charlie Furlong

I started college almost two and a half years ago with a hardline goal: I was going to graduate Colby with a 4.0. Somewhere in the depths of my high school naivety, I saw a 4.0 as a true reflection of my determination, willpower, and raw intelligence. I was ready to forgo nearly anything to achieve this goal. Now, as a junior, I know a 4.0 is simply not going to happen for me, and I am really at peace with that.

Through his Anatomy and Physiology JanPlan, Dr. Klepach has shown me what it means to be genuinely successful. I think that it is often very easy for students to blindly equate good grades with success without stepping back to acknowledge the larger life lessons embedded in every course. I will admit that as a Colby student in a largely objective major, it is really hard for me to separate my numerical performance in a course, whether it be high or low, from my brainpower, work ethic, and overall self-image. However, Dr. Klepach’s persistent emphasis on redefining how students and professors view education was refreshing, uncomfortable, and mind-blowing for me all at the same time.

A&P with Dr. Klepach was a JanPlan like no other. One of my friends in her third year of a nursing program, who has taken more A&P classes than even she knows what to do with, was stunned when I first told her about this course. She could not believe that I would really get anything out of a full A&P course in four short weeks (or three if you have the flu for one of them). While we certainly covered an unobtainable amount of material with Dr. Klepach this January, this class became about so much more than just the raw material and it was, at least for me, an immensely transformative month. Dr. Klepach’s mission to free his students’ approach to A&P from the stress of grades and a “winning” performance resonated with me. I had entered this course expecting to slave over this material, to abide by my original pledge to sacrifice all other aspects of my life for an ‘A.’ But after a few days of listening to Dr. Klepach advocate for the importance of stress management, adequate sleep, personal time, and exercise, I was inspired to change my JanPlan plan. I spent an extra week at home in early January to ensure a full recovery after a long ten days with the flu, and by the time I was back at Colby, I was skiing nearly two hours each day, nailing the NYT daily crossword, reading and listening to so many books, and still feeling prepared for each A&P lecture, quiz, and test. I am really looking forward to taking all of Dr. Klepach’s philosophy for a wholesome education with me into the new semester and I cannot thank him enough for his dedication to and excitement for every one of his students.

Abbey Sykes

Going into this class, I knew that it would entail a lot of very complicated material, as well as a heavier work load than a normal JanPlan. However, I was interested in learning more about the human body and how different systems function together. While this class was challenging, with advice from Dr. Klepach throughout the semester I found different ways to manage stress, and I developed different study habits to help me learn all of the information we needed to. I found this class very interesting, specifically the unit on the cardiovascular system. I enjoyed learning about the heart and how it works together with other systems in the body to help us function. I enjoyed the pig heart dissection as it allowed us to be able to see the different anatomical structures we learned about in a real heart. I decided to take this class as I have an interest in Anatomy and Physiology, and I am not fully sure what I want to do after Colby. However, I feel that this class has opened up the idea of entering  into the health services. Some of the things that helped me realize this were the tour of Inland hospital, as well as the talk by Dr. Caroline Lafave. These two events gave me more information of what it would be like to work in health services, and made me more interested in possibly pursuing them. I also really enjoyed listening to the Grand Rounds talks. They provided a wide range of topics in either advances in medicine or case studies, and I was able to recognize and understand the cases as some of the things we had learned about in class were discussed. Overall, this class gave me a lot of information about the human body. However, it also taught me methods of stress management, different study habits, and possible careers for the future.

Alexandra D.

Martyna Czarnik 

If anatomy has taught me anything, it is that the human body is anything but black and white. It is stronger than I believed, yet more fragile; it’s more complex, yet simpler than I believed. One can say, I am a walking contradiction. Coming into this course, I expected to pull all nighters, make ten upon hundreds of flashcards, and have absolutely no time to eat, sleep, and exercise. That could not be further from the truth. 

While I did study, spend hours in the anatomy class, and prepare for each lecture and quiz, I also found time to go skiing, try new recipes, and get the recommended eight hours of sleep. And yet, information was being thrown at us at an incredibly fast pace. At the beginning of the course, my stress levels were high, the usual. I was not sure if I could keep and I doubted my abilities. And then, seemingly overnight, I began to love it. I loved reading the lecture texts, studying my personal heart model, and researching case studies. I was shocked. Why made this class so different from any other fast paced, highly saturated class I had taken in the past two and a half years at Colby?  

Dr. Klepach is the answer to my long sought after question. It was thanks to him that I finally realized that my health is more important than my grades. Instead of studying for hours, I found new study techniques and adapted. I studied for Anatomy and Physiology without having to neglect my happiness and physical health. I found peace in filling out the wellness logs each day, documenting my meals, sleep, stress, and exercise. Even after this class, I will continue logging my days. This documentation guided me in making better meal decisions, wanting to get 7 + hours of sleep, and running that extra mile.

A&P, embarrassingly after 20 years, has taught me that success is not a grade. So while success may be an objective goal, it just occurred to me that I am allowed to celebrate subjective success too. I do not have to feel bad that I missed class because of a migraine or that I could not study another hour because I could not stay focused. I can celebrate logging my day, running 15 miles instead of the usual 6, being happy two days in a row, and even joyous that I have gone two weeks without a running injury.

So, Thank you from the bottom of my heart Dr. Klepach!

I found this course immensely enjoyable due to the fascinating subject matter, kind classmates, and the relentless energy of Prof. Klepach. I felt fortunate that I had some background in anatomy and physiology, because without that I would have found it much more difficult to stay afloat; so I have immense respect for students in this class from non-STEM backgrounds who were learning a lot of this material for the first time. That couldn’t have been easy. I also appreciate that my background allowed me to devote non-studying time to other pursuits, such as my Honors research and CER work. I liked that I didn’t have to scale back on other endeavors to spend time studying for this class. I was also able to spend a lot of time with my friends this JanPlan, which historically has not been the case. During the EMT JanPlan there was no time, during sophomore JanPlan I was dealing with an illness, and last year Pre-Med Academy had me working night shifts, so this was the first January that I got to spend whole days or afternoons spending time with my friends and enjoying myself.
I particularly enjoyed the pig heart dissection. Models and diagrams are great, but it’s different to hold an organ in your hand and understand the scale and proportions of it. I had also never thought about how much a heart would weigh until I got to hold one. I enjoyed cutting through the heart muscle to look into the ventricles, and finding the moderator band was very exciting. I also enjoyed looking at the patent foramen ovale in the heart that we all passed around; getting to apply the concepts we learned in class that day was especially enjoyable.
I got a lot out of this class and I’m so glad I took it.

This Jan plan course was an extremely condensed one, with a great deal of material being hurled at us each day. However, because of the way the class was structured and Dr. Klepach’s attention to how we were living and managing our stress it was not nearly as daunting as I had previously envisioned.The highlight of the class for me personally was the trip to inland hospital. I thought it was extremely valuable to see a functioning hospital and the people who worked there. We were able to get a peak into the life of a practicing doctor, and how their daily lives operate.

Another valuable experience was our presentations of the Grand Rounds projects to the doctors and the class as a whole. I loved working on my project and being able to really dive into a specific case and the way it was treated. The project gave insight into the difficulty of obtaining a diagnosis, and what a collaborative process it is.

When I decided to take this Anatomy and Physiology Jan Plan, I heard about how rigorous and accelerated the course was and I wanted to not only challenge myself with the material, but to get into a study routine that would lead me into a smooth transition for my Spring semester. That was the plan. I didn’t realize that this class had much more to offer than a study habit.

On our first day, Dr. Klepach talked about what he wanted his students to get out of his class. His goal was to help us lead a healthy lifestyle. To do this, each student was required to keep a lifestyle log. At first I didn’t quite understand why it was so important to keep track my stress levels, my sleep, and my meals, and looking back at my log sheet, I did quite poorly with my sleep and meals. Especially for the first week and a half of class, I would stay up reviewing, and stay up even later the night before a lab practical or quiz. I realized, through our professor, that this was a way for us to practice high intensity work but maintaining a low level of stress. Although I struggled with the task, filling out my lifestyle log made think more about what career I wanted to have. I really do want to continue on to medical school to become a pediatrician.  And to do that, I will continue practicing and a healthy lifestyle.

Throughout the month we covered so much material. I felt like I was being overloaded with information that I couldn’t possibly remember. I loved it. I liked learning the anatomy, the mechanisms that the anatomy is in charge of, how they do it, and then relating it to physiology and case studies. Although it was a lot, I felt a relieved that I was not only learning so much, but enjoying it. This course reassured my interests in the medical field.

I remember on the last day class,  I was feeling really nervous for our Grand Rounds since my group made some big changes to our presentation the night before. The week had already been pretty stressful, and presenting was the only thing I had on my mind. I remember feeling worried about doing better and worried about the final. I also remember, however, leaving Olin 1, feeling calm. Feeling fulfilled. That same stressful morning, Dr. Klepach had brought in a special speaker, Scott Fried.  Scott shared a powerful message with us that I will always keep with me. He shared his story and the story of his friends. He told us, he told me, that I am enough. That I shouldn’t be too hard on myself because I am loved. I can be nervous and stressed, but at the end of the day, I am still lovable.  We are all lovable. As I listened to Scott, I also watched my classmates. We had worked so hard this Jan Plan and it made me me very proud of them and proud of myself. I am glad to have had this Jan Plan experience.

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This JanPlan, I took A&P and guitar lessons. I have played piano for almost all of my life, but I always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Even though A&P made my schedule pretty busy, I decided that I wanted to take lessons this JanPlan to give myself a break from the academic work. Twice a week I would go to Bixler after a three and a half hour lecture on the organ system of the day and my guitar teacher would start with the question: What did you learn today?

That was a pretty loaded question considering my brain was still recovering from the rapid-fire lectures on anatomy and then physiology and I was struggling to retain any of the information that I had learned that day. Then I remembered a cool fact that Dr. K mentioned in Olin 001, like how the surface area of the lungs is 35 times the surface area of the body. Or I remembered when Dr. K explained the etymology of some anatomical structure in Arey 307. My personal favorite was the background of the acetabulum, where the femur meets the pelvis and forms the hip joint. Acetabulum literally means “vinegar bowl” since the Romans used to use the acetabulum of cattle to hold their vinegar when eating.

Not only did those stories and fun facts help to liven up the at times never-ending lecture, they helped me to remember and make sense of all of the information that is packed into the month of January. I knew that I wanted to eventually go to medical school when I first came to Colby, but this class helped to reinforce that I find the human body fascinating and I want to dedicate years of my life studying it. The fun facts reminded me of how incredibly specified and complicated the human body is, and how difficult and rewarding it is to study its form and function.

This semester we learned a lot of material in a very short amount of time. We were introduced to the body structure and function in a modified fashion which still was a lot of information. However the speed at which we learned this material is very reflective of what medical school will be like which is in the near future for most of us in the class. Coming into the class what I knew about medical school was limited to what I looked up online and had heard from the premed advisor. So needless to say I knew next to nothing. Being exposed to a class that was designed to reflect a medical school class was an amazing opportunity and it taught me a lot about myself.

I was able to learn that I was going to need to be flexible to other learning styles if I wanted to be successful in the future. The same study strategies I had used my entire life were not going to work with the extensive amount of material thrown at me in graduate level classes. If I wanted to do well in the future I was going to need to learn to adapt and find multiple methods in order to succeed. Also I learned a lot about managing stress. Stress is an inevitable part of being a student especially in the higher levels of education. A lot is expected of you and sometimes it is hard to manage these expectations along with a healthy lifestyle. Dr. K’s planning of the class introduced me to a class where my metal state and wellbeing were taken into account. With this method I was able to find ways to manage outside of class stress as well as class related stress while also maintaining my grades. This definitely was not easy but I think I made some steps in the right direction. I will need to use these strategies in my future class and focus on finding other strategies as well if I want to reach a point where I am able to manage my stress levels and at the same time continue to do well in my classes.

As someone who plans to enter the medical field at some point in their future but has yet to decide on a specific direction, I cannot recommend this course highly enough. While one month is really only enough time to scratch the surface of human anatomy and physiology, the amount of material we covered and the value of the experience we had should not be understated. Dr. Klepach has managed to run this course in such a way that we are able to cover and retain a huge amount of information without feeling overburdened or losing interest. Activities like the BMI lab and heart dissection gave us the opportunity to engage with the material we were learning in lecture beyond simply looking at models. Presenting case studies from the New England Journal of Medicine in our grand rounds project, and touring Inland hospital while hearing about the experiences of medical proffessionals were also invaluable experiences for those of us seeking to enter the medical field. However, my recommendation of this class is not limited to only those interested in Biology. Some of the most import lessons I took away from this course were not directly related to anatomy and physiology.

From day one, dr. Klepach made it clear that in his mind success was not defined by a letter grade received at the end of the course, but rather in the ability to find a balance between work and healthy living. We were constantly reminded to manage our stress levels, exercise, maintain a balanced diet, and get enough sleep. While slightly unexpected at the beginning, it was reassuring to see a professor as interested in how our lives were going outside of academics as they were in our performance in the classroom. I know that the lesson that having a healthy lifestyle should not be sacrificed in the pursuit of academic success will stay with me throughout the rest of my education. Another lesson I know will stay with me for a long time came from our guest speaker Scott Fried. Mr. Fried’s speech contained many valuable lessons, but the one that resonated with me the most was about the importance of loving ourselves. The cornerstone of living a healthy life is being able to know that we are enough exactly as we are, regardless of academic performance, interests, or social life. In this way, anatomy and physiology offered me a valuable and enriching experience, both for my future aspirations and my personal life.

When I first started this class, I came in with no expectations. All I knew was that I was taking a biology class and that I was getting lab credit for it in a month. And as a result, I was not prepared for what the class was about to bring.

Listening to the first lecture, I was completely overwhelmed and in shock of the workload and the amount of effort I would have to put in for the class. Looking at the syllabus and the uploaded presentation slides, I was amazed that the professor expected us to know this enormous amount of information in one month. I felt like it was hopeless and I was stressed.

However, as I continued to take the class, Dr. Klepach kept putting focus and our attention to keeping a low stress level and taking care of ourselves as well as our academics. When I first heard this, I thought it was a ridiculous idea. I thought there was no way I could keep my stress low while trying to retain all this new information and stay up to my own academic standards.

A week and a few days in, I found out I was wrong.

I realized that there was need for me to be stressed and anxious all the time about my grades. I had the ability and capacity to learn and retain the required amount of information and I was doing well in the class. Dr. Klepach’s constant reminders to keep a low stress level and focus on our bodies finally made sense to me. I realized that there was no need to beat myself excessively over every quiz and every assignment and that I had the capacity to excel without being on the verge of an anxiety attack.

Through this class, I learned a valuable life lesson as well as anatomical names and physiological functions. Although dissecting a cow heart was fun and the new knowledge will come in handy, I will most be grateful about Dr. Klepach’s constant reminders. I hope that I can carry this mindset on with me into my future classes and take more of what he said about taking care about our bodies into action.

This course has undoubtedly enriched my knowledge of the human body, it’s so complex and so fascinating!  However, I believe the most important concept I learned is the importance of a healthy lifestyle.  It is so important that it should be used as a part of one’s measurement of overall success in one’s life.  The lifestyle log provided me with quantifiable evidence regarding my exercise habits and sleeping habits because data was recorded over the course and I could find trends, positive and negative, in my lifestyle and work to change the negative lifestyle choices.  This will help me to live a healthier lifestyle and ultimately find more overall success in life.

The most fun activity for me in this course was the dissection of fresh hearts.  I was very excited when I found out Dr. Klepach got fresh hearts for us instead of preserved ones because fresh hearts are much more soft, pliable, and colorful!  Cutting open the heart revealed the valves, papillary muscles, and chordae tendineae.  It was quite amazing to feel and see these very important cardiac structures that we had just learned about in the previous class.  I also felt better knowing the chordea tendineae are very strong and likely will not break in my heart!  This class has been a challenging JanPlan that has definitely helped me learn how to study anatomy in the future.  Despite the challenge, I had a great time in this class and would encourage anyone interested in the human body to take this course.  Thank you for a great JanPlan!

“He would gather her leaves and make them into crowns and play king of the forest”
The Giving Tree  by Shel Silverstein

At Colby, everyone here has told me that I would be fine. Every professor and friend explained that I was smart and I was worrying about nothing. They don’t know me. Eight years ago, I could not imagine going to any college. I see it as a very low point in my life when I had the lowest grades, no common sense, and the highest naiveté possible. I was a leaf constantly blown from the wind of others. The leaf represented a symbol of my idiocy and carelessness. I was a pushover who did not care about anything in the world. This recklessness eventually crushed my leaf-like existence and taught me a lesson. Ever since that day, I try not to become what I once was, playing a tiring and constant role of a smart and happy person.

Anatomy and Physiology was a very gruesome and fascinating class. It was an interconnecting web of body systems, diseases, and infections. Since I was pre-med, I thought A&P was the perfect test to see if I was on the right path and if I had what it took. Quickly, I found out that A&P was definitely not easy. I was distraught by unsatisfied scores, anxiety, and low confidence. While I was studying for A&P, my friends would be skiing, smiling, and sleeping. Despite A&P’s fascinating material, I couldn’t help think that I made a mistake. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. Because many classmates grew anxious about lab tests and weekly quizzes, I could not help but absorb their anxieties. As I grew more anxious, my heart grew heavier riddled with doubt and despair.

My once stable fortress, that I built since eight years ago, began to tumble down. What if I was not smart enough to become a doctor? How could I continue to maintain the persona of academic success? I constantly fought with my emotions trying to maintain a happy and calm demeanor. After reflecting these questions, I realized these questions were irrelevant because I remembered the answers.

I can’t be who I am not. I am definitely not the most intelligent nor the pinnacle model of academic success. But, I have a heart. I care about my family, friends, future, and, most importantly, myself. What others have in brains, I will make up with my heart. I will study harder and smarter, smile more, and live the dream of healing others. My dream was never to become a doctor, but to heal the unnecessary wounds and pain of others.

Technically, I learned a bunch of anatomy and physiology in a short amount of time. There were so many body systems were intriguing and learning about the pathology of the body was amazing. More importantly, I remembered that I was enough. The grades, tests, and comparisons to other students did not matter to me anymore. I am thankful for the support of my family and my will to thrive rather than survive my life. I am not a soldier who needs an armor of steel rather I am a scholar eager to learn. I look forward to soaking more information and build my own prosperous kingdom/destiny. It will never be easy because I am lacking in many areas, but I will always remember my roots. To me, the leaf no longer represents regret. It is a lesson to learn so I can be the best I can be. Therefore, A&P was like a leaf to me that I will cherish, and I cannot wait until my next one. I will gather all the leaves I can and look forward to more.