Friday, March 20, 2015

School is over!

So my 1 month practicum is over and the debrief is done! Which officially means I AM DONE SCHOOL! That also means I am officially a certified MLA >.< (medical lab assistant)

Let's talk about why I chose this program:

I started school in August, I decided to become an MLA because I was tired of going to school for something that would have taken me like 3 more years and I really don't want to study that much anymore. I need to work, I can't live the student life anymore. I'm 25 and got no money saved so I need to start getting ahead.

It would take too long if I decided to continue on with my degree, not only that it doesn't even guarantee me a job. A friend of mine finished her Kinesiology degree and couldn't find a job, fast forward a few months and she went to Edmonton to study physiotherapy because its way too competitive here. So I decided I'll go back to school now and then upgrade to something else later.

I'm not going to tell you the name of the school, if you really want to know you can email me lol. Let's just say I chose to go to a private college to be an MLA (cost a fortune >.< and I had to get a student loan)

The program was about 8 months? I can't math! If I chose to go to VCC I would have had to wait 2 years on their waiting list to get in and then do their 8 month program on top and that was something I really didn't want to do, I might as well should've finished getting my degree had I gone that route. Some of the other private schools also had a 2 year waiting list and I was super lucky that I got in when I did.

Class Start!

The way the courses work in this program was you just do one at a time and the minimum passing mark was 70%. The first week was just orientation (they want to give you study tips and other tips to succeed in school) The two weeks after that was typing and learning how to use microsoft word, excel, powerpoint. 

Then came the big classes Medical Terminology and Anatomy and Physiology, I seriously thought I wouldn't survive these classes. There were tests everyday and I honestly thought I would fail those classes. But I powered through and passed! The teachers are absolutely amazing they really want you to succeed and they make it quite engaging lol. But it got to the point that I was so stressed out and my period came 2 weeks early O..O

Anyway because we're with the same group of people throughout the whole program you form a family type relationship with everyone, there were a few quiet people but they were still really sweet.

Practicum

This is the part where the school needs to improve on, practicum placements and how they organize them. We didn't find out where we were going until a few days before our practicum started (we got our placements on a Thursday and had to go to practicum on Monday) but before then a few of the out of town students really really needed to find out if they were going back home or not (some had to find a place to live) and they were given their placements like a few weeks in advance (not a lot of time to find a new place to live)

Anyway I was lucky that I got offered a job on my practicum (I was actually offered 2 lol but I stuck with the one closer to home) I don't start till they contact all my references and stuff which I hope is soon cause I want to start making some $$. Some of my classmates weren't so lucky with getting jobs right away but they'll get there soon enough!

Future?

So what does the future hold for me? Well.. I want to go back to school eventually, I'm thinking of going back to be a cardio tech but I'm not sure if I really want to because I know the industry is flooded with Cardio Techs at the moment... but I shall see. For now I'll work and save some money!

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