In desperate need of study help

[dobsonek]

Hey everyone, I’m hoping someone here can help me out. I’m currently in my second semester of PT school and I’m struggling big time in my neuroscience course. A lot of my classmates are also struggling, but not quite to my level. I’m kind of at a loss of what to do. To put things in perspective, I failed my first written exam for the course, retook it, and failed the retake. I also failed our first practical (wet lab) exam by 8 points.
The way my professor teaches (blandly reading off of a PowerPoint) makes it very difficult for me to learn and he is not approachable for questions as he is very condescending and I just leave feeling worse. I’ve tried contacting second year students for tutoring but they’re too busy in their schedules to help me out which is understandable. I’ve tried watching YouTube videos and I’ve formed a study group with some of my peers, but we have another exam and practical in 2 weeks and if I don’t pass I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail out of school.
The professor that teaches the “dry lab” portion of our course has said herself that what were learning (physiology at the cellular level, etc) isn’t relevant to clinical practice and she herself has said that the textbook is so dense that even she has trouble reading it.
I’ve tried looking in the textbook to study as well (as most of our test questions seem to come from there rather than what we learn in lecture) but like I already said it’s just so dense and honestly I don’t have the time to dedicate to really sitting down and reading and understanding entire chapters at a time on top of all my other courses.
Does anyone in this group have any study resources or suggestions that helped them?

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[kdubz7w7]

Hey everyone, I’m hoping someone here can help me out. I’m currently in my second semester of PT school and I’m struggling big time in my neuroscience course. A lot of my classmates are also struggling, but not quite to my level. I’m kind of at a loss of what to do. To put things in perspective, I failed my first written exam for the course, retook it, and failed the retake. I also failed our first practical (wet lab) exam by 8 points.
The way my professor teaches (blandly reading off of a PowerPoint) makes it very difficult for me to learn and he is not approachable for questions as he is very condescending and I just leave feeling worse. I’ve tried contacting second year students for tutoring but they’re too busy in their schedules to help me out which is understandable. I’ve tried watching YouTube videos and I’ve formed a study group with some of my peers, but we have another exam and practical in 2 weeks and if I don’t pass I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail out of school.
The professor that teaches the “dry lab” portion of our course has said herself that what were learning (physiology at the cellular level, etc) isn’t relevant to clinical practice and she herself has said that the textbook is so dense that even she has trouble reading it.
I’ve tried looking in the textbook to study as well (as most of our test questions seem to come from there rather than what we learn in lecture) but like I already said it’s just so dense and honestly I don’t have the time to dedicate to really sitting down and reading and understanding entire chapters at a time on top of all my other courses.
Does anyone in this group have any study resources or suggestions that helped them?

Hi,
What is dry vs wet lab? Practical vs neuroanatomy? Just curious, we did not use those terms.

Same as undergrad, you are going to have professors with teaching methods and attitudes that don't work for you and you have to find a way around it. As painful as it is, and trust me I have been there, I would go back and get help from the prof. And don't leave or give up until they find a way to break things down for you. That is part of their job - to help you. Ask about the material, but also go over your study approach and what seems to be working for you and what doesn't. Tell them that about the textbook and ask for help with how to glean information from it, especially if it is a known difficult book.

Personally I did not touch our neuro textbooks. I think I bought it and opened it once. I probably bought a total of 5 textbooks through my entire degree.

Use your peers. Listen to how they explain things, their tricks to remembering things, their approach to the material. Don't go down a rabbit hole by yourself if no one else is.

I tutored neuroscience when I was a second year student. I found that the students I tutored were often lost amongst the trees and couldn't see the forest. They had trouble discerning what was relevant, and why, and what were the clinical implications. Try to not get bogged down in details. Start by getting a hold of the big picture (eg if you don't know what the cerebellum broadly does in one sentence, trying to memorize and understand its structures will be that much more difficult) & work your way down.

I don't know that my own study habits would be helpful. I had to work my butt off but for whatever reason, neuro resonated with me. I went to my prof when needed, took a lot of notes during lecture, and purely studied from my lecture notes. I spent more time studying what she spent more time lecturing on, only grazed over the stuff she didn't really emphasize, tried to understand if X area is damaged then Y impairments are seen (if you understand vs memorize then it allows you to answer a wide variety of questions & is less tedious), and I layered my lecture notes into my practical/lab notes so that all clinical tests were directly related to lecture info.

Yes, a lot of it is not directly relevant to clinical use, or even the boards. However, it is a necessary evil to learn so as frustrating as it is, it doesn't change that it must be learned.

I don't know if any of that helped. Neuro is rough for sure. Good luck

 

[ya1]

Hey everyone, I’m hoping someone here can help me out. I’m currently in my second semester of PT school and I’m struggling big time in my neuroscience course. A lot of my classmates are also struggling, but not quite to my level. I’m kind of at a loss of what to do. To put things in perspective, I failed my first written exam for the course, retook it, and failed the retake. I also failed our first practical (wet lab) exam by 8 points.
The way my professor teaches (blandly reading off of a PowerPoint) makes it very difficult for me to learn and he is not approachable for questions as he is very condescending and I just leave feeling worse. I’ve tried contacting second year students for tutoring but they’re too busy in their schedules to help me out which is understandable. I’ve tried watching YouTube videos and I’ve formed a study group with some of my peers, but we have another exam and practical in 2 weeks and if I don’t pass I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail out of school.
The professor that teaches the “dry lab” portion of our course has said herself that what were learning (physiology at the cellular level, etc) isn’t relevant to clinical practice and she herself has said that the textbook is so dense that even she has trouble reading it.
I’ve tried looking in the textbook to study as well (as most of our test questions seem to come from there rather than what we learn in lecture) but like I already said it’s just so dense and honestly I don’t have the time to dedicate to really sitting down and reading and understanding entire chapters at a time on top of all my other courses.
Does anyone in this group have any study resources or suggestions that helped them?

Try to study off power points the instructor uses to "teach." they should be less dense that the textbook. They may not make much sense, but if you go over them 5-10 time while studying, you may find answers to exam questions there. That is what I was doing with classes like that and it worked.

 

[dobsonek]

Try to study off power points the instructor uses to "teach." they should be less dense that the textbook. They may not make much sense, but if you go over them 5-10 time while studying, you may find answers to exam questions there. That is what I was doing with classes like that and it worked.

I wish I could. His PowerPoints are all basically just 1 or 2 words per bullet point and then several graphics without descriptions. it’s nowhere near detailed enough