Academic Enhancement

Hello, everyone.  I'm sorry for the delay in posting--I was doing so well for a while, but I moved to Pittsburgh and I just started my first year of medical school.  Yipes.

With the beginning of this part in my life comes a lot of anxieties.  I'm going to miss my better half too much.  How will I make any good friends who actually care about me?  Will I be able to stay afloat and maintain my sanity?  Why can't I stop my roommate's dog from leaving presents in my bedroom?

Well, the one thing I am terrified about is staying afloat, in an academic sense.  First of all, I will just have to get used to the fact that I am no longer going to be at the top of my class.  I just hope that I'm not more towards the bottom, because that would be disappointing for me.  Perhaps I've been spoiled, but I'm used to always doing well and being towards the top.  I need to adjust my expectations, because I know I'm with a lot of people who are more intelligent than me.  I feel even worse because I wasn't accepted outright; I was pulled off of the waitlist pretty late.  Le sigh.



I'm really hoping that no one does this in medical school, but I'm really afraid that some people might abuse ADHD drugs in order to get ahead of everyone else.

At the place I went to for undergrad, it was not uncommon to hear about someone you knew taking some of these drugs just to be able to focus and study better.  Drug deals have gone down in the graduate library, of all places.  For these students who choose to take these drugs, I have a couple of things to say.  This is incredibly unfair.  In my mind, you may as well be cheating and should be punished as such.  You do not deserve any sort of grades you acquire while you have been taking these drugs.  This is beyond a breach of academic integrity, and this is disgusting.

I do want to say that this post is not intended to be a personal attack on anybody, but that these are my feelings and if I know you personally and you take these drugs, I have infinitely less respect for you as a fellow student and a human being.

I REALLY hope no one here is doing anything like this, because if they are ... well, the innocent student such as myself will become academically doomed.  Le sigh.  More posts to come.