Hardest part about a&p for you?

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I'm taking an 8 wk class in a&p. My first exams were over tissues and skin. Second lecture exam on Monday will be over the endocrine system, metabolism, energy, enzymes, cellular respiration and skeletal system, and lab on Tuesday just skeletal.

I feel like this is the hardest part for me. The Kreb's cycle is making my head spin!

It doesn't help that the professor is incredibly hard on us and goes out of his way to make people feel dumb. So far we have already been given 5 or 6 quizzes. Our syllabus we had to print out is 20 pages long, and each week we have to print two separate packets (15 pages each more or less) for both lecture and lab. We waste so much paper for our three ring binder that we have to turn in at the end of semester. Everything has to be divided with section dividers and we even have to print off a table of contents. Everything is worth 1840 points. Sorry, went off topic. Definitely ranting, haha.

What was the most difficult system to learn and how comparable is it to what I'm learning now?

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Krebs blows. I dislike bone markings. Unfortunately my AP professor was... Unreliable and I had to teach myself.

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Specializes in Rehabilitation, Geriatrics.

I feel your pain. I did the same thing when I took my A&P 1 in 8 weeks. It was A&P boot camp. I think the chemistry was the hardest, I did better at integumentary and muscle/bone. I memorize well.

I am very much a visual learner. I use to fill out coloring pages I found online, there are educational games you can play, I watched youtube videos and spent a lot of time in the lab out of class, taking pictures of the models. At home or in the morning I would flip through pictures and test myself. Also iTunesU is great! My professor was not the best, but I found other lectures and would listen to them in the car or walking the dog. I went from making D's to high B's doing this.

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The hardest part of A&P for me was seeing how much longer it took me to memorize the details my classmates seemed to get down in minutes. Bones and their markings took me forever...but two years later I still remember than. I think avoiding comparing myself to what seemed to be easy success for others helped me more than anything in my sciences.

Sounds like your Professor isn't exactly a treat or looking for ways to make this any easier or doable for me. My advice is to embrace whatever his crazy methods are and hope there is a reason for them in the end. And office hours. Go to as many office hours as they offer and you can tolerate.

I admire you taking this on in 6 short weeks! You can absolutely do this!

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My school has one class for anatomy and a separate class for physiology.

The hardest part of anatomy for me was learning the muscles. There were a few that were simple and were easy to memorize, like pectoralis major/minor, subscapularis, rectus femoris, etc. where the location is seen in the name. But a lot of the other muscles were hard for me to remember. I loved learning the organ systems and the eyes/ears though.

The hardest part of physiology for me was probably the whole metabolism/cellular respiration thing as well. It really wasn't difficult, it just wasn't the most interesting thing to me so it was pretty agonizing to sit through for multiple weeks, 3X a week. The thing I liked the most about physiology was learning what happens at a neuromuscular junction and the sliding filament theory (muscle contraction).

I took 10 weeks for each of those, so taking your class in 8weeks is definitely admirable. Good luck to you!

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I've learned about the Krebs cycle 4 times, and I still don't really understand it. I have found that KhanAcademy on YouTube is very helpful for learning how body systems function, and it provides that visual and auditory teaching.

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I had an awesome teacher. That's not to say he was easy! He wasn't. Our bone tests were oral. He said you really need to see the bone to be able to identify it. We asked him if we could video tape him naming the bones and their parts. That helped me a lot. I'm visual as well. He said no book would help better than a live view. I got a great book as well on amazon: Martini's Atlas of the Human Body: Frederic Martini: 9780321724564: Amazon.com: Books. I still have this book for a reference.

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Learning how to learn science is the most difficult and rewarding accomplishment a science student has to overcome.

The required behavior and skills necessary to master any science class is like DNA. It is specific to the individual.

Once you master the skills of how to learn science, you should be successful in any science class.

Science classes should be grueling in an enjoyable way and met with excitement, not dread and fear.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Oncology.

For me, Anatomy was much more difficult than Physiology. I know they say it's usually the other way around, but that wasn't my experience. I hated the bone markings.

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For me, Anatomy was much more difficult than Physiology. I know they say it's usually the other way around, but that wasn't my experience. I hated the bone markings.

bone markings were definitely annoying. I still don't know them to this day lol. Muscle physiology was quite a nuisance for me, along with respiratory. Anatomy was the easiest.

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Specializes in Labor and Delivery.

I didn't really understand the Krebs cycle until I took microbiology with a super awesome professor. Now I feel like I truly know it!

Hang in there, an 8 week A&P class would be rough I think! Bone markings were the most difficult for me and also the muscles.

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