We’re Underway
As the photo may indicate, I’m going to be tied up for the rest of the summer it seems. The way our summer semester works is just a bit outside of the norm. Instead of the regular 16 weeks, we have a 10-week semester. During this 10 weeks, I have two classes plus clinicals. Our RAD-122 (Radiographic Imaging II) is held during the first five weeks and the RAD-131 (Physics) is held during the second five weeks. In a nutshell, we’re covering 16 weeks worth of material in a five-week period twice during the summer term.
We jumped right into the imaging class today. We had nearly 6 hours of lecture covering technique chart development, automatic exposure control, and radiographic film. We didn’t quite finish the section on radiographic film, but we’ll be finishing that up in class on Wednesday and having our first test next Wednesday. Oddly enough, we’re out of class on Monday for Memorial Day.
I start my summer clinical session in an outpatient center tomorrow morning at 8am. Tomorrow is going to be another one of those really long days for me. My clinical runs from 8 until 3:30 and then I have to go to work around 4. I have one sports photography assignment at 4pm and another one at 7pm, so it will be around 10pm at the earliest until I find my way back home. Days like that make it very difficult to get any useful studying done. Luckily, I have a long weekend to make up for it before my first test.
As of this time, I haven’t organized my documentation for this clinical session yet, but I intend to do that this evening. In the next day or two I’ll have my goals list for the summer clinical in order. I already know that I’m hoping to get a majority of my fluoro comps completed. I’m very happy with the opportunity to be in an outpatient center at this point because we just finished up our fluoro stuff in lab at school at the end of the spring semester, and I’m ready to start working on comps for those procedures.
Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow night at some point to post some preliminary thoughts on the new clinical site…
wow, that’s quite a schedule!! good luck with the summer term!!
Hi John, I’ve been reading your blog with a lot of interest over the last several weeks, I have come to the conclusion at 40 thats its now or never to to develop a totaly new career path, especially if I am to complete the education part and get it paid for prior to my preteen entering colege. I don’t know if you’ll remember me or not, (CAT) but hopefully you’ll be one of those helpful techs by the time I come through on my clinicals. I am starting this week and the next few semesters to get the preliminary classes (ENG , PSY, HUM etc) out of the way so I can concentrate on the core curriculum next fall at Caldwell. From everything I’ve gathered this is going to be a pretty intense program. I guess I’ll really found out when it all begins…
@Kirk: Good luck, and be sure to apply at more than one school…