Our examination session

If you pass all your exams while studying medicine you will go on to become a doctor. This may well seem like stating the obvious, but it’s worth taking a step back and thinking about this. By passing you in an exam a university is certifying that you are competent enough in that subject area to continue on the path to becoming a doctor. What does this mean for you? First of all it means that it can be quite difficult to pass your exams. In other subjects you are certified as competent by scoring a decent grade, however in medicine if you pass you will be guaranteed to continue down the path of clinical school and continue on to a professional medical career. While there is the drawback of having an especially tough time passing exams this is also a very exciting prospect. If you manage to continue at a reasonable level, putting enough work in, you will qualify as a doctor. Compare this with a subject such as law, where if you pass your law degree with a decent grade you are not guaranteed to become a lawyer; you are not even guaranteed a job. This is also the case with engineering, while you may become a certified engineer it does not mean you have any kind of reassurance that you will go on to have a job in engineering. If things get tough and you think you might struggle to pass just remember that by passing you are taking one step more towards being a doctor. This might seem like a fairly trivial point, but it should not be overlooked. The truth for many courses is that you are only really studying in order to pass your exams and once you have managed this, the information which you have tried so hard to learn is largely useless to you. This is very much not the case in medicine, with areas of study including anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology and pathology all being directly applicable in diagnosing, understanding and treating a disease. Not only is this a great incentive to learn the core course material well, in order that you will be a competent doctor, it is also an incentive to go beyond the basic lecture material and satisfy your curiosity about what you have been taught. As a medic this extra detail could one day be put into practice in a clinical situation and could make a crucial difference to a patient. When you are studying medicine you are not just studying for the next exam but taking the first steps on a course of lifelong learning, building your basis of professional knowledge throughout your medical career.

My Working Day

On weekdays the alarm-clock wakes me up at 6.30 and my working day begins. I'm not an early riser, that's why it's very difficult for me to get out of bed, especially in winter. I switch on my computer and do my morning exercises. Then I go to the bathroom, take a warm shower, clean my teeth and shave. After that I go to my bedroom to get dressed.

Usually my mother makes breakfast for me. But when she is away on business or just doesn't have to get up early, I make breakfast myself. While having breakfast, I listen to the latest news on the radio.

I leave the house at 7.30 and go to the nearest underground station. Last year I tried to enter Moscow University, but unfortunately I failed my entrance examinations. So I thought I should work somewhere. It wasn't easy to find a job, but I managed to get a position of a secretary in a small business company.

They agreed to take me because I had studied typewriting, computing and business organization at school. And besides, I passed my English graduating exam with an excellent mark.

It takes me an hour and a half to get to work. But I don't want to waste my time on the train. I've got a small ipod and I listen to different texts and dialogues. Sometimes I read a book and retell it silently. If I come across an interesting expression I try to memorize it. I also write some English words on flashcards and learn them.

I usually arrive at work at ten minutes to nine though my working day begins at 9 sharp. There are always some fax messages to translate from English into Russian. Sometimes my boss wants me to write a letter to our business partners abroad. There are also a lot of phone calls which I have to answer.

At 1 o'clock in the afternoon we have lunch. We usually have lunch in a small cafe just round the corner. At 2 o'clock we come back to work. And we work hard till 5 o'clock. During the working day we also have several short coffee breaks. But sometimes we have no time for them.

I come home at about 7 o'clock in the evening. My parents are usually at home, waiting for me. We have dinner together. Then we sit in the living room, drink tea, watch TV or just talk. Occasionally I have to stay at work till 6 or even 7 o'clock in the evening. When we have a lot of things to do we go to work on Saturdays. So by the end of the week I get very tired. All I can do on Sundays is to sleep till eleven o'clock, watch television, listen to music and read something in English.

And still I always look forward to my next working day because I like my job. I think I get a lot of useful experience.

The day off

How do young people spend their spare time? What leisure activities do they prefer? These and other questions were asked in a sociological survey. The results of the opinion poll conducted among young people living in big cities and in the country add up to the following hierarchy of pastimes: music in combination with such forms of group activities as discos, concerts, and cafe-club come first, followed by the Internet, theatre and reading. Then come films, museums, amateur arts and engineering; and finally, TV and classical music. The questionnaire, circulated among pupils of 9—11 forms, students and young workers, has shown that the arts are regarded second only to contacts with friends (or a girl/boy friend).

Most young people admit they do not know how to plan their leisure. To use sociological terminology, their leisure qualifications are inadequate.

According to the poll, the actual prio­rities are as follows: TV comes first, fol­lowed by Internet, reading, films, listen­ing to records, radio, going out to dances and discos; then come concerts, museums, amateur arts, and finally theatre.

Young people's recent growing cultu­ral standards make themselves felt pri­marily in the choice of cultural values. Of course they like to be entertained (by watching TV shows, reading detective stories, etc.) But they certainly know how to find their way amid the great variety of cultural values, and they know how to tell genuine art from imitation.

A few more words about music, which plays a very important part in young peo­ple's lives. Rock is certainly more popular than classical music. Russian pop groups who play original music and meaningful texts have an especially large following. Kazakh girls and boys are getting increasingly interested in the leisure activities which encourage self-expression and per­sonality growth.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1635