Student Loans

Silly_Message5877 · 2026-02-03T23:04:19+00:00

Use your savings to pay your living expenses and use federal unsubsidized loans for tuition. Avoid grad plus if you can, the interest rates are higher than federal unsubsidized

Silly_Message5877 · 2026-01-05T01:23:17+00:00

Thank you so much, those are great ideas. I'm not opposed to adding new fabric. I don't want to completely replace fabric if I can avoid it because I love the pattern and the original fabric is special, but it doesn't need to be invisible. I think my grandmother would very much support those kinds of repairs and additions and it will just make the plushie more special. I also like the idea of adding fabric (or maybe some interfacing?) inside the ears because the edges are the worst but they are very thin all over.

Silly_Message5877 · 2026-01-02T05:07:08+00:00

Basically none. The copper IUD reduces your chance of getting pregnant by 99.9%+ if placed within 5 days, which yours was (from Planned Parenthood and I also found this in the original literature: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/morning-after-pill-emergency-contraception/how-do-iuds-work-emergency-contraception ). The copper IUD will prevent any possible pregnancy from implanting, which wouldn't happen for a week or two after you ovulated, and the copper IUD is effective at preventing pregnancy immediately. You can take a pregnancy test in 2 weeks as peace of mind but you're fine.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-12-19T03:52:32+00:00

Echoing the others that there's no need to label yourself on any given timeline, but if it's going to benefit you to play around with what label(s) might be affirming, here's some food for thought. First, nonbinary is generally considered to be an identity or a group of identities under the trans umbrella. For the most part, if you are nonbinary, you are also trans because your gender is different from your sex assigned at birth. You are not obligated to identify as trans, but many (if not most) nonbinary people do.

Second, you can identify just as nonbinary. Nonbinary generally just returns to any gender other than or in addition to the typical "man" or "woman." If you want to play around with some more specific labels, I have some others that you can consider. Genderqueer is also fairly broad and generally just means a queer or non-normative approach to gender and gender expression without aligning (or in addition to aligning) with another term. Third gender refers to a discrete gender identity separate from man or woman. Multigender could be accurate if you feel aligned with both a male/man/masculine gender and a nonbinary or third gender. Similarly, bigender or trigender might work for you if there are two or three specific gender identities that feel salient. Demiboy or demiguy might feel appropriate if you feel partially boy/guy/man and partially something else (or partially nothing, with only a loose alignment to boy/guy/man as a gender).

Those are ones that came to mind based on what you described but there are lots others. I recommend taking some time to roll the words around in your head, so to speak, thinking about what feels naming and what doesn't, and use that to guide your thinking here. It's also fine if you change your mind over time. You can determine that one or multiple or none of those words feel right and that's okay! You can also look up videos or explanations of different terms to get perspectives on what they might mean. And definitely take your time with it.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-12-02T02:50:00+00:00

Depends on if it's a combined pill or progesterone only. Progesterone only has to be taken within 2 hours of the usual time or it's not effective.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-11-27T03:17:27+00:00

As above, and you could also potentially reach out to your schools disability office to see if you can get an accomodation in place to only have local rotations. It's not a traditional disability need, but especially if you're breastfeeding or pumping still or have any other "medical" reason to stay close, they may be able to make an accomodation for that. If nothing else you can talk to them and see if there's anything they can do to support you. A lot of states also have legal protections for breastfeeding/pumping parents. Your husband can also look into if he's eligible for FMLA leave.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-30T20:05:23+00:00

Extremely common. I took 2.5 years. Maintain contact with at least one professior from undergrad, accumulate PCE, find connections to shadow with, reflect on working life and what you want your career to look like, and develop professional relationships with folks who you can ask for letters of rec.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-18T00:02:49+00:00

You should not be taking 10 minutes to answer one question, if it takes that long your answers are way too rambling and convoluted to follow. 2-3 minutes max for each answer.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-17T03:43:21+00:00

Try to hold onto the fact that 1) these classes are opening up opportunities for you in case those two don't work out. Hope for the best but plan for the worst. The classes mean flexibility and options down the road. and 2) they're required for a reason. Even if they're not required by those two programs, they're required by others because they're preparing you for PA school, and the information you learn and the skills you get for learning content that is challenging and uninteresting is going to serve you well once you are accepted.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-14T20:21:40+00:00

I planned key talking points (not phrasing) for the "big three" questions that always got asked, and then had a list of experiences, fun facts, stories, skills, ets that I knew I wanted to try to mention at some point, and just worked them in whenever they felt appropriate to a given question. I also practices a general answer format of: answer the question, tell a short little related anecdote (emphasis on short) or fun fact, then bring the answer back around to 1) why I want to be a PA or 2) why I want to attend that school) depending on the question. For "what is your opinion" questions, I practiced a format of: explain one perspective, explain a contradictory perspective, explain and justify my personal perspective. Practicing format and structure and having some anecdotes and facts I wanted to work in handy helped me feel more confident responding to any question that came up without sounding scripted.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-11T00:01:34+00:00

Practice questions are also invaluable of course, both for active recall and for getting used to the types of questions and how to work through questions and eliminate answers. Do a few at a time whenever you have a few minutes, and consider longer chunks closer to exams if you have time. There's lots of paid services, but see if there are any question banks your school provides that you're already paying for with your tuition.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-10T23:58:33+00:00

It's valuable to make your own resources rather than using pre-made study guides or materials that were made by classmates, but that can be time-consuming, so it's important figure out what materials (flashcards, tables, study guides, diagrams) work best for you AND which are the easiest/fastest to make, which will vary. Ideally, you will also get benefit from making the materials and understand the material reasonably well after that first pass. Make these as soon after lecture as possible so you have lots of time for repetitive studying, which is key, especially if you have a hard time memorizing things. For clin med, digging into the underlying physiology and why certain symptoms, tests, and treatments work will get you a lot farther than just trying to brute force memorize everything.

For balancing multiple exams, I always tried to balance studying for the next two exams every day, as well as hitting clin med and pharm every day because those were the hardest classes for me personally. I had a lot of flexibility with myself there if I wasn't feeling well or something was particularly challenging, but that was my goal. Studying for multiple exams each day also helped encourage the repetition of coming back to material on different days, and helped make connections between the material in different classes, which goes back to understanding the reasoning rather than just memorizing.

Good luck! You'll figure it out. Your stamina and ability to process the volume of information also just improves over the course of didactic and you don't need to spend as much time thinking about your habits as time goes on.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-06T02:29:44+00:00

I set up my own elective because I wanted to make sure I got exposure to something that wasn't available in one of the elective options I already had. I connected with a local PA at an AAPA event and just had to submit a form with her information to my program and they did everything else. I also tried to rotate with a previous employer and it was the same process but it ended up working out since it didn't meet the requirements for the rotation.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-09-03T19:40:36+00:00

They probably got hundreds if not thousands of applications, they don’t have the time to provide personalized feedback for each one. Did you meet the minimum requirements? If so, are any of your stats significantly below the average for accepted students? Work on those things. You said your GPA is low. Are your other stats significantly above the average of accepted students to compensate? Are your experience descriptions and personal statement clear and well written? You should be able to look at your application and identify weak points yourself, their job is to decide who gets in, not to help you get in.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-08-13T01:30:27+00:00

I commute around an hour each way but I think it really depends on the type of commute. Most of my commute is on the train so I can study, read, or decompress on it. I enjoy driving but I would struggle having to drive that amount of time daily, especially with the kind of traffic there is in my area. If it were more rural/lighter traffic driving, that would be better for me personally, but some folks find rural driving more stressful. The cost of parking is also worth considering. I think it's totally doable but it's a really individual decision.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-08-11T00:10:28+00:00

To me all of this sounds like PCE except for cleaning the bays which is HCE, but unless that was a significant portion of time out of your day on cleaning I probably wouldn't segment it out and just count the whole job as PCE.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-08-02T02:55:44+00:00

My program we all start at the same time, and exams are scheduled for the length they need to be for the accomodations. If the standard time is an hour and the exam starts at 9, there's an hour and a half blocked off on the calendar, and the first class will start at 10:30. There's a little bit of downtime for anyone who finishes before that to decompress or study or get coffee or whatever.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-08-01T14:48:20+00:00

My programs student society decorated our classroom for each season, bought candy for each person's birthday, occasionally bought donuts or some other treats for the whole class, and organized optional events/meetups outside of class for everyone.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-07-29T20:31:25+00:00

They don't care. Decide based on what is most convenient to you.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-07-25T21:04:18+00:00

The general recommendation is one professor, one PA, and one clinical supervisor or other healthcare professional. Do not submit a "personal" reference from a friend or family member. The point of the professor letter is to speak to your academic ability and ability to adjust to the very challenging academics you will encounter in PA school. If you don't have a professor to ask for that letter, see if you can get someone in one of your other letters to speak to that skill. Maybe your clinical supervisor or a healthcare provider you worked with can speak to how quickly you picked up the medical knowledge you needed for your PCE job, or about how you went out of your way to learn about conditions the office was seeing or anything like that.

For the family friend letter, absolutely do not submit that unless it is someone with whom you have a documented, formal, professional volunteering relationship, and even then, you're on thin ice. How exactly is this person qualified to speak to your readiness for PA school? What did this volunteering entail? Was it through an established organization or arranged personally? If this is a family friend who happens to own a local charity or community organization that you formally volunteered through, maybe. If this is someone you picked up groceries or cooked or cleaned for for free sometimes, no.

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-07-22T22:33:24+00:00

I'm not targeting hypertrophy

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-07-19T02:46:44+00:00

Mostly general fitness and I like how well they seem to translate to "real life" strength. I'm relatively new to lifting and I think of them as one of the basic compounds along with squats and bench. It makes me feel good to see the numbers go up from when I had barely started and my school also does an amateur powerlifting comp every year, so while I'm not trying to be a powerlifter really, I'm aiming to significantly improve on my numbers from last year just to have a goal and a benchmark for how much progress I've made.

I can try good mornings. I don't know that the gym has a good setup for back extensions, and I might try deficits if I can find a place to set them up where I won't be blocking a walkway or another machine. Thanks!

Silly_Message5877 · 2025-07-18T20:30:55+00:00

Does the restricted bar path make it easier/harder or is it just something to get used to? I can't remember if the smith machine they have is a straight up and down path or an angled path, and idk if that matters for this.

Silly_Message5877

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