Well, my first week of home study is coming to a close and I am feeling much better about it than I did as it opened! When presented with the concept of home study I was pretty excited…I’ve always been a good student and I LOVE taking tests. Good thing, because I have to take a lot of them to “pass” this phase of training, and I have to get 90′s or above. No problem…I’m a straight A student, right?
Well I had a few moments of panic at the beginning of the week when I was not only behind the training schedule, but also having significant trouble absorbing what I was reading. I think it just took my brain a few days to transition from the business of managing mass cell death from lack of use, to actually storing and retreiving information again. Not to mention, I can’t remember the last time I’d taken any kind of biology course.
The first day or two was rough but I got into the swing of it and now I’m rolling. I have passed all four of my exams so far, thanks to the fact that they actually assess whether you understand the most important information, rather than the most obscure and useless information (you know, like in college).
Yesterday I even got to do a few hours of my studying outside. Plavix + sunshine = a pretty sweet day of home study for me. Today my coursework is slightly less demanding (on my time, that is) than previous days, so it should be a nice way to close out the week. I’ll continue with this for two weeks, then go away for their sales meeting for a week, come back for two weeks shadowing others in the field, and then they ship me off to Jersey for three weeks of “Phase 2″ training. At that point, in my manager’s words, I will “re-learn everything I already learned in home study” (and then some I’m assuming) and when I get back, I’ll hit my territory.
I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. I got my home office all set up and it’s proven an effective work environment so far. Not to mention I love the 15 foot commute. I think I would be terrified if I knew I were hitting the field any sooner than 6 weeks and several hundred hours of highly specialized training from now, but knowing that they pretty much have this down to a science, I’m ready for it! I’ll keep you posted.
