We had to wake up at 3:45 for a 6 am flight out of Boston. The ride in was uneventful, and we got on our plane ok. However, just as I had sat down in my seat, an elderly gentleman sternly came up to me and said “Ma’am, you put your luggage in the wrong slot.” I said “Huh?” And he very angrily said “You put your luggage in the wrong overhead spot!” I was still confused, and the guy sitting next to me finally said “It doesn’t matter where you put your carryon.” He was pretty nice (the person sitting next to me, not the elderly person in front of me). He grew up in Philly, has lived in New York and worked in Boston, and now lives down South, and kept on telling me how different everything was down south, how nice the area I was going to was, etc etc.
Well, our connecting flight was supposed to leave Memphis at 9, and at 8:45 we had just started our descent. I thought to myself, “There’s no way we’re gonna make this flight, but that’s ok, that’s why we have all day to travel.” However, I got to thinking, and asked the guy next to me if there was a time change in Memphis, and thankfully there was. We didn’t have any problems, we had 15 minutes to spare, but I thought it was odd that on our tickets they didn’t say “9 am EST or 8 am CST” to differentiate. Our flight from Memphis was on a tiny puddle jumper. There were ten rows max, and the back row had seats all the way across, kinda like the last row on a coach bus. Even though we had to walk across the tarmac to board, I didn’t notice the propellers on the plane until they fired up the engines and it started spinning outside of my window! Very cool. It was a Saab 340, and a turbojet. I’m starting to get into planes now (a tiny bit) since my brother in law is a pilot, and the boys I live with are obsessed with them and just went to the Air and Space Museum in DC.
That flight was uneventful. I spent most of it looking out the window. We arrived on time in the small airport, and had an hour to kill before we could get our rental car. We went to an art gallery about horses that they had, and then went to Quiznos for lunch. That was when I got my first taste of how nice people are down South. They set the standard for customer service down here. The poor girl was all by herself, and she kept on apologizing for not being with me right away. Plus, she was all about trying to help us save money! After lunch we went to the Enterprise counter to get our rental, and that lady there was also super, duper nice to us (and also was helping us save money!) She gave us a map and showed us how to get to our hotel and everything. She even upgraded us to a Nissan Sentra for free (from a Chevy Aveo)…not a bad set of wheels, I might add.
Our next task was to find our hotel, which was about 20 minutes from the school. At first I had my sister navigating us, but quickly realized that she would much rather be looking out the windows and it would be so much easier if we had GPS. So I fired up Verizon Navigator on my phone, and for $3 a day, was the best deal of the weekend. It works really well, and it made the entire weekend much less stressful than it already was. We finally got to the hotel and checked in…not too bad of a room, kinda small, kinda humble, but it worked. My sister actually slept on their window seat that looked it served some kind of purpose for that.
We immediately headed to a nearby horse farm, which was about ten minutes away and had some famous racing horses living there. After the horse farm, we went and explored the downtown area of the town we were in, and went to the local Christian college, which was supposely where the local NFL team does their summer training. We couldn't really find it however after walking around, but again we were able to experience Southern manners! Afterwards we decided to head back to the hotel so I could have an early night. We actually headed to a Super Walmart that was right down the road first to get some fruit and veggies. We also managed to score a 12 pack of bottled water for $2.50, which is interesting because until that point we were buying them seperately for $2 each. That night we watched a movie I had gotten out from the local library called "Something the Lord Made," and it was pretty good and turned out to be an ironically good choice (which I will explain later on).
We were able to sleep in a little the next morning, and thankfully the hotel provided a free breakfast which we loaded up on. After making a quick stop at Kohls so I could get a belt, we drove to campus and found the library where my sister was going to spend the day while I was interviewing. While in the parking lot however, I accidentally scratched my face and started bleeding profusely. Thankfully I had a paper towel in my bag but I ended up getting blood all over my hands and face. I guess in this particular city things don't open up on the weekend until at least noon, and all their buildings are always locked. We spent at least 45 minutes driving around looking for a bathroom where I could clean myself up. Eventually we found an open dorm where students were just starting to move in...I was so thankful that I didn't get any blood on my suit! In our travels we went by the school's hospital and football stadium. The stadium was HUMONGOUS. It holds like 75,000 people.
Anyways, I finally dropped my sister off and drove to the building where my interview was...only to realize that I had accidentally left my interview portfolio with her, which meant I had to drive back and get it. Between that and the blood fiasco, I had eaten away all the time I had planned to use to do some last minute studying. At that point I was like "Whatever, I'm as ready as I will ever be, so let's just go with it."
I arrived in a room with about 30 other people, and sat at a table with some wicked nice girls. It was then when I learned a little bit about the "competition," so to speak. The school interviewed ~67 people for 40 slots. Everyone I met was from the state, most actually worked at the school's medical hospital, and some had taken classes and/or had mock interviews with the professors in the program. We got a brief overview of the program, then had to write too essays. The first one we had 15 minutes to write about an ethical situation. My situation was based off of the conflict of two concepts in health care (I'm purposefully being vague as to not give any extra advantage to those who might stumble across this blog and apply to this same school). Thankfully for my health care class that I had actually heard and studied these concepts, but the best part was that the conflict was the main theme in the movie I had just watched the night before in the hotel! Score! Thankfully I'm a pretty good writer and I wrote out almost two pages in that 15 minutes. The second one was one that everyone wrote about, and we had ten minutes to describe what a PA would do in a particular scope of field. Afterwards I briefly got pulled aside because something was wrong with my application and medical terminology class, but I still don't know what it was about and they said I was all set after the interview was over, so apparently everything is ok. We got some more info on the program, particularly their overseas opportunities which I was really pleased to hear about. They offered way more than what the school website had listed.
I was then put into a group to take a tour of the facilities. The facilities are new and top notch. The technology is great, and they had a nice cadaver lab (I saw my first cadaver in person, and honestly it wasn't creepy whatsover at all. It looked just like the pictures in my anatomy atlas). After the tour we went back to the same room, where they took each of our pictures, and then finally called us up for interviews.
I didn't have to wait too long for mine to start. Most students were interviewed by a professor and a current student (or alumni), but I ended up with a professor and the actual director of the program. The professor even worked in Maine for a year (and loved it!), so we had that connection immediately. They were both so unbelievably nice and had gentle demeanors about them. Quite different from the last program I interviewed at, where the program director was outgoing and gregarious, the male prof was very much down to business, and the female support staffer who interviewed me was sweet. Speaking of my other interview...two similarities between them was that in both I got shortchanged on time. The first one I was mistakenly assigned to the wrong professor, so I lost time while they tried to figure out where I was supposed to be. This recent one, the PD had to take a short break but the people timing didn't realize it, so the interview time was rolling while I was sitting and waiting. 15 minutes really isn't a lot to tell who you are as a person and answer all the questions they have for you with a decent amount of depth.
As for the actual interview itself, I think I did fairly well. I connected well and was confident and really knew my stuff. For someone who is fairly shy and quiet in everyday life, I can do quite well being outgoing and all that when I need to be. I suppose I have my undergrad to thank for that. Other students were asked questions about pharmacology and health care reform (which I had prepared for), but I wasn't asked any of those types of questions, it was more of figuring out who I was as a person. No real surprises, and to that I should thank the PA book that I have.
After my interview I was free to leave. After my interview I also discovered that my fly had been down the entire time (!!!!) hahahaha. I'm such a doofus. I picked up my sister and we headed to the downtown portion of the city, since that is where the arena is where the school's men's basketball team plays. It is actually in a mall/convention center, so thankfully I had a tip and was expecting it. When we finally got to the arena all the doors were locked, so I went up to the security guard and said "Hi, we just traveled all the way down from New England and I was really looking forward to seeing inside, is there anyway we can just get a quick peek?" He himself had been to Maine and LOVED it, and soon was taking us on our own private behind the scenes tour of the facility, giving us the history and all of that. It was pretty cool. He also was right wicked nice.
After leaving the arena we went back to the same horse farm that we visited earlier, since it was free admission that day. I spent 15 minutes wandering around the facility in a suit in 95 degree weather looking for a bathroom so I could change, and again ran into so many locked doors and closed businesses! I couldn't believe it. I eventually just changed in the car. We went to the main event, which was a grand prix (fancy name for jumping competition). It was three hours long but well worth it as my sister was quite happy. We saw an exhibition of an event called vaulting, which is kind of like a mixture of the gymnastics event pommel horse combined with circus tricks, all done on a moving horse. Here's a picture:
During halftime or whatever they call it in grand prix language, my sister stepped out to use the restroom, but a horse mascot went by throwing stuff into the crowd. I stood up and acted loud and obnoxious (ok not really) and they threw me a toy horse and an Equine Sciences shirt from the school we just interviewed at, so that made her happy. When the grand prix was finally over I took my sister to her first Steak and Shake experience! I loved Steak and Shake before I was on my no sweets challenge, but she certainly enjoyed it as well. We then went to WalMart again and headed back to the hotel for one last night's sleep.
We slept in a little Sunday morning, had breakfast, then decided to go back into the city to explore. We saw lots of historical monuments, and lots of fountains. The city was big on fountains. It was fairly clean too, except you had to be careful around some trash bins as there would be vomit sometimes. Apparently Saturday nights are rough for some people in the city. I also would like to make mention of the fact that both days we were there we found parking in a garage that was FREE. This was right in the middle of the city. Such a great contrast to Boston! Again though, everything was closed and locked up. The city was pretty empty. I guess that's how they do things in the South. We went back to the school afterwards so I could walk around campus and get a feel for it. It surprisingly wasn't overwhelmingly large. Their student recreation center was beautiful, everything seemed top of the line and brand new. However, we then traveled to the library where my sister had been dropped off, and I actually went inside it and discovered HOW BEAUTIFUL it was. It was about three times the size of my undergrad's library, but I just couldn't get over how nice the inside was. It was definitely a very inviting place to study.
We then went back outside to the car, where I discovered that while rummaging around in my backseat before leaving for the library, the car keys had fallen out of my bag and were locked inside the car. Grr. We then waited half an hour for PopaLock to come break into the car (which took them a surprisingly long time to do so...especially considering it cost $45!)After getting the car unlocked we went back to airport and then headed on our merry way back to Boston, getting home around midnight.
So, my reflections/conclusions from the trip?
Despite the fact that my interview went well, I think the fact that I'm from Maine is going to be the downfall and what keeps me from getting in. In my interview they did focus in on why I would ever want to go to that school when UNE was just as great of a school and a lot closer. They also blatantly asked me if I was just going to return to Maine after I graduated, and I know that they have obligations to produce graduates who are going to work in the state. So despite my positive experience, I'm going to say that I don't have much of a chance getting in, especially going up against people who have been groomed through the school's system. Maybe I'll get lucky and they will consider me for diversity, but who knows? It was a good trip however, my sister was quite pleased, and definitely good practice for my interview in Philly coming up in two weeks!
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