For many people, the first semester of medical school is complete. By today – barring being snowed in and delayed at one of the east coast airports – you are on your way or at home for the holiday break. Many folks worked harder this first semester than in any aspect of their previous academic endeavors only to find that they didn’t do as well as they wanted or anticipated. The good news is that the semester is over and the bad news is that you have to go back and face second semester in a few short weeks.

My first piece of advice is to take a bit of time to assess what worked (and didn’t work) in terms of getting the material mastered for this past semester. There is little use in anguishing over grades (you get what you get when you get it) or what you “could have done”.  You put everything regardless of good or bad, behind you and move into the next semester renewed. If you failed, it’s behind you until you have to re-mediate. If you passed, it’s behind you and you have to move forward. That’s one of the great things about medical school in that it carries you along at a relentless pace.

As you take stock of the things that worked well for you, see if there is something that you can do to enhance your efficiency. You are going to have to be more efficient in the upcoming semester and into next year so why not take a look at what you can “tweak” to make better. If you are totally satisfied with your work, still look at adding some activities such as physical conditioning or stress relief. Trust me on this one, stress can come out at any time in medical school no matter how well you are doing. Having some kind of a stress relief plan is a good thing. Even if you walk around the block a couple of times, it will just relieve some of the stress.

Resist the urge to try to study for Boards during this holiday. You NEED rest and relaxation. If  you feel that you must do something, then have a cursory look at First Aid for Step I but there is little that you can do that will make any meaningful “dent” in what you will have to review after next year is done. Your best prep now is rest and relaxation. Don’t even try to use these next couple of weeks to “read ahead” for the next semester. Work on a plan for increased efficiency but you know that you will have ample time to study for the next semester of coursework.

Take this time to catch up with old college mates who have gone into something besides medical school. I found this practice most fulfilling because they wouldn’t allow me to “talk shop” during our get-together. I could hoist a brew or enjoy the holiday lights without feeling compelled to study something or plan to study something. If you were fortunate enough to complete your Gross Anatomy course, relish in the fact that you can burn those formaldehyde-scented scrubs now. See, there is always something to put behind you. If you are not done with Gross Anatomy, well, you are at least further along that when you started.

I also used the holiday break to catch up on some of the latest movies, non-medical reading and other nice non-medical pursuits. Even today, as I have completed submitting grades and evaluations for the students that I teach, I am contemplating the movies that I will catch up on this week. I have some holiday clinical duties but as I have posted in past posts, I actually enjoy the hospital during the holidays. The patients are grateful that you are working in addition to the wonderful decorations everywhere. I love to take a couple of minutes to sniff the branches of the huge lobby Christmas tree just to get that holiday feeling.  I also enjoy hearing the Christmas carolers strolling the halls to serenade the few patients who are left in the hospital.

In short, take the time to enjoy your time with your family and friends, to celebrate that you have gotten through your first semester and to face the upcoming semester with some anticipation.  Try to remember that this whole “medical school thing” is a process and not a commentary on your worth as a human being. My bet is that you are far more complicated than your studies. 

If you didn’t get the grades you wanted or feel that everything you have learned has “leaked out of your brain” relax because that hasn’t happened. You definitely know more than you think you know. Every medical student feels that they are forgetting everything that they have learned. You may not remember every tiny detail but the neural pattern is there and can be recovered with a bit of review. In short, relax, that knowledge is in there and will be there for you. Next semester will build upon what you went through this semester but isn’t dependent upon you having done a “perfect” job with this semester’s material. You will have another shot at anything presented this semester next year and for Step I study. Again, this is why you can relax right now.

Finally, to those who may have to re-mediate, put off the self-flagellation. You have learned what not to do so concentrate on thinking about what you will do differently. Assess what worked and resolve to hone that what worked for you. Don’t be ashamed and don’t keep running thoughts around in your mind that you have closed any doors to having a fine medical career. You haven’t closed off anything. Remember that the vast majority of medical students will have something to face in the future that will cause a hiccup or a step-back. If you had your hiccup now, you are done. Put it behind you and know that you are going to move forward to enjoy a great career.

Happy Holidays!!!!!

I’m a first year student at Glasgow University. The summer before I started uni, I was feeling kinda angsty so I googled blogs on my future undergraduate dwelling, and guess how many turned out: not a lot, I assure you. They were all very useful, but sadly, they left for dustbunnies and mould. So I made myself a solemn promise I’d make the world a better place and share my student experiences. But once I landed in Glasgow International Airport I…well, forgot my might plans to change the webworld.
I wanna say something in the first post though, just to set things straight. As I’ve stated in my info, I like studying. I don’t find it daunting or boring or something my parents made me do. I actually enjoy it. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, and most people have mentally tagged me as masochistic, we can move on to the good parts.
TheStudentNet will cover:
1. General tips on being a succesful first year student
2. Misconceptions about student life
3. Budgeting
4. Time management
5. The weather……
6. Student Accommodations
7. Shopping in Glasgow
8. Sightseeing in Glasgow
9. Gigs in Glasgow
10. Food stores in Glasgow

And much much more!
So if you’re interested, feel free to stay tuned, as this network starts to grow.
Cheers from TheStudentNet.

I’ve been sitting here thinking how to round off the first year at Xpert360.  The obvious springs to mind, Christmas drinks, meal out, buy something nice from Amazon etc etc..

Decided the best thing to do was to try to work out what I wanted for the company in 2010 and write it down so I can see next year what worked and what didn’t. Kind of a public business plan!

Xpert360 was formed this year when myself and my business partner Dave Baker decided that we wanted more control over what we worked on.  Both of us have had both good and bad experiences on past projects at various companies. Our goal was to ensure whatever we did in the future would be on our terms. We would try to use our experience in a positive way rather than work on yet another badly run project or restrictive contract that limited our abilities to deliver the best systems we could.

That isn’t to say we haven’t enjoyed working in software development in the past. There’s nothing I enjoy more than burying my head in Visual Studio or SSMS and creating good code , or tweaking a query to make it run faster.  Sounds geeky and sad (‘GEEEK!’ as my wife and family would say)  but its what i like.

The company has not been formed long – incorporated in July 2009, and we have both been very busy that last six months on existing projects, working on the website and the rest of the admin that comes with running a company.

So far we have a solid business plan for the next 3-6 months based firmly around what we are good at.  We have been avidly following the progress of the Microsoft Silverlight and WPF teams and have chosen to concentrate on this technology set in 2009/2010.  Its a technology that is getting better by the week and promises to be pretty solid by mid next year.  The plan is also to start taking in consultancy  and DBA work for SQL server and Biztalk.

My hopes for 2010 are that ;

1. We finish and package our first set of Silverlight based products.

2. We start using our Silverlight framework for some bespoke customer developments

3. We gain Microsoft Gold Partner status through our products and certifications

I want to ensure I upgrade my MCITP DBA SQL 2005 cert to SQL 2008 (thank goodness it not the full 3 exams again!). I’d also like to get the SQL 2008 Dev exams done and dusted!

Its been an exciting year so far and we’ve met lots of interesting people (SQLBits V was an excellent Conference). The business community is a great place to be and we have already made some excellent contacts both from SQLBits and from our existing contract work.

I really started to embrace Twitter as a source of information and communication (follow us on @xpert360 and @philcarter), which is pretty embarrassing given my best mate Iain is the owner and founder of TweetDeck which has done brilliantly well since June 2008.  I remember when he started writing the original code last year and not knowing what on earth he was talking about (what the hell was Twitter anyway!!). So well done Matey! He and his team are doing a blinding job.  I guess I need to pull my finger out and start trying to catch up,  I’ll never live it down otherwise…

Anyhow – I’ll just finish by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas from both of us at Xpert360 and of a course a Happy New Year.  I hope next year is as prosperous for you all as I hope it will be for us.

Check out this website for games and exercices for first years:

http://brcb.free.fr/mesexercices/6eme.htm

There I was, skimming the political news this evening, still smarting over winning my final 4 games in fantasy football only to not make the playoffs because of one win on the final day by the team I needed to lose to enable me to get in. As I contemplated the repercussions in the fantasy world of finishing with a better record than two of the 4 teams that made the playoffs (they won their division, last place in my division would have won their division), I stumbled across the “grade” that Barack Obama has given himself for his first year in office. It was an interview with fellow sham town hero Oprah, and he exclaimed that he feels he earned a “solid B plus” for his first year. As I chuckled to myself, I realized that The Obama administration is just like every single graduate of a college with a business degree as they enter the workforce.

Let’s be specific with what was said and the context of his self evaluation. According to the article that I read on the interview, Obama claimed progress in both economic and international fronts. He further claimed that the only thing that stands in the way of giving himself a better grade was the fact that some of his agenda items remain undone, namely health care reform and putting more Americans to work. So allow me to expound, if I could, on the areas that the President offered his grades on.

To claim that he made progress on economic fronts is laughable. We had a TARP implementation that has been a total farce (Yes I am aware it passed under Bush, but it was monitored and implemented by Geithner). We have had the banks that are too big to fail actually get bigger since his inauguration. The big four now control 66% of credit cards and 50% of mortgages in the US. We have watched the dollar continue to slide. We have watched Wall Street and the banks go right back to the predatory and speculative practices that got us in the fire in the first place. Barney Frank continues to push for more high risk loans, albeit for condos now instead of houses. He ran the federal government at a deficit three times larger than any other year in the history of the United States. We watched as Congress increased the debt ceiling, not once, but twice, this year. He got an economic stimulus package passed that didn’t stimulate, and Cap and Trade and Health Insurance reform have both passed the House, which will lead to financial ruin for this country. I could go on and on, but I think I can say that “progress” is not the word I would use to describe what has been done on economic fronts.

On international fronts, we are just as bad. We had a President bow to several foreign leaders that he had no business bowing to. We had several speeches abroad that consisted of stating that the United States is not a Christian country and that we are to blame for the world’s ills. We had a President give the Queen of England an iPod and some DVD’s in exchange for a pen made from the wood of a slave ship. We have seen increased rhetoric with Iran, an abandonment of Israel, and a G20 summit that set us up to be controlled by world opinion. We still have Cuba, Venezuela, and our other southern neighbors still talking trash to the White House. We had the world’s most powerful leader remain mute on the violence against students in Iran. We have a President willing to throw away all our nukes while every other country on earth either keeps theirs or endeavors to get them if they don’t have them. I guess my conclusion on international affairs would be something other than “progress” as well.

He further stated that, “On the plus side, we are on our way out of Iraq.” And, he added, “I think we’ve got the best possible plan for Afghanistan.” OK, look, the President cannot be allowed to attempt to take a single bit of credit for where we are in Iraq. The exit strategy in Iraq was set by the Bush administration. Obama has not done one single thing in Iraq that has made anything better or faster. It is interesting to me that he inherited every bad aspect of the US from Bush, but when it is a positive, he didn’t inherit it, he takes credit for it. As for Afghanistan, we have spent plenty of time covering that debacle over the last couple of weeks, so I will leave it at saying we don’t have the best possible plan, we have a slightly less shitty plan than we had before, and it took you 10 months to come up with that.

On his disappointing aspects, those few things that stood in the way of a higher grade, we have job growth and health care reform. “The biggest burden on me right now is that economic growth has happened, but job growth has not happened,” Obama told Winfrey on the ABC special. “Job growth hasn’t happened”? That is a vast understatement. When President Obama was selling his $787 billion stimulus to the American people he promised unemployment would never rise above 7.8%. As we stand here today in December it is over 10%. The American economy has lost over 4 million jobs since Obama was sworn into office (yet the White House claims to have “saved” 650k jobs). Rather than getting job growth, the Obama administration has instead killed successful welfare reforms, increased the length of unemployment benefits, used taxpayer money to pay for COBRA programs. On the positive side, he has done his part for job creation. He took roughly 100 people who are unemployable in the private markets and appointed them to positions within the White House and his cabinet.

As for his failure to get health care reform. Here’s to hoping that remains the case. Because health care reform has instead turned into health insurance reform, which is little more than a punishment of the private market and putting the planks in place to driven private insurers out of business so that he can later get the health care reform he really believes in.

And beyond all of the above, I think that he has done more to drive this country apart than I can recall any President doing in my lifetime. Partisanship has been steadily growing over the last decade, but I believe it is at a new height in today’s political spectrum. It has always existed, but it is as bitter and nasty and dividing as ever. We now have a liberal media literally calling anyone who opposes the liberal plan racists, thugs, radicals, traitors, rednecks. We have a Speaker of the House comparing health insurance reform opposition to slavery. We have some of the most radical statements directed at the general public that I have ever heard coming from members of Congress. We have had all opposition to Obama mantras listed as racism. The race card has been played more in politics in the last year than ever before. I understand the President doesn’t control everything, but the second you believe that he doesn’t have the power to control members of his own party, you are fooling yourself. The President could have put the Ki-bosh on the partisanship and claims of racism at any point if he so chose. He has not done so, and I have to wonder why.

Perhaps he is taking the same tactic he takes with the birthers. He cannot simply step forward and prove something wrong or make a public statement saying the claims of racism are out of line. To do so would be to legitimize the idiots and simply bring more radical statements. Yeah, that’s it (and by the way, I am not a birther, as many of you know, but that reason being offered as the reason why he doesn’t simply prove his citizenship is one of the weakest arguments I have ever heard).

So given my assessment, and I remind you all that it is the opinion of Just a lonely citizen who is unhappy with our path forward, I offer that he has not earned a B plus. I would give him a D. At best. I think that he has fundamentally failed at nearly everything over the first year. I think he has made the US look sophomoric and weak. I think he has put plans in place that will prolong the recession and possibly permanently crush us economically. I think he has allowed the country to become so divided that we are closer than we have been in 150 years to a civil war. He has created an environment of increased racial tensions. He has further eroded the little faith the American public has in the federal government.

So to hear him say that he believes that he has earned a B+, and only missed a higher grade because of job growth and a failure to pass health care reform, tells me that the President and his administration are living in an alternate reality. That is the reality of the 20 year old college student. Allow me to explain.

I know you have all known them. The kids still in or recently graduated from college who enter into the real world of work and feel as they know everything. I know a kid that believes he is never wrong. He will read a single statement on first aid and then attempt to tell an doctor “I think I know better than you, I took first aid in college.” He will read an MSNBC website article and tell someone who has read 100+ books on politics that they have no idea what they are talking about. The sad part is that no one respects him because of it. He is a smart and likable guy. But he doesn’t yet understand how much he doesn’t know. But all those veterans around him know how much he doesn’t know. Some try to cover for him. Others expose him at every turn.

So when it comes to business, these kids are working on a business degree and they enter the workforce where they are suddenly working side by side with folks who have been doing the work of the business world for 20 years or more. And they will proceed to tell those veterans how their business model is all wrong, how the company has no right to demand that you actually show up to work on time, or how much smarter in business they are in general because, after all, they went to college to get a business degree. See, they have learned so much “book information” about business that they now know 5000% more than they did four years ago so they figure if they learned that much they must know it all. They fail to realize that your years of experience massively trump their book learning. For their first few years of being in the workforce, they buck every system. They constantly question every decision, every policy, and every plan. After a couple of years they learn that they knew absolutely nothing about the business world. It reminds me of an old commercial I used to love.

I don’t even remember what the commercial was for. There was a middle age woman showing a young college graduate around on his first day of work. She sits him down at a computer and says, “so we are going to start you off entering this data into the computer.” The young man looks distressed and says, “I can’t do that.” She answers, “sure you can, I will show you how step by step, don’t worry.” He says, “you don’t understand ma’am, I have a MBA!” She stops, looks at him and says, “ohhhh, in that case I will go really slow.”

That is the young college graduate. They have learned just enough to think they know everything. And it will take years of failure before they are able to grasp the fact that they were absolutely lost when they began. My solace with the young man I mentioned above is that one day he will look back and realize that working for me was one of the best jobs he ever had, and he will realize that my years of experience trumped his self realized wisdom by a long shot. And he will realize that I actually liked him, and my challenging him was to help him learn and grow. As Mrs. Weapon says, each year we learn just how much less we really know. A very profound statement Mrs. W.

And that is our current administration. They are that 20 year old college kid. They have no idea just how much they don’t understand about the way that the world works. They are the tree hugging idealists that shed their bras and chanted “give peace a chance” with a candle in their hand. The problem is that they are the 20 year old college kid who’s father has passed and they ended up as the guy who runs the company. They have a short time to either grow up and start listening to those who know better or their company will go bankrupt. Their self assessment at the one year point tells me they haven’t learned anything yet. They still think running the company is no different than working in the mail room, you just get a better office. Let’s hope they learn their lesson before its too late. Even more important, let’s hope they can admit their mistakes and correct their path once they do.

Yesterday, you turned 4 months! Yay! Over the last month you started to lift & turn your head while on your stomach. Your still drooling like crazy. Some people say it’s because you don’t know to swallow yet, while other say that you’ve started teething. Which ever the reason your mouth is like a river! (LOL)

Your first Thanksgiving was spent with your Great Aunt Ellie, Great Uncle Jay, Grandmother Parris (Uncle Jay’s mom), Cousin Durrell, Cousin Kaili, Kaili’s mom Auntie Gia, and Great-Grandpa Robert at Aunt Ellie’s house. Then we went your Great-Great Grandmother Lillian’s house and then to your Godparents house and spent some time there. You looked very handsome in your white button down shirt, knit vest, and corduroy pants.

Finals have come and 3 have gone, now I have one more to do. I can’t seem to get the motivation I need to start studying for criminal law, which I only have one day to study for really, which is tomorrow… and what is the remainder of today. I kinda studied for it on friday going over flash cards and what not. But I have yet to tackle this bitch! Contracts I had today it was really draining and I thought might have been the hardest test yet…. I hear my criminal law professor is a VERY hard grader and his test is almost impossible… I plan on studying for 3-4 hours tonight and waking up early and studying from 10-12 hours tomorrow and then going and taking this exam. Then I will be finished.

This morning I was on my way to school, and FORGOT MY ID AND EXAM NUMBER AND COMPUTER… basically everything I needed for my exam, and luckily I left early enough that I could go back and get my things… I was a littler stressed out to say the least. I took this impossible exam, with 3 proctors and they WERE SO ANNOYING!!! The guy screamed at people DURING THE EXAM… the lady walked around doing the sitting chart knocking over my papers and being very disturbing…and then I guess my professor forgot one section on the test… or someone did and the proctors didnt make us check WHICH they are SUPPOSE TO, so in the middle of the test we had to get the last question passed out to us…. ANNOYING and no we didn’t get any extra time. The entire process basically sucked… and I hope I do not have those people for my next and last exam. Hello you are suppose to help us not make life harder for us! or just make sure no one is cheating!!! not be super annoying! GOD

Pet peeve of contracts exam annoying proctors…. and then I find out that my friend at a different school gets to have OPEN NOTE finals… and my brother get 3 days between each final… me ONE… no time to recover… just jump right back into the studying… which thinking about it makes me nervous… i need to do that now… eeek… Oh and they arent as crazy as they are with us… we get pencils pens high liters and ear plugs thats it and it needs to be in a CLEAR plastic bag… we can’t have any drinks except water with the label ripped off… not even a coke with the label gone… and they will come and take ur drink if its not water… even though you clearly are not cheating… and to go to the bathroom (which I havent done) you have to sign in and out, which I totally understand… we have to fill out a seating chart seat.. and have our ID’s check usually before the test, but this brilliant set of people thought it would be a good idea to ask to check everyones id’s while we are taking the exam… and my exam today was crazy they had 2 people in suits (on top of the 3 proctors) in the back making sure everyone STOPPED THE EXAM WHEN THEY CALLED TIME, so they could bust people that kept writing or typing… maybe they have a problem with cheating or are just crazy. My brothers proctor LEFT while he was taking his exam… they didn’t need plastic bags and could have what ever kind of drink with the label on it they pleased and they only had ONE proctor not THREE! …. so that was my exam today…

My civil procedures was my first final, it seemed to go smoothly… and I finished on time.. My torts was the second this was a 4 hour exam and yes i took the entire 4 hours and was the 2nd to last person to leave… talk about loser.. it was hard and I really have no clue how I did… all I know is  I studied my butt off for all my exams thus far and hopefully my grades  reflect it… the curve grading system is a joke… and bullshit… it will make someone with a B paper get a C just because they need certain numbers in ever range…

the multiple choice question are SOOOOO hard its not even funny… there will be 2 of the exact same answers with ONE word different and you are suppose to know which to pick, or there will be 4 things that are all reasons and you have to pick which is the best answer, or the teacher will ask a ridic detail question from the first reading and you will have since forgotten… or asked what this justice believe in the case, and you know the majority view and dissent, but can’t recall if they are the majority or the dissent… I hate them… they f’ing suck… all and all I’m super tired and really stressed and lack motivation to study… so i think when my mom gets home im going to make her take me or take her car… because I dont have mine… SHITTY again… to get some chia tea from starbucks… or just take a long bath looking over my flash cards and notes and trying to prepare for the long haul day of studying which is tomorrow… until next time.. ill see ya later party people

The dealers are getting some help from Facebook and Twitter to help sell the 2011 Fiesta. Ford Motor Company is pushing sales training on Twitter and Facebook. Creating a Fiesta Zone show room with the new compact car. Ford is planning marketing events with dealerships. Ford predicts the Fiesta shoppers in their twenties and is a trendsetter. These shoppers have not typically spent time in a showroom and do a lot of buying online.

The marketing program for Ford is called, Retail Movement and is voluntary for the dealerships. Ford dealerships have not sold a vehicle this small since the Fiesta and Aspire in 1997. The Fiesta goes on sale next summer. The program’s training tools have minimal costs, says Paul Anderson, Ford’s small-vehicle marketing manager. Ford also will let dealerships earn credits to get back up to 80 percent of their investments if they do such things as train the sales force about the Fiesta or create a special delivery experience for Fiesta buyers.

The goal is to make dealership employees understand what small-car buyers want and create an experience for those buyers that will have them telling friends about their Fiesta purchase.

Ford has started some of the Fiesta training for dealers. It’s a huge change from the normal training, which is 30 to 60 days before it goes on sale. In my opinion the training is early because it involves work. Yes work, there is a lot of detail with Facebook and Twitter marketing. Don’t expect to put incentives up and expect consumers to jump on Facebook and Twitter. It is about relationships!

Thanks,

Linda Swan

JP-B sez:

Ever since Joe Wilson’s crass display during Obama’s speech back in September, I’ve been truly fearful of what lies ahead for our country. I see stoopid people everywhere and all kidding aside, they scare the Hell out of me. It’s like there’s an undercurrent of hatred and despair about to reach a crescendo the equivalent to watching a long, slow train wreck being set in motion, knowing full well that we the people are about to be thrown underneath it.

I’m as disillusioned with our political system now as I was during the late 60s and early 70s. The political climate is rife with the same kind of hatred and arrogance that led to the chaos and violence at the DNC in Chicago and the slaughter of protesting students at Kent State University. Have we learned nothing from the mistakes of the past? Some of the most insidious statements I’ve heard over the past year and a half have been made by well educated people I’ve known and respected for a very long time. I look at them now and I just don’t understand what has happened to their value systems and their sensibilities and It saddens me.

Maybe I’m making to much of it all. Is it me?

To which I reply:

I suppose Gandhi’s idea of “being the change you want to see” is applicable here.

I am scared by the ignorance and the hatred, but when I look at the way the government is ‘functioning’ I am a lot closer to Glen Beck than Nancy Pelosi.

This has actually caused me to bite my tongue up until now because I am having trouble with the realization that although we are diametrically opposed, we both want the same thing: a government that works for the people and not whoever the hell the government is working for right now.

We have people that spent 8 years screaming about the shredding of the Constitution now silent as lambs about Obama doubling down on those policies. We have a President elected on a platform of Progressive Change doing the bidding of some of the most powerful sectors of our country (Pharma, the Medical Industry, Wall Street, and the Industrial-Military Complex). And we are attempting to placate a country that is literally poisonous to every empire that has attempted to conquer it (Afghanistan).

The anger we see is the inevitable result of the co-opting of our government by extra-human forces (No, not aliens. Corporations.) If you look at the way the Senate acted in the waning years of the Roman Empire you will see many parallels to what is going on in our Congress today.

In other words, JP-B, just business as usual for an Empire that has gotten too big for its britches. My suggestion is that we work on being more compassionate, more loving, and more human. All the rest will happen whether or not we lose our minds.

In this piece on President Obama’s first year, by Jacob Weisberg, he is measured largely in the expected passage of a Healthcare bill….but I will also add another thing…..This country may still have high unemployment…..but, the economy is on the mend….the piece give a thumbs up to the Stimulus package that the White House got passed….and President Obama gets props on that also…Finally, while the foreign affairs thing has consisted of mostly apologizes……there have been not demonstrations against the policies of the american government for almost a year…something impossible under the previous administration…..

Not bad for a rookie….Not bad…..

I entered the trucking industry in 2004 – green to the world, though not completely to the lifestyle. I’d always been somewhat of a gypsy having left my home state of Massachusetts to seek out something bigger a world away in Tennessee. I had an idea of what to expect – I had been grilled by friends who had been there, done that and even spent a night helping a local driver run a grueling shift through the mountains of North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee after a long day at work. I thought I knew what I was getting into – but I ended up blindsided by the process that is the student truck driver industry.

I’ll be honest, it’s been five years now, almost six. I’ve never forgotten the hell that marked my first year as a driver, but it’s not something I dwell upon everyday. That is until I started poking around Twitter and stumbled across @TruckerDesiree. I hadn’t given much thought to those early days other than to warn folks like me about what they could *really* expect out there in the machine. That is until I saw a report done by Dan Rather on Desiree’s story (along with the second part here), and found myself engrossed and remembering those early days like they were yesterday.

I went into trucking when nothing else was going right. Truth be told it was trucking, or the military because selling parts in small town Tennessee just wasn’t paying even my minimal bills on a singlewide mobile home tucked in the middle of nowhere. I always loved travel, adventure, and had absolutely no problem spending large amounts of time alone.

I enrolled in a large carrier’s CDL “academy” because I had waited so long to make the leap into driving that I couldn’t afford to take the course offered by the same technical college that enabled me to become certified in diesel mechanics. I had only what I could put into my bags, and a few boxes of irreplaceables that a friend let me store in the top of his closet. Three weeks, they told me, and I’d have a newly minted CDL. What they didn’t tell me is that I’d be pencil whipped through backing, given only minimal time behind the wheel on the highway (and shockingly, most of that was as a bobtail – no trailer attached for those not from the industry) and tested by the same people charged to “teach” me. The CDL test? 8 minutes long on the road – after all, they had a hundred of us to do that night. There were two shifts as well – daytime and nights. I graduated with my license and absolutely terrified because I had no idea what the hell I was doing out there, but I was bound to the same company that trained me for the next year of my life.

My orientation? Over two hundred hopeful drivers. You read that right, two HUNDRED. Some failed verification paperwork that in my opinion, even as a new driver, was something that should have been completed before arriving at the company by recruiting. Some failed the drug screen. But by and large, most of us made it through and ended up waiting on trainers. I was one of the lucky ones – my trainers (all three of them) had no less than 5 years OTR experience each, though at the time I was told I could be paired with someone who had never driven his/her first winter yet. I should probably mention this was January and weather was ugly. I survived my training period after getting stranded in Syracuse, NY by a trainer who tried to get me to overspeed the truck beyond the posted safe speed limit in the snow and ice because another truck was going too slow for his liking – his speed? 5mph below posted safe speed for dry conditions. My final trainer was called the “last chance” trainer for “problem” trainees. My company’s opinion? They had never received a complaint about my trainer before, so I was wrong – but they would be forgiving and give me one last chance.

I survived my six weeks of training – which ended up closer to eight with the time spent waiting for another trainer. Honestly? I don’t attribute my success in this industry to much more than luck.  I have a head on my shoulders, yes, and I followed by gut.  But in the end I got lucky like so many are not.  I got a decent final trainer, I got a wonderful first driver manager who had been out on the road for a few years and who actually cared about his drivers.  He was always available to me, even after hours if I had a question or problem I felt I couldn’t ask elsewhere.

Many other new drivers are not as lucky and it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman.

Watch Dan Rather’s report – it’s unbiased and frighteningly true.  I also find it amazingly amusing that one truck driver has the ATA backing down and cowering in a corner unable to face allegations that all of us in the industry know are true.

******

I worked most recently inside a company, and my main duty was to work with the new drivers fresh out of school.  I am proud to have worked for them because I truly believe in the program they have in place.  Is it perfect? No. Is it better than what I, and the majority of drivers went through? Oh God yes.  I’ve seen what these CDL mills have churned out, and it made my stomach raw.  Most of these drivers were nowhere near ready to take the wheel, even with a seasoned hand next to them.  My job was to give them the foundation of success and flatbedding, and hope to God it took before they got back in for testing.  I have taught everything from mirrors to basic shifting to logbooks and reading maps, cautioned trainers and even as an atheist I have prayed that they would somehow learn everything they were supposed to know before they got to me and their trainer.  Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t.

But there is truth to what the drivers say.  My problems were dismissed until someone finally looked into a major carrier’s CDL school’s testing procedures and the State of Tennessee started suspending CDL licenses left and right.  I was one of the few lucky ones who skated by on the edges, fully convinced my license would be suspended as well after years on the road with a spotless safety record.  There is truth here, buried in countless corporate lawyers’ posturing and press releases by PR people.  Drivers deserve to be heard because the underhanded dealings are not just limited to the CDL mills and it’s these bad practices that overshadow all the great drivers and great companies and schools out there.

While moderated by myself, David Bennett, in the admissions office, the hope in the coming weeks and months is to allow this site to be a conduit for students to talk about their lives as students. Let see how this experiment unfurls. Our first student blogger, Anica Lin, will be introduce herself shortly. She is a First-Year student from Swaziland who will comment not only on life at Lake Forest, but her life in America.