my first year results

First year was an emotional rollercoaster, however I got through it.

For first year, I studied massage, examination and assessment of peripheral joints, anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, critical enquiry, and exercise therapy.

As you all know, I hated exercise therapy in second year, and this was the same in first year. The only difference was, we were prescribing exercises for the healthy athlete in first year, progressing to the injured athlete in second year. I don’t know if it was the lecturer, the content or the fact it was first thing on a Monday, where I felt my weakest after coming back up to uni from a weekend at home. During the first year, this module was hell. The lecturer was boring and the content was even worse. For practical’s, we would spend the time doing nothing productive. Exercise therapy was graded with a case study assignment and a practical exam on leading an exercise class. The case study was based on a scenario, for me this was designing an upper limb exercise class for volleyball players. In this case study, I achieved 57% which for me is very good. My sentence structure is poor and I have the ability to waffle through any piece of work. The practical exam was in May and I just wanted it over with to get home, although I did end up with 65% in the practical exam. The calculated module grade was 61% which is a 2:1.

The massage module was amazing. Weekly massages were the perfect scenario for loosening my tense muscles for the anxiety attacks. I figured out that for my learning disability I need to watch demonstrations and do things straight away after them for me to retain that information. So, I worked hard on massaging my model, and then I’d get the massage to loosen off my muscles that were tight. It was a win, win, loose muscles and a clear head and understanding of the principles of massage. This module required a minimum of 25 first aid placement hours to pass. With these hours, we had to provide first aid cover to sports teams and write about any injuries we dealt with. The written assignment was a reflexion on a situation we dealt with. I chose to do mine on a recurring patella tendinopathy injury. For this paper, I got 60% which I am happy with as for this I had no support, as my leaning disability had not been recognised this early. The practical exam was a massage based on an injury scenario. I had Achilles tendinopathy for my scenario, I massaged hamstrings, calves and did friction treatment on the Achilles. Gaining myself 77% in the exam and 72% overall for the module for a first.

Anatomy and physiology was the hardest module. There are 206 bones in the body, we had to know them all, there are about 840 muscles in the body, we had to know the origins, insertions (the places where the connect to the bones) and movements which these muscles do, off by heart. I loved this module, so much so, I bought myself a skeleton and called him LeBone James. For the 3 exams, we had to name the origins and insertions of the muscles, bony landmark palpation, and naming 2 muscles that did a specific action. I smashed them exams, I achieved 85% and I found a good way of learning for my learning disability. The last exam was a written exam, I got the questions on a computer with the questions read out for me to hear as I struggle with reading. The questions could be on anything that we learnt in the semester in anatomy and again, I smashed it! I got 73% which was a lot more than I thought I had got. Overall, I got 81% on anatomy and physiology gaining a first.

We had to do a module on critical enquiry which I hated although, the teacher was hilarious and apparently, he is Harry Kane’s personal sports scientist. He hated cricket though which was annoying. We had a literature review assignment on a journal article on the sport of our choice, so of course I did mine on cricket. I achieved 70% on this which I was very happy with as again, my learning disability was not apparent to me. The written exam was multiple choice which I loved, the rest was a long answer question which I was not so good at! I got 55% in the exam meaning 63% overall (2:1).

Kinesiology was an amazing module, I love it. Looking at how the body moves is incredible. People don’t understand how much it takes to physically move the human body. There was a written exam and a laboratory report for this module which I got 63% on both equating 63% on the module (2:1). I was excited to hear that there was another module for kinesiology in second year.

The last module that we did was peripheral joint examination and assessment which again I loved. We learnt all the movements for all joints and how to assess actively, passively and resisted. We also got to examine ligaments in special tests like the valgus varus stress test for knee and elbow. I absolutely smashed the 2 exams, with lower limb being my highest score with 80% and upper limb coming a close second with 72%! It is fair to say I worked hard for these grades, and I am very proud of the 76% overall, which was a first.

Overall, I did very well in first year, 2 firsts and 4 2:1’s, I couldn’t have asked for better grades! Although, this didn’t come easy, with mental health issues getting in the way, but I did it!! And I couldn’t be prouder. Now for year 2, then year 3 and graduation.