How is A Caffeinated Genetic Counselor handling COVID-19?

Here at A Caffeinated Genetic Counselor, we are committed to the health and safety of our staff and readers, so we will continue to have zero physical contact with all of you because this is an online blog. In exchange for your understanding during these difficult times, we want to share a very special blog post with you.

Many of you are probably intimately aware of how this pandemic is affecting daily life by now. For myself, in-person classes at KGI have been suspended for the rest of the semester and we are all shifting to online classes for the remainder of the year. I am hunkered down in my apartment with enough food and supplies for the next few weeks. Mowgli and I are practicing social isolation as best we can. He is enjoying it much more than I am, that’s for sure.

Social distancing is pretty easy with long-distance friendships

While I welcome the opportunity to spend time at home and take care of little things like cleaning the apartment and organizing my desk, the news that KGI would be switching to online classes was extremely sad for my classmates and I. As many of you may know by now, KGI’s genetic counseling program is two years, with the first year being primarily in-person classes, and the second year consisting of clinical rotations. With that, my classmates and I knew that we would not be seeing each other nearly as frequently in our second year, but prior to last week Thursday, we all thought we had more time with each other. It’s a little jarring to have to fit in two months of emotional preparation to say “goodbye” into like 6 hours. Everyone was upset. Not to mention we also had to say “goodbye” to our friends in the Genomic Data Analytics program, especially since our programs diverge significantly in our second year.

Whenever a chapter in my life closes, and people say “goodbye” I always get weird, almost cold in my reaction. I am not one to cry or get emotional, simply because I have a hard time processing my emotions when I am in front of others. But, to all my classmates who read my blog, I just want to say how much I love and admire all of you. I wish I had been taking an obnoxious amount of photos when we were together, and I look forward to our Slack updates in our #separationanxiety channel. I am immensely sad that I will not be able to see your faces and all your cute lil’ outfits every day, but I look forward to happy hours once our rotations start come summer time. I will miss lamenting in-person about our classes, and sharing snacks in class, and our stuffy little windowless room. To make a sappy post short, I will miss seeing all of your everyday, and I can’t wait until we are all together again.

But other than the last week, this semester has been going pretty well! I have definitely had to move around some projects and commitments, and re-adjusted my responsibilities to accommodate all the different projects that I have been saying “yes” to. The coursework this semester is definitely much more rigorous, but I am enjoying it. It’s actually kind of insane just how fast and how much I have learned since I started school back in September, and how much more I have to learn before the end of the semester. Of course, now there is this added challenge of virtual learning, something that I know is just going to be another obstacle for me. In the coming days I am going to do my best to create a separate space in my tiny apartment for me to study from home. I’m hoping that if I create a designated space, I can switch between school-mode and home-mode more easily, and actually get some studying done, but we will see how that goes.

 

I’ve been saying “yes” to a lot of things this semester, which has been both really rewarding and mildly stressful. A classmate and I created a poster for KGI’s Rare Disease Day conference and we took home 3^rd place!

And the genetics cabinet, of which I am a part of, put on our first (and probably our only lol) event of the semester, where a couple of genetic counselors from Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network came to share about their unique roles and responsibilities.

I am also working with a classmate on writing up a case study in time to submit to NSGC, and trying to make sure I am staying on top of my thesis preparations. Everything seems to be moving really fast, and no matter how much time I think I have, I always seem to have a little bit less. While, I would not recommend doing a Shonda Rhimes “Year of Yes” in the middle of what would be your hardest semester of grad school, I will say that from where I am sitting, I am glad I said yes to these things. I told myself that I would try to make the most of this very brief but wonderful grad school experience, and I’m glad to say that I am doing just that.

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On another note, I want to reach out to any current applicants who are having to deal with so much adjustment as many programs are switching to virtual interviews. I know that this really puts a wrench in your application process, and I want you to know that I am here to support you in any way that I can (and am able to). 

If you have any questions about student life at KGI, please contact the Student Genetics Program via Instagram (@kgi_studentgenetics) or Twitter (@kgi_genetics)! 

That is the best way to get your KGI-related questions answered by current students (time-permitting).

I hope you are all practicing social-distancing and washing your hands! Good luck and good health to all of you.