What advice would you give to those highschoolers who are nervous about college classes, studying, etc?
Its ok to be nervous! All freshman are! I know I deifnitely was. Its really important you go in with a solid plan and be ready to give it your all. A lot of college students SUFFER their freshman year because they don't approach college the way you should - they treat it like high school. You'll be taking several hard classes and you can't simply just study the night before - you can get away with that in HS, but if you try that in college, you're on the fast track to a 1.0 GPA. Freshman year is a bit rough in terms of adjusting, however the classes you'll be taking are the easiest, it only gets harder, so its important to study really hard and try to get the highest possible GPA. I would STRONGLY suggest a few tips:
1. Study in the library. Not your dorm room. The dorms are awesome for socializing, people will be coming in and out constantly. Go to the library with your lecture notes, textbook, and homeworks. Do all of your assignments, and then study and do practice questions. For gen chem, I remember we'd have about 30 questions of hw a week. I'd do all over those, and then additionally, I'd do another 15 to 20 in the chapter we were studying to make sure I had the material down.
2. DON'T FALL BEHIND. Stay ahead. Always try to stay ahead.
3. Have fun - but controlled fun - partying is ok, but every night is gonna destroy your GPA (and your body)
How do you approach a prof for the first time after hours?
First and foremost have a good reason to approach a professor. A lot of professors tend to hate pre-meds so simplying going up after lecture 1 to say "Hi I'm Kurk, I'm in your freshman chem class!" will make him/her assume you're trying to kiss up and you're a pre-med and already you'll be in bad standing. If you have a legitimate question on notes, materials, or questions, you can go to them during office hours. Bring ALL the materials organized. If you have a question from slide 23 in lecture 4, bring lecture 3 and 5 because he/she might say "Yeah there was an error on that slide, but I corrected it in lecture 3 and 5" so this way you don't look like a fool.
Do you address them by "Dr. X" or "Professor X"?
Great question! Professor. Always professor. While a PhD is a Doctor, these professors in academics work extremely hard to earn the title of professor. You can be a "doctor" as soon as you finish your PhD. But to be a professor you need to complete a post-doc and get associate professor status and work towards tenure, so its a higher form of respect.
How many hours per week did you spend just in lectures on average?
Let me think...you mean just lecture hours? I'd say from Monday to Friday I had roughly 15 to 20 hours of pure lecture a week, which is roughly 4 hours a day. After class I'd go to the library and start doing my homework or studying for midterms.
Outside of studying, volunteering, shadowing, etc. how much time did you have for hobbies/socializing/having a life/? (I know it is subjective to many things)
First and foremost, grades are the most important part of your medical school application! You can volunteer 10,000 hours, but if you don't have good grades it don't mean squat unfortunately! I mainly studied in the semesters....a little bit of volunteering (4 hours a week) because I was wrapped up in classes. I was also involved in several extracurricular activities like TAing for some classes and club meetings/club leadership. With all of that plus classwork, I was pretty busy! I did have time for my hobbies/socializing/life! I lived in a suite, which is a common room plus 3 rooms with 2 guys in them. Me and my roommate would play xbox every night or watch netflix, get food, etc. Maybe during midterm week a little bit less, but I had plenty of time. I always had friday and saturday nights free. I'd finish up studying by 6 or 7pm, and go out afterwards. Don't worry, its doable
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How many significant grading opportunities do you receive per semester in an average class (e.g general biology)?
Unfortunately for those classes there aren't too many grading opportunities. My general biology class simply had 4 midterms (in college every exam is called a midterm), and a final exam. Each was 25% of your grade. The final exam counted to your grade no matter what, and of the 4 other midterms, your lowest score was dropped, so 3 of them counted. :/. Occasionally in a class like gen chem, you have 3 midterms and a final, everything counts, sometimes the final more than others. Hypothetically, the final might be 30% of your overall grade, each midterm then 20%, so that brings us to 90%. 10% might be split up between 5% of lecture clicker questions, and 5% online homework assignments.
Thank you for taking the time
My pleasure