I'm starting school this July, and I was wondering what works for you guys. In undergrad, I read the textbook, slides, and learning objectives. From posts on SDN, I've seen that reading textbooks for courses is too time consuming. Is this true?
I'm starting school this July, and I was wondering what works for you guys. In undergrad, I read the textbook, slides, and learning objectives. From posts on SDN, I've seen that reading textbooks for courses is too time consuming. Is this true?
I'm a B student and I hand write all my notes. Takes me about three times as long as my classmates to do a lecture. But I learn while making the summaries and graphs and charts. Then I read through them all about 4-5 times before the test, spaced out and quiz myself.
So if we have like six hours of lecture on a day, it takes me like 18 hours to consider myself caught up. I don't like just listening, I like to pause and draw things out and google. I'm usually a day or two behind my classmates and get caught up over the weekend.
I know people who get B's who just reread the powerpoints over and over. I couldn't do that, I have to write down things in my own words and draw pictures to remember stuff. And typing never worked for me either.
I know a girl who seems like she has higher grades who makes millions of flashcards. I found it difficult to turn my notes into flashcards so quit trying.
I'd like to try new methods but when all your tests seem to be worth 60% of your grade, you're reluctant to experiment . . .
Oh, and I only do required readings. Never optional. If I had more free time, I'd totally read all my texts. I just work too slow to have enough free time. I really like to think about my lectures and write out weird maps and try to think of strange ways to remember stuff.
I'm starting school this July, and I was wondering what works for you guys. In undergrad, I read the textbook, slides, and learning objectives. From posts on SDN, I've seen that reading textbooks for courses is too time consuming. Is this true?
18 hrs * 5 lecture days/wk = 90 hrs per wk? Do you ever have time to relax if you're putting in 90hrs/wk?
I used firecracker religiously and ended up regretting it once I saw the Bro Deck and Flash Facts by Rx. The problem with FC is that it tries to cover "everything" and not "everything" is testable on boards. Some material will be tested a lot more than others. They came out with a "High Yield" option which was stupid. They just basically cut out topics that are less testable, but this the incorrect way to approach it. The fact is that within topics some things are more testable than others. For example, FC HY cut out the WPW Syndrome, but you should know what the delta wave it creates looks like and that it is because you're bypassing the AV node even if the rest of the topic is not important. Also, if they consider a topic to be HY, then you are still covering things about it that are not HY. For example, knowing that Guillain-Barre can be from Campy or CMV is very important, but the other 4 etiologies are definitely not important to know.Thank you all so much for sharing your techniques/strategies! I'll read the slides, watch the lecture, take notes, reread the slides, and focus more on the high yield content. Have any of you guys tried firecracker?
I used firecracker religiously and ended up regretting it once I saw the Bro Deck and Flash Facts by Rx. The problem with FC is that it tries to cover "everything" and not "everything" is testable on boards. Some material will be tested a lot more than others. They came out with a "High Yield" option which was stupid. They just basically cut out topics that are less testable, but this the incorrect way to approach it. The fact is that within topics some things are more testable than others. For example, FC HY cut out the WPW Syndrome, but you should know what the delta wave it creates looks like and that it is because you're bypassing the AV node even if the rest of the topic is not important. Also, if they consider a topic to be HY, then you are still covering things about it that are not HY. For example, knowing that Guillain-Barre can be from Campy or CMV is very important, but the other 4 etiologies are definitely not important to know.
Yes, ideally you should follow every class with either deck. I'd go with Bros because it's free.Thanks for the helpful reply. I definitely don't want to "waste" my time by reviewing material that won't optimally help me. Do you recommend Flash Facts or Anki Bro Deck?
Best advice I can give is to hammer home the big picture, try really hard to understand rather than memorize, and don't kill yourself with the details.
Why? Details are forgotten, usually pretty quickly. You won't remember every enzyme, transcription factor, or gene no matter how many times you look at them. But if you really understand how something works, you'll remember it forever.
I focused on minutiae the first half of MS1 and struggled a lot. Since then I switched to just seeing the high yield material as many times as possible, actually expecting my grades to drop, and I'm about to finish 6 consecutive blocks with a 4.0.
Just as an example of what I mean: If I'm learning about benzodiazepines, I spend an excessive amount of time understanding the mechanism of how that class of drugs works, and very little time with the specifics of each drug.
I am at the same point in my life as OP and will be matriculating in July. I just have a question for you - aren’t minutiae details being tested in class? I assumed we would have to know that level of detail because they would test that.
Sort of. The idea here is that there's so much that goes into understanding medicine, and people often neglect this part in favor of memorizing so they score highly on exams. If your goal is good grades, you can memorize slides and get an A on just about every exam you take. The downside to this is that minutiae won't stick with you (unless you deal with it every day, i.e. after you specialize), so that time you spent memorizing it was basically wasted in the long run.
Now, on the contrary, you could have spent that time looking at outside resources to really get a deeper understanding of the topic at hand. The outcome is that you have far more practical knowledge, and it tends to stick for a long time.
This is confusing, so let me offer a practical example; say you're learning about white blood cells. Now, you could spend hours memorizing the 50 CDRs your professor puts on their slides, or you could watch a few Osmosis/Najeeb/B&B videos on the same topic -- which collectively will serve as great repetition for the important concepts while simultaneously highlighting the CDRs that are high yield. Sure, you might get a question here and there on very low yield CDRs that you'll never see again, but is missing that question really going to hurt you in the long run? That's something you have to answer yourself.
I think I see what you're saying. So do you think it is possible to still do well in class by focusing on gaining a deeper understanding rather than straight up memorizing? Or do you have to be 50/50 in order to get the A or B AND gain a high level of practical knowledge? I know for a fact that you'd end up being a better physician, but my main concern is for all the tests and the COMLEX/USMLE before you get to that point.
Above average student
I watch the recoded lectures for the day and take really good notes on them via notability which is a PDF note taking app for iPad (I usually pause and google stuff so that my notes are ready to go when I need to study them later). This is my first pass and not much learning is done here, usually just have a general idea of what the lecture is about and how it is laid out.
Then I go back through the lectures for a second pass and this time I read through everything thoroughly and YouTube/google concepts I don't quite get. I like YouTube videos and pictures cuz when I can relate a concert to a video or picture the it sticks. This pass you should have all the concepts down and everything cleared up (you know the big picture) but don't have all details memorized.
Then I make a 3rd pass and make a high yield outline of my PPTs outlines of my lecture slides. Basically putting things into my own words (this takes some time usually 2 hours for a 1 hour lecture), but this really helps me solidify everything and after I write these out I'm usually 80% knowledgeable on the lecture.
From here I have my handwritten outlines of lectures and I read those through 2-3x before the test. And then the night before the test I make one more pass of all the lectures PPTs and quiz myself on what's on the slide before looking, it doesn't take very long cuz you know pretty much everything at this point.
Then I do practice questions from some prep company the night before the test if I have time.
Basically med school performance is very closely related to how much time you put in. I think everyone can get 85-90% on exams if they study hard enough but to get over 90% takes some skill and luck.
Lots of ways to study but the main ingredient is repetition.
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Anki is bae. QBanks are also bae (on that board prep time).
Coffee is also bae. Lots of baes.
What video resources do you guys prefer for first year?
Najeeb? Boards & Beyond? Lecturio?
Big fan of B&B so far, haven’t checked out lecturio yet though. Najeeb was too long IMO (if i recall correctly), for atleast what I’m looking for at the moment
I just do what I did in undergrad and it works.... just study. A better way for me to describe med school now is that it's not harder.... if you can study in undergrad you can study here. What's getting to me at least is the endurance... having to study EVERY DAY (albeit I'm not disciplined so I waste time inbetween) gets to you mentally.
I literally just watch lectures, think about it, understand it, then move on to the next lecture. If I have time, I'll review and ask myself questions about a previous lecture or just asking myself what did this lecture cover. No anki, no outside prep, no textbooks (except Netters to see pictures), and I do well. My biggest weakness is just getting burnt out and not wanting to study, then falling behind and playing catch up.