Thanks for this, lots of excellent information here. Also, congratulations on your acceptance that's major.
Seems reasonable for them to expect you to ace the MMS classes since this is basically just "med-school lite". I've heard that the MMS is actually a bit harder than their DO program, wonder if you've heard anything like this maybe from current DO students?
Also any comments on anything particularly tricky about the program layout/cut-offs besides just the usual "actively study and do it a lot"?
Thanks.
Glad I could help, and thank you!
From both MS1's and MS2's that were in the MMS program, they have said that MS1 felt like a slightly faster paced MMS and is therefore a bit more challenging, but other folks have said that MMS has more depth of knowledge for its pace and is thus harder.
I figure MS1 will be harder in a vacuum, but with the background of MMS, I imagine it will be less burdening.
and yes I do have comments. These are all things that worked for me, and what I learned a long the way, this is by no means a recipe for success. Plenty of students have done things differently and done better, the same, and worse than me.
Be adaptable.
It will most likely be nothing like undergrad. I completely threw out everything I used in undergrad, and went 100% Anki. Instead of taking notes, I would make anki flashcards during class. I spent my mornings before class in the library, and for harder subjects, I spent the evenings there too. I counted my hours at my peak of studying, and spent ~40+ hours in the library a week, not including the 3-4 hour daily lectures.
Probably sounds like "actively study and do it a lot" but what's more important imo isn't the hours spent, but making the material as interesting/digestable as possible to MAKE massive amounts of study hours possible. Anki gave me a sense of progression, taking one card at a time, and was basically perpetual self quizzing. I found this much more enjoyable than my former pen/paper study method, which didn't help me in undergrad anyway (3.3 UG GPA).
You may enjoy pen/paper study, and that is what makes a lot of study hours possible, then do that. Studying with friends in silence initially helps me get through the library hours as well, and once we're closer to exams, another friend and I use my anki and their study material and quiz each other for a few days. That helps add on (relatively) painless hours.
Whatever your method is, make the study hours massive, effective, but most importantly as painless as possible, it'll help reduce the odds of burnout in the end.
Another point, they'll say this in the beginning, but have hobbies. This will reallly help reduce the odds of burnout. My hobbies were exercise/boxing, anime, and friends. I would go to the gym first thing in the morning close to 4 days a week on total average, for about 1-1.5 hours. It might be hindsight bias but I felt like a week before exam that I didn't go gym to try to study more felt more exhausting than a week before exam where I still went regularly.
Something I think doesn't get mentioned enough: Professors can be very similar, and VERY different. It'll be hard figuring out their patterns and what questions they will make at first, but keep if you keep it in the back of your mind, i think you'll figure it out soon enough. Definitely overstudy for the first exam with a new professor. Don't let them catch you off guard, overstudy, then figure out how they make test questions.
I think the common thread across all these concepts are being adaptable. Adjusting to a new, stressful life, adjusting to new habits, adjusting to new people, adjusting to new content, new study methods, failing a study method, trying something new again, etc.
Oh and be nice
Hope this helps,
