Looking back was podiatry school as difficult as you thought, less difficult than you thought or more difficult than you thought?
Was podiatry school as difficult as you thought it would be?
- Thread starter Deleonrg
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No.
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dyk343
It's been pretty tough. I knew that going in, but until you go through it its hard to appreciate.
Depends on what your goal was. If you wanted to get all A's it was way harder. If your goal was to pass and get a few B's here and there it should've been easy. I think you can barely study and get C's and B's...
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It's not hard in terms of difficulty of the material, but it's probably more work than you've ever had before in terms of sheer volume. I'm working my butt off, but the end result is worth it to me. Depends on what your personality is as a student.
One thing I will stress is that you shouldn't come to pod school expecting that you wont have to work hard because it's 'just a DPM degree'. Anyone thinking like that is in for serious disappointment.
One thing I will stress is that you shouldn't come to pod school expecting that you wont have to work hard because it's 'just a DPM degree'. Anyone thinking like that is in for serious disappointment.
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Hard? Easy? I agree with the other posters - its a lot of work, but the work isn't hard. I didn't study in undergrad and everything seemed hard. Never thought I'd know my microbes or understand cardiac physiology. Now I put in the time and it all makes sense, but it takes time. I've had a number of days where I just knew I couldn't learn anything more that day. Brain full. Start again tomorrow. Here's some observations. Take 'em or leave 'em.
There's very little downtime between materials and tests. The last lecture of subject matter being on a Friday and the test being on a Monday starts to feel generous. I've seen smaller increments and I'm very much under the impression that by second year the downtime is smaller still.
Every once in awhile I take a few days off from studying. When I do that I can usually expect myself to fall about 2-4 lectures behind per day.
Some classes are just totally draining. Everyone will feel differently about which class that is. For me it was anatomy.
Some classes will test every week while others build up a lot of material. The buildup classes are the dangerous ones in my opinion.
The quality of my studying has improved exponentially. In hindsight, a lot of first semester looks easy. I have a pretty good idea now of what is a waste of time and the behaviors that slowed me down. I can also pretty consistently predict test questions.
There comes a time when you realize that a great deal of the information is repetitive and because you learned it right the first time you just need a quick read through the second time.
I'm of the opinion that a normal schedule gets results. I go to bed at around the same time everyday. I get up at the same time and try to study between a set of normal hours. I never pull all nighters and go to bed at my normal time before tests. I do get up early on the morning of tests. I'm not into extremes and I'm well aware I can't study 15 hours straight so I need to pick up a few hours everyday.
First semester I took a "deal with each test as it arises" mentality. Sometimes you can't help but be in this position, and if a test is coming in 3 days and you aren't ready for it then you'll do what you need to do to be ready which usually means other classes suffering. That said - I came out of Christmas intent on not falling behind and I'd say I prefer this approach.
There's very little downtime between materials and tests. The last lecture of subject matter being on a Friday and the test being on a Monday starts to feel generous. I've seen smaller increments and I'm very much under the impression that by second year the downtime is smaller still.
Every once in awhile I take a few days off from studying. When I do that I can usually expect myself to fall about 2-4 lectures behind per day.
Some classes are just totally draining. Everyone will feel differently about which class that is. For me it was anatomy.
Some classes will test every week while others build up a lot of material. The buildup classes are the dangerous ones in my opinion.
The quality of my studying has improved exponentially. In hindsight, a lot of first semester looks easy. I have a pretty good idea now of what is a waste of time and the behaviors that slowed me down. I can also pretty consistently predict test questions.
There comes a time when you realize that a great deal of the information is repetitive and because you learned it right the first time you just need a quick read through the second time.
I'm of the opinion that a normal schedule gets results. I go to bed at around the same time everyday. I get up at the same time and try to study between a set of normal hours. I never pull all nighters and go to bed at my normal time before tests. I do get up early on the morning of tests. I'm not into extremes and I'm well aware I can't study 15 hours straight so I need to pick up a few hours everyday.
First semester I took a "deal with each test as it arises" mentality. Sometimes you can't help but be in this position, and if a test is coming in 3 days and you aren't ready for it then you'll do what you need to do to be ready which usually means other classes suffering. That said - I came out of Christmas intent on not falling behind and I'd say I prefer this approach.
Thanks it was good to read this, I fully intend to work hard however I was never good at all nighters lol
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No need for all nighters. If you pace yourself and keep up, you shouldn't have to pull one. I've never pulled one and don't intend to do so.
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I didn't think it was bad at all. A lot of students complain about it being hard, but they're often the type that don't put in the effort they should have. It's simple. I work hard so I make good grades. Gotta have the right personality and work ethic though for sure.
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dyk343
I dont understand how some people above say it isn't hard. Everyone is different but to say it wasn't hard is a bit of a stretch. Was each individual course hard? Not really, minus a few. But the amount of hours it took me to get the grades i wanted....
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I think there is a subtle difference between "hard/difficult" and tedious/time-consuming. As far as I can tell, there isn't anything conceptually challenging during the didactic years. It's not like it's a difficult concept to understand the anatomy of a person - people aren't pulling their hair out and screaming "I can't figure out what a bone is! I've been looking at this for hours!!" The problem arises when you need to know every bone, tissue, organ, etc. This isn't an intellectually challenging set of ideas, but rather a dauntingly large volume of material to cover that is more time consuming than anything else.
It's like the difference between memorizing organic chemistry and understanding it, except you don't take organic at podiatry school, so there's a lot of memorization.
That being said, I suppose if you considered the clinical application of literally everything you learned and asked yourself "why" on everything you did, you might find some challenges along the way. (Eg why do we have bones? Why is there composition this instead of something else? Etc). That's learning at a whole new level that is not required of anyone I do not believe.
I'm gonna have to disagree about anatomy. I will never do well on a practical unless I put in 3x more the work than I normally do because I am not very good with spatial learning. It's not just straight memorization. It's the relationships among muscles, organs etc that isn't so straightforward.
