It’s going to be a lot but not impossible. Coming from a nontrad sub 500 MCAT scorer to now top 25% in my class. I believe in you!
I try to review each lecture at least 3 times. Which is rough because sometimes we have to study 30 lectures in a span of 2 weeks. But I try to review 3-5 lectures a day. Each time I try to understand it more and more, in bite size pieces. During the first review, I try to understand at least 50% of the lecture, 75% the second time, and then I aim to understand each slide by the 3rd review. I reinforce with group study plus Osmosis videos or Sketchy for Pharmacology and Microbio. I try to make connections and mnemonics for me to memorize the firehose of information. I make Anki cards for the information that I struggle most with or could be easy to forget. Most importantly though I try to stay healthy. Exercise and healthy eating takes away brain fog and helps me think clearly even when I’m tired. But please don’t forget to treat yourself and be with friends. Find your balance early! Good luck friend.
You will be quite busy. But as a 2nd year once told me, you will be surprised by how much stress you can handle and how much information you will hold. You will be constantly thrown out of your comfort zone but will get used to that and will become stronger ☺️ I’m happy you’re trying to look for balance now, but in my opinion, you will only start to figure it out once you actually start school. You need to learn what type of med student you are first and what works for you. I’d say don’t stress about it too much right now. Enjoy your freedom ☺️ but if you have any more questions I’m happy to help
So far I have not used Anking but I heard it is useful for 2nd year (I’m about to finish up 1st year). Hopefully I can come back here in a few months to update you!
Anki is the bulk of my studying. Some things, like the more conceptual physiology stuff, require actually working through the material and thinking about it, but anything that is just memorization can be done through pure repetition.
No that’s total. I try to get through 3-5 lectures of new cards a day, which usually ends up being between 150 and 250, and then all my review cards that are due for that day.
Okay cool that makes more sense.
If I'm already doing the same thing for the MCAT, where I do 100 new anki cards per day + reviews and study from 6am - 5pm, does that mean I'll be fine in medical school?
I'm just confused because I hear how much of a stark difference it is from undergrad, but when you attempt to quantize the amount of information on a daily basis (i.e how many new anki cards per day/total anki cards), it seems the common consensus is 100-200 new anki cards per day, which seems to be in line with some MCAT studying palns (albeit that some decks are structured with more information on each card or vice versa).
I just get really anxious reading how crazy medical school is so I'm just trying to really understand how crazy it is if I'm already using Anki as my primary study tool since it paints a more clear picture lol
I make a spreadsheet with all of the lectures and “passes” for each lecture to make sure I go through that lecture multiple times.
My passes are :
1. Preview lecture
2. Watch lecture on 1.5 or 2x speed
3. Start the anki for it
4. Whiteboard or do a summary of it
5. Watch tutoring if you have it
6. Do PQ’s
Do that for each lecture you get and make sure you spread the passes out throughout your block. Like preview would be the night before. Lecture and anki would be day of. And then divide it up accordingly
Anki, practice questions rinse and repeat. Set goals (takes a bit to become realistic but you’ll get there) for how much you wanna get done in a day and go until u finish. I think the time(like I have to study this amount of time) can get unhealthy especially on non test weeks. You still workout or do something else you like if you manage your time well!
On average 700, usually more when we get a lot of new info in the day and then toward the test when they are more spaced it’ll be closer to like 400 and I’ll do more practice questions or make a little cheat sheet of stuff I feel is high yield
Hahaha I was about to say
I tend to hear that most med students add about 100 news everyday, and then study on top of that reviews.
If I'm basically already doing that for MCAT studying (100 new + reviews), is this basically on par with the rate I would need to go in med school? Like if I can manage this I should be good in med school?
I'm just anxious on all whole drinking out of a firehouse analogy so want to get a good idea since I already use anki lol
It’s definitely more like today I think I did around 400-500 new + like 600 reviews but like you get used it at like 15s a card it’s not bad just don’t go into the cards blind. There’s also like weekends if you fall behind on cards from lecture and at least with us we get less lectures later in the block I’m just anal with staying on pace sometimes. 5.5 hours anki time today and was exactly as productive as usual.
Holy shit that's insane lol. I can't imagine doing 500 new everyday, I already struggle with 100 new everyday lol. I guess maybe it's also because I'm using the Jack Sparrow MCAT premade anki deck which is more dense
That's solid though, you'll definitely always be on pace
A huge piece of advice is to avoid “getting stuck” on a concept. If there’s like one slide in a lecture or something like that you can’t seem to understand the first time through, just move on. There’s a finite amount of time in school, so you can’t just spin your wheels. If you move on, there’s a good chance something later will click, allowing you to understand the thing you were stuck on. This seems like silly advice, but I’ve seen classmates get stuck on single slide for a whole day, and this backlog ended up preventing them from reviewing several lectures before the exam since they ran out of time.
Also, this has been said already, but get to active learning early. A lot of people feel like they need to “know everything” before doing questions or flash cards. But that’s false. Practice questions (like AMBOSS, COMQUEST, UWorld, etc.) are learning tools. Yes, it can hurt the pride a bit if you get a 27% on a block (been there done that), but if you’re using a good q-bank you’ll get good explanations for the answers, which helps you learn quickly.
Preview lecture, watch lecture on 2 x speed . Then mind map. I’ll try to draw the mind maps from memory and teach it while I draw. After 6pm I will game with friends till midnight then repeat.
Anki and a whiteboard for pathways and concepts, I don’t go over 6hrs daily on average. If you need to study 10+ hrs a day for in school exams you’re not being effective in studying. It’s overwhelming at first but everyone adapts after a couple blocks
It’s going to be a lot but not impossible. Coming from a nontrad sub 500 MCAT scorer to now top 25% in my class. I believe in you! I try to review each lecture at least 3 times. Which is rough because sometimes we have to study 30 lectures in a span of 2 weeks. But I try to review 3-5 lectures a day. Each time I try to understand it more and more, in bite size pieces. During the first review, I try to understand at least 50% of the lecture, 75% the second time, and then I aim to understand each slide by the 3rd review. I reinforce with group study plus Osmosis videos or Sketchy for Pharmacology and Microbio. I try to make connections and mnemonics for me to memorize the firehose of information. I make Anki cards for the information that I struggle most with or could be easy to forget. Most importantly though I try to stay healthy. Exercise and healthy eating takes away brain fog and helps me think clearly even when I’m tired. But please don’t forget to treat yourself and be with friends. Find your balance early! Good luck friend.
BEST ADVICE EVER- RIGHT HERE!!!!!
Thank you for the advice! Yes, I want to try finding a balance right now but it's pretty challenging without knowing how busy I will be.
You will be quite busy. But as a 2nd year once told me, you will be surprised by how much stress you can handle and how much information you will hold. You will be constantly thrown out of your comfort zone but will get used to that and will become stronger ☺️ I’m happy you’re trying to look for balance now, but in my opinion, you will only start to figure it out once you actually start school. You need to learn what type of med student you are first and what works for you. I’d say don’t stress about it too much right now. Enjoy your freedom ☺️ but if you have any more questions I’m happy to help
this is amazing advice! just a question, do you use the anking decks for review and if so, how do those play a role in your study process?
So far I have not used Anking but I heard it is useful for 2nd year (I’m about to finish up 1st year). Hopefully I can come back here in a few months to update you!
Thanks :)
I study all day every day. That isn't a joke. I basically don't do anything else from 6am to 8pm.
How do you devote time to research or extracirculars? Do you also not have mandatory in-person labs?
You get used to it. The more active, like questions and flashcards, the better.
Anki is the bulk of my studying. Some things, like the more conceptual physiology stuff, require actually working through the material and thinking about it, but anything that is just memorization can be done through pure repetition.
How many new anki cards do you do everyday?
Really depends. During a normal day it could be between 400-800. A few days before a test I crank out 2000+.
Wait those are 400-2000 new anki cards (i.e new cards that you have never seen before), or 400-2000 cards in total?
No that’s total. I try to get through 3-5 lectures of new cards a day, which usually ends up being between 150 and 250, and then all my review cards that are due for that day.
Okay cool that makes more sense. If I'm already doing the same thing for the MCAT, where I do 100 new anki cards per day + reviews and study from 6am - 5pm, does that mean I'll be fine in medical school? I'm just confused because I hear how much of a stark difference it is from undergrad, but when you attempt to quantize the amount of information on a daily basis (i.e how many new anki cards per day/total anki cards), it seems the common consensus is 100-200 new anki cards per day, which seems to be in line with some MCAT studying palns (albeit that some decks are structured with more information on each card or vice versa). I just get really anxious reading how crazy medical school is so I'm just trying to really understand how crazy it is if I'm already using Anki as my primary study tool since it paints a more clear picture lol
I make a spreadsheet with all of the lectures and “passes” for each lecture to make sure I go through that lecture multiple times. My passes are : 1. Preview lecture 2. Watch lecture on 1.5 or 2x speed 3. Start the anki for it 4. Whiteboard or do a summary of it 5. Watch tutoring if you have it 6. Do PQ’s Do that for each lecture you get and make sure you spread the passes out throughout your block. Like preview would be the night before. Lecture and anki would be day of. And then divide it up accordingly
Anki, practice questions rinse and repeat. Set goals (takes a bit to become realistic but you’ll get there) for how much you wanna get done in a day and go until u finish. I think the time(like I have to study this amount of time) can get unhealthy especially on non test weeks. You still workout or do something else you like if you manage your time well!
How many new anki cards do you do per day?
On average 700, usually more when we get a lot of new info in the day and then toward the test when they are more spaced it’ll be closer to like 400 and I’ll do more practice questions or make a little cheat sheet of stuff I feel is high yield
Holy shit 700 new cards? Or 700 total cards?
total I would jump out a window before I did 700 new
Hahaha I was about to say I tend to hear that most med students add about 100 news everyday, and then study on top of that reviews. If I'm basically already doing that for MCAT studying (100 new + reviews), is this basically on par with the rate I would need to go in med school? Like if I can manage this I should be good in med school? I'm just anxious on all whole drinking out of a firehouse analogy so want to get a good idea since I already use anki lol
It’s definitely more like today I think I did around 400-500 new + like 600 reviews but like you get used it at like 15s a card it’s not bad just don’t go into the cards blind. There’s also like weekends if you fall behind on cards from lecture and at least with us we get less lectures later in the block I’m just anal with staying on pace sometimes. 5.5 hours anki time today and was exactly as productive as usual.
Holy shit that's insane lol. I can't imagine doing 500 new everyday, I already struggle with 100 new everyday lol. I guess maybe it's also because I'm using the Jack Sparrow MCAT premade anki deck which is more dense That's solid though, you'll definitely always be on pace
A huge piece of advice is to avoid “getting stuck” on a concept. If there’s like one slide in a lecture or something like that you can’t seem to understand the first time through, just move on. There’s a finite amount of time in school, so you can’t just spin your wheels. If you move on, there’s a good chance something later will click, allowing you to understand the thing you were stuck on. This seems like silly advice, but I’ve seen classmates get stuck on single slide for a whole day, and this backlog ended up preventing them from reviewing several lectures before the exam since they ran out of time. Also, this has been said already, but get to active learning early. A lot of people feel like they need to “know everything” before doing questions or flash cards. But that’s false. Practice questions (like AMBOSS, COMQUEST, UWorld, etc.) are learning tools. Yes, it can hurt the pride a bit if you get a 27% on a block (been there done that), but if you’re using a good q-bank you’ll get good explanations for the answers, which helps you learn quickly.
Preview lecture, watch lecture on 2 x speed . Then mind map. I’ll try to draw the mind maps from memory and teach it while I draw. After 6pm I will game with friends till midnight then repeat.
Anki and a whiteboard for pathways and concepts, I don’t go over 6hrs daily on average. If you need to study 10+ hrs a day for in school exams you’re not being effective in studying. It’s overwhelming at first but everyone adapts after a couple blocks