How to SUCCEED in your first semester
Okay so it’s Year One, Semester One, and you’re looking at this material thinking… How? Been there. Let me give you some friendly advice, but take it with a grain of salt, because everyone is different, unique, and has their own challenges. Take bits of my opinion and forge your own path to success.
Confidence is Key
I don’t know how to better say this, other than to say, find your confidence. I don’t care if you feel like a failure, I don’t care if you don’t know what a carbohydrate is, I don’t care. You have to believe in yourself. You have to trust yourself that you’ve put in the work, you have to be confident in yourselves and your answers. You have to be kind to yourself. In my TA session, question marks are not allowed when answering questions. Why? Because I want you to be confident in your answer, right or wrong. If you’re wrong about something, well now you’ve gotten clarification, and you will be right the next time. And if you’re right, congrats! Because you believed in yourself enough to answer without doubting yourself. The key to better test taking and higher scores is trusting in yourself and your answers, right or wrong.
You learn very quickly that without confidence, it doesn’t matter how much material you learn. You can have a right answer, and self-doubt will quickly have you change your answer. This is why this first step is crucial. Find your confidence, because until you do, expect things to be hard.
How to Approach the Material
Resources
You’re going to hear a lot of, “use this”, “no, this is the best”, “how can you actually use that?”, “you go to lecture?”
You know what the actual best resource is? The one that works for you! Figure out how you learn best. Do you like to read, do you need to watch videos, do you need to draw, do you need tables or charts, is it easy to memorize but hard to understand? There are so many questions you need to understand about yourself before you pick a resource. So let me tell you about myself and my resources so you can decide if they will be right for you.
I am a visual learner; I love to draw. Hearing things spoken to me helps to understand better. Things come more naturally to me when I can understand a concept because memorization for me is hard.
For me what works is to watch a summary video of the topic beforehand, unsuspend relevant Anki cards from a premade deck (I use AnKing), go to lecture and just listen, no notes unless I need to annotate something in First Aid. After lecture, I clarify any further concepts by looking at the learning objectives to make sure I’ve understood, watch any other videos I may need to watch to better understand, draw out a mechanism of action if I need to, and end my day with more Anki cards and maybe some practice questions on the material for that day. My resources in Med1 consisted of Kaplan Q bank for questions (any bank will work though), REEL quizzes, Boards and Beyond, Ninja Nerd, KenHub for Anatomy and Histology and maybe a textbook or two if I really needed more information. 3D apps are also great. One site I really enjoyed was FreeMedTube.net because it has EVERY MED SCHOOL VIDEO for a much cheaper price than buying subscriptions individually. If you like Physeo, it’s there, Osmosis or Sketchy, it’s there. And if you don’t know what resources you like, FreeMedTube is a great place to get an idea of that before you buy anything else.
If you need help with Anki, you can check out my video below to learn more!
And, if you’re finding yourself getting easily distracted, try out the Pomodoro method! I’ll link a really good YouTube video on it as well as the free website that I use and love! I keep it pulled up on one of my extra screens while I study to keep myself focused!
Organization
I don’t think I can stress enough how vital organization is. Many of you may have already heard me talk about the passtracker. It keeps track of what material you are struggling with. I’ll link the video for that where I talk about how to be successful with a passtracker.
This becomes especially important so you know what you need to study when it comes closer to CAS. For CAS, you need to be focusing on the material you don’t know. But, how do you know what you don’t know unless you’ve written it down? Hence, the passtracker. I seriously recommend you check it out to see if you can utilize it for your goals!
You spend a minimum of one week reviewing materials for CAS beforehand. Set up a study plan based on what you do not know. Review the high yield material for what you do know well if you have time. (You find high yield material by seeing what is consistently repeated by all your sources. If you hear the same thing twice or even three times, pay attention to it!).
WATCH YOUR THOUGHTS. FOR THEY BECOME WORDS.
WATCH YOUR WORDS, FOR THEY BECOME ACTIONS.
WATCH YOUR ACTIONS, FOR THEY BECOME HABITS.
WATCH YOUR HABITS, FOR THEY BECOME YOUR CHARACTER.
WATCH YOUR CHARACTER, FOR IT BECOMES YOUR DESTINY.
- Unknown
Test Taking Strategies
Take a practice test one or two days before the exam. That means, open a Q-bank and practice up to 40 questions in a test like setting. No tutor mode, no phone, no notes, no nothing. This is to help ease test day anxieties. Just being in a test setting without notes to help you answer questions can produce an anxiety response and learning how to perform in that setting is really important, so you know how to handle that stress on test day.
Make sure when you do review those questions, understand why certain answer choices were put on the exam. There is a correlation and a reason test writers thought an answer choice might have confused you. Understanding the underlying concepts they wanted you to differentiate between will allow you to answer any and every question that comes your way.
If you don’t know anything at all about a question, DON’T PANIC. That’s the worst thing you could do. Reformat your thoughts to figure out what you are missing. Ask yourself, “What is this question really trying to ask me?” “What concept is being tested here?” That could help you to calm down and look at the question a different way to try and come up with a least an educated guess.
You CAN Do this!
MED1 (and Medical School) is not impossible, its strategic
Ask for help early, don’t be afraid to go to professors when you are confused, fight for your own knowledge. This is a learning process, and your strategies are always going to change and adapt, but do not be afraid to change them! If something is not working (you can judge by how SGA is going, no you won’t get them all right, but if you go to SGA and have NO CLUE what’s going on, you’re doing something wrong) fix it early. Recognize it early. Always try to incorporate active learning and avoid taking mindless notes or rereading slides. The EED has a ton of free resources for you, so send an email if you need to. Fight for yourself and your future title of DOCTOR OF MEDICINE. You guys can all do it, I believe in you. You just need to believe in yourselves and have confidence!
Watch the Video below with myself and Sanyo discussing entry into Med1 in detail!
Wishing you guys all the best and the most success in your journeys <3
Heather
