How To Get Through University (Medical School— PART TWO)
Be sure to read PART ONE first (link above).
There you are sitting behind a desk, just about to start studying, but you can’t. Why? Because it’s boring. Your brain knows it and you know it.
For you to start you need a push. Either that push is the fact that you have an exam in three days or that you are actually enjoying the topic (if only that was the case).
No matter if your motivation is external or internal, it will slowly fade away. Perfect examples are failed diets and failed workout programs — at some point in time, they just stop working for you.
Motivation doesn’t last and it’s rather impossible to reach the desired goal through motivation alone. What you need is a routine and in this article, we’ll discuss how to use motivation to form it.
Step-by-step guide on how to tackle an upcoming exam.
MOTIVATION PART (the following steps are motivation dependent)
1. Start early
The semester just started? Perfect. Usually, the list of topics you’ll need to do for the subject is already known. Write them down. If not — write them down as the lectures proceed.
No problem if you didn’t start immediately. You can always make this list and work on it later during the semester. You’ll just need to put in some more work in less time.
2. Prioritize
You’ll have more than one exam. Ask older students how difficult the exams are and make a list. Write them down from the most difficult to the easiest. My favorite criterion is the professor’s attitude. You can easily see this in the first lecture.
I would personally avoid listing the difficulty based on your personal preference on the subjects. Once you become a master of how to study, you won’t care if you like or hate the topic.
Once you have a list made, you’ll know that some subjects will require months of preparation and others only a couple of days before the exam date. Telling precisely how much time you’ll need to spend on the subject comes mostly down to the number of topics and their difficulty (see the next step).
3. Set a goal
Be as specific as possible.
Make a list of topics you need to know. Mark them as you want or use my system (picture below).
I would like to point out that the first repetition is mostly just preparing your study material (reading, commenting, editing). For details read the next step.
WARNING: although it is important to do all the topics, some are harder than others. Mark them! Repeat them more times!
ROUTINE PART (the following steps are routine dependent)
Nice job! The motivation made you do the list and a plan. Now the routine needs to step in.
4. Prepare the study (main) material
You are not the first one going through this course and in the majority of cases previous students already prepared extensive learning material. All you need to do is go through it and write down your comments or professor’s remarks from the lecture. Be sure to change the material in a way that fits you the best.
CRUCIAL: have your main material ready as soon as possible, either spend a couple of hours every day or dedicate one full day per week just for preparing your notes
WARNING: studying directly from a book is in most cases a terrible idea — they are simply too extensive and written in a way that your brain finds it very difficult to remember
- books are still an essential part of your studies and extremely useful, if you don’t completely understand the topic or you want to have a more extensive overview
In How to get through Medical School — PART THREE, I’ll show an example of how good notes should look like
5. Study in regular intervals
There are two approaches.
A) Continuous learning
The hardest, but the best approach. More about it in How to get through Medical School — PART FOUR (coming soon).
B) Leaning in a bulk
Preparing your notes and then forgetting about them until it’s the last moment. It works only if you have your notes ready.
Let’s wrap it up with all the steps:
- Start early
- Prioritize
- Set a goal
- Prepare the study (main) material
- Study in regular intervals