I will be attending Temple, and am curious to how what D1 students, not just at temple, but at every school, typical school day is. How many hours they spend on studying, how many hours you have of free time to just lay back? thank you
BTW, when i mean EXCLUDING CLASSES, i mean the time spend in class does not count ( obviously). thank you
As far as D1 has gone, there are fewer "typical school days" at Dental School than there were at undergrad.
For me, Dental school generally has a few different types of typical days, and they cycle. The cycle tends to go along with a dietary cycle which is described in brief here.
1) Relax. You just finished a quiz/practical, and you don't have quizzes or practicals in the foreseeable future (5+ days), so you're chilling. You crack open a book and a beer at the same time, but the beer quickly becomes more interesting than the book, and four hours later you find that you're quite sleepy from the nap you just took. Facebook and gchat take too much effort, so you pass out.
2) Motivated/middle. You have a quiz in 2-3 days, so you wake up early, you work out, you consider attending classes but remember they're online, so you clean your room, and you study 2-3 hours, maybe even 4-6 hours in 2 super-motivated blocks. You finish up your day with some leisure reading or some video games or a movie. You wonder whether or not you could do this sort of thing all the time, and you start to think about how nice it would be to get away from coffee. Dental school seems to be pretty okay - a pleasure, even. It's nice to study rather than work.
3) Crunch Day. You have a quiz tomorrow. Coffee is suddenly your best friend again. Study 8 hours. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200$. You facebook, but only in a desperate attempt to find out how late everyone else is staying up, and how hard they find the material, and whether or not anyone has an old exam or five. You would work out, but you scarf down a third hamburger instead, since you have no time to eat.
You question your existence as a dental student and start to wonder whether it's worth it. You are inexplicably irritated by the presence of other living beings, including but not limited to family, spouse/s.o., and the hot girl you've been checking out for weeks who now thinks you're a freak show. The weird part? You don't even care what that troll thinks. Because it's crunch day.
4) You have a quiz/exam today. You've switched from coffee to Red Bull, and you're starting to wonder whether putting Red Bull into your coffee might not be the simple solution. Your hands are shaking and you tell yourself it's just because you're happy to be here. After the quiz is over, your day begins to resemble (1) quite closely. You begin apologizing to people around you for being so irritable, even while realizing the cycle is about to begin again...
... so as an answer to your question, I guess I study about 3-4 hours per day.
