How do you know which lectures to skip?

[dr barb]

Last semester I attended almost every lecture faithfully and I wound up with pretty mediocre results. This semester I was hoping to be more selective with my attendence so I could spend more time studying. However, I'm kind of worried that I'll miss something if I don't go to lecture. This semester we're taking biochem, physiology, and neuro (attendence in the other classes is required). I intend on attending all the labs, but what lectures do you think could be skipped? Does it depend on the individual professor or the subject or both? Our profs provide us with detailed notes in our mailboxes so getting the lecture notes is not a problem regardless of attendence. Any advice?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DrMom]

I usually stuck with studying in the lecture hall. That way the professors saw me there & if I had any problems/questions they were willing to help.

I did skip significant portions of biochem, though.

 

[Fenrezz]

As someone who was voted "student who skips the most" I'd say every class is fair game. If the teachers test from the notes then I never saw a reason to show up because I'm someone who learns from reading anyway.

That's not to say I'm slacking off though. It's all about time management. Use the skipped class time wisely to catch up on sleep (especially if you have to study all day and night, 8 hours sleep is priceless) or use that time in the library to study other classes.

Of course my grades were mediocre, but I've never been concerned with straight A's anyway. If earning a very high GPA is your thing, you probably don't want to skip very many classes.

Ask the second year students which teachers test from the notes, and which ones test only from what he talks about in class.

 

[DrMom]

Originally posted by Fenrezz
As someone who was voted "student who skips the most" I'd say every class is fair game.

Remember, I didn't vote for you!

 

[mikegoal]

i usuly try to go to the first lecture by a professor and see if thier teaching style is good for me. I also try and attend all the clinical corelation type lectures just cause they are usualy a lot more intresting. i think it really depends on your learning style some people get a lot more out of lecture then others. I get a lot more out of reading then going to lectures. I do fairly well and to my knowledge there is only one question that i have gotten wrong on a test based on something said in a lecture that i didnt know.

 

[slindsay198]

I totally second what Mikegoal said. You have to figure out for yourself what lecturers you want to sit through and those that do nothing for your learning. I personally miss a good deal of lectures, but it's only the ones that I feel i can do better learning on my own. You'll figure it out in time. Good luck.

Scott-MSII
PCOM

 

[Dodge This]

I stop going to lectures when I find that the goal becomes to stay awake, rather than to learn anything.

 

[MD'05]

Originally posted by Dodge This
I stop going to lectures when I find that the goal becomes to stay awake, rather than to learn anything.

Hmmmm ... maybe I should stop attending lectures completely then!

I would say the goal of attending lecture is to capture information NOT included in the provided lecture notes and to CORRECT any of the "mistakes" that lecturers intentionally include in their lecture notes to screw students over on the exam.

 

[Homunculus]

ahhhh fenrezz, a man after my own heart.

i skipped pretty much all of second semester of first year and all of second year, (except for required stuff of course).

i wasn't my class's most prolific skipper though-- i was (and still am) under the apprenticeship of a friend of mine-- he had it down to an art.

 

[southerndoc]

Must be nice to skip classes.

We were allowed 1 unexcused absence for each study period (usually 4-7 weeks). Word has it that no unexcused absences are allowed now.

 

[Nickel]

The reason I go to lecture is so that I have to do less work outside of lecture.

I attend every single lecture unless I'm physically unable to get to the lecture hall (i.e. as a result of food poisioning.) I look over the lecture information after class until my husband picks me up after work, usually around 5:00. I study while he cooks dinner. When dinner is ready, I'm done studying for the day.

The exceptions are the weeks before midterms and finals, when I study for longer hours. Still, I've never stayed up late studying.

I scored in the 90th percentile in 3 of my 5 final exams. I also scored in the 34th percentile on my cell bio exam, but that might be because for some reason, I really despise that class.

Anyway, the point is, I think this is possible for me because I go to lecture. The professor has already spent time thinking about the best way to present the information so I can learn it.

This is starting to get long, so I'll stop.

 

[Fletch_F_Fletch]

Yeah, I probably attended a maximum of 15 lectures combined last semester. Didn't honor any classes, but wasn't close to failing. For me, I really wasn't interested in the classes, since the only courses that seemed to have any clinical relevance were Immunology and Hematology. It was real tough for me to justify getting up before 7 to attend a Biochem lecturer that went straight from the notes..... there are only so ways they could tell me to memorize the syllabus. The only class I attended was Immunology, and only because our main lecturer was so friggin' funny that it was worth dragging myself out of bed for. I'd like to say that I did something productive with my time out of lectures, but I think I pretty much slept in until at least 11 every day. I think I'll start going when classes get more difficult, but our first semester at Tufts was not very tough to pass by refusing to attend lectures (we're H/P/F). I'll start out this next semester going to class until I realize I don't need to attend a certain class, like I do for each block of classes.

 

[8744]

You guys are lucky. We have mandatory attendence. We are allowed to miss five percent of the lectures without an excuse at which point we start getting dropped a letter grade or two.

 

[Dodge This]

Originally posted by Geek Medic
Must be nice to skip classes.

We were allowed 1 unexcused absence for each study period (usually 4-7 weeks). Word has it that no unexcused absences are allowed now.

Originally posted by Panda Bear
You guys are lucky. We have mandatory attendence. We are allowed to miss five percent of the lectures without an excuse at which point we start getting dropped a letter grade or two.

Brutal...I feel for both of you and for the students at your schools. Is this for general lectures in the 1st/2nd year curriculum? I could understand not being able to miss any lecture series or conferences during clerkships, but not just normal basic science lectures.

 

[southerndoc]

Originally posted by Dodge This
Brutal...I feel for both of you and for the students at your schools. Is this for general lectures in the 1st/2nd year curriculum? I could understand not being able to miss any lecture series or conferences during clerkships, but not just normal basic science lectures.

We were allowed one unexcused absence for each block (4-8 weeks) during the first two years. I've heard that no unexcused absences are allowed now.

We are allowed NO unexcused absences from any lectures or clerkship rotations. In fact, it's so stringent with lectures, that during my surgery rotation, if we were scrubbed in on a case and a lecture was scheduled, we would have to break scrub and go attend the lecture -- no matter how interesting the case in the OR was, how deep they were into the case, how much they needed your help, etc. The lecture took priority over everything.

 

[AznTrojan]

as in everything in life.. it all depends on the individual..

as for me.. i try to preview all my notes before class.. and if i understand the stuff.. i don't bother w/ lectures.. of course.. every now and then.. i miss something obscure that was stated only in lecture.. but usually.. the main points are repeated over and over though path/micro labs and through case studies which i attend outside of lecture halls..

since i started my 2nd year.. i went to about half the lectures for my cardiovascular block.. 1/4 of the lectures during respiratory.. and about 3 total hrs during my endocrine block.. since each block lasted 5 weeks.. i had plenty of time to study and chill..

as for my results.. i get the mean almost religiously regardless if i go to all the lectures (as i did 1st year) or none.. which is fine by me..

 

[Samoa]

Originally posted by Nickel
The professor has already spent time thinking about the best way to present the information so I can learn it.

What school is this?!!! In my experience, especially with team-taught classes, or classes with lots of guest lecturers, the instructors are just happy to have their material ready by class time. They've given not one single thought to presenting it in a manner that will make it easy to learn.

Granted, I'm not in medical school (yet, hopefully), but the pressures on research and clinical faculty are the same across disciplines.

There are some professors who genuinely spend time thinking about new and better ways to present their material, and you can generally tell who they are because their lectures are interesting. But many consider it a chore, and consequently will ensure that everything important is in the handout in case they forget to say something in the lecture. And then they forget what they said in lecture, and so they end up testing only on their notes or the text. You can usually skip those kind of classes without severe consequences--IF you're the kind of person who learns well on your own. The only reason to go is if you think the professor might talk about some interesting experiences or insights from their own practice. It won't be in the notes, and it won't be tested on, but someday it might be useful information.

Classes taught by one instructor the whole time are a little different, though. They usually like to include (and test on) significant amounts of material not found in handouts or the text. They probably do it specifically to reward people who keep coming to class--you'd be amazed how personally some professors take it when attendance drops off in their class. So they add value to their lecture by adding trivial material to be tested on, rather than learning to explain the important material better than the text.

OK, didn't mean to get on a soapbox. But that last part is a real pet peeve of mine. If I'm paying somebody to teach me material I can read in a book, then make it worth my time and effort to go to class and listen. You know? OK, enough from this low-life PRE-med.

 

[shag]

Originally posted by Geek Medic
We were allowed one unexcused absence for each block (4-8 weeks) during the first two years. I've heard that no unexcused absences are allowed now.

Ouch! that is harsh. I've heard that MCG has that policy as well as USA next door to the beautiful state of Jaw-juh, where my wife happens to be from ... Yup, I ended a sentence with a preposition; anyone got a problem wit 'dat?

Thank God my school does not have that policy. Not only would it have screwed up my strategiery, but would have seriously wasted my time.

I attended lectures in concept based courses like physio and systemic path (which was mostly pathophys at my school) if the lecturer was good. I skipped lectures in courses like biochem, cell, and micro, which usually consisted of lecturers reading off huge amounts of information that would have to be memorized later anyway. I would mark the lectures I wanted to attend when I received a course schedule and consult it at night to see if I was attending lecture the next day.

I very rarely ever had a question on a test that the answer wasn't somewhere in the lecture transcript, PowerPoint presentation, or syllabus. Lecturers that wanted to get tricky would give us enormous reading assignments and base questions on the reading. For example, >50% of questions in my general path course were from Robbin's textbook, and >10% were obscure facts in random tables. For this reason, my time was much better spent studying than trying to stay awake in class.

 

[southerndoc]

Originally posted by shag
I've heard that MCG has that policy

I think MCG doesn't have that strict of an attendance policy. The student subscribe to a notetaking service, so they always have access to notes.

 

[Katie]

Originally posted by Fletch_F_Fletch
Yeah, I probably attended a maximum of 15 lectures combined last semester. Didn't honor any classes, but wasn't close to failing. For me, I really wasn't interested in the classes, since the only courses that seemed to have any clinical relevance were Immunology and Hematology. It was real tough for me to justify getting up before 7 to attend a Biochem lecturer that went straight from the notes..... there are only so ways they could tell me to memorize the syllabus. The only class I attended was Immunology, and only because our main lecturer was so friggin' funny that it was worth dragging myself out of bed for. I'd like to say that I did something productive with my time out of lectures, but I think I pretty much slept in until at least 11 every day. I think I'll start going when classes get more difficult, but our first semester at Tufts was not very tough to pass by refusing to attend lectures (we're H/P/F). I'll start out this next semester going to class until I realize I don't need to attend a certain class, like I do for each block of classes.

Yup, such is the way of many Tufts students! The first semester of first year is probably the least interesting and clinically relevant (with the exception of Immunology). During second semester, you will probably find plenty of physiology lectures that are skippable since once Engelking's funny mannerisms wear off his lectures are VERY boring. I had a decent background in physiology prior to med school so I didn't benefit too much from going to class, but others may have a different opinion. If a professor completely bores you or has a bad attitude toward the students there is no need to torture yourself by going to their lectures unless you really benefit come exam time.

I took Neuroscience this past semester and found many of the lectures to be helpful; it is a tough but clinically important subject. The lectures do tend to get better during second year, so keep your chin up.. And so far Tufts' "attend as you please" policy on lectures (PBL, clinical selectives, and Physical Diagnosis I + II clinical skills sessions are all mandatory for years 1 + 2) has caused no damage to its students so far; we have a 98% pass rate on average for the boards and receive much more clinical experience than students at a number of other schools (i.e. USUHS, where students do not see a single non-standardized patient in Year 1 and 2) during the first two years.