How many hours do you typically study for premed courses?

[Ks333]

I’m wondering how many hours I should aim to study for to do really well in my classes. I’m doing decent now but I think I can improve.


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[Detective SnowBucket]

Totally varies from course to course. Genetics, bio, cell bio, not much; maybe an hour every other day then 5-7 hrs for an exam. Orgo, physics? 2+ hrs per day and 20 hrs over around a week for an exam.

If you're concerned about your performance, time your studying. Only the time you're actually studying, not staring around, getting coffee, on facebook, but actually studying. Then take the exam. If you don't do well, up the time before the next.

 

[deleted688779]

It's really different for everyone and can depend on the course and professor.

Instead of studying until you reach a certain amount of hours, you should study until you 1) understand all the material, 2) can do well on practice (homework, book problems, old exams, etc), 3) can explain every single concept (yes, if you want to do really well) to a high-schooler. But of course, take care of your health.

I recommend recording lectures if they are not podcasted so you can refer back to them, this is useful because it is not possible for one to catch everything during a live lecture. I like to print out the professor's notes or slides and write on them during lecture in a way that I can best understand (ex: a professor can speak for 15 minutes, but the essential concept is A + B --> C. I would just write "A +B --> C" on the printed slides along with a summary of the underlying concepts). You can also write down questions you don't understand on the side (ex: "A+B --> C....WHY??? WHEN?? WHERE?? UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES??? ANY EXCEPTIONS?? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I CHANGE 'A' TO SOMETHING ELSE? ASK DURING OFFICE HOURS")

 

[Ks333]

Totally varies from course to course. Genetics, bio, cell bio, not much; maybe an hour every other day then 5-7 hrs for an exam. Orgo, physics? 2+ hrs per day and 20 hrs over around a week for an exam.

If you're concerned about your performance, time your studying. Only the time you're actually studying, not staring around, getting coffee, on facebook, but actually studying. Then take the exam. If you don't do well, up the time before the next.

Thanks for the advice! How do you typically study for bio and physics. I’m doing practice probs for physics and making sure I understand the concepts and rewriting the notes for bio. I’m not doing terrible in the classes but I still want to improve.


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[mvsrocks]

Thanks for the advice! How do you typically study for bio and physics. I’m doing practice probs for physics and making sure I understand the concepts and rewriting the notes for bio. I’m not doing terrible in the classes but I still want to improve.


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For me, bio was mostly just memorization, so flashcards and repetition worked well.

For physics, conceptual understanding of the problem is important, but so is understanding where the equations come from. Once you understand both, you will know when to and not to apply certain equations. Especially for physics, spamming practice problems and tracing your errors will help.

Best of luck!

 

[carboxylicpremed]

This is all about you tbh.

Orgo I studied round the clock and barely managed a B+ then a C+ after generous curves. Physics I only memorized equations and went out the night before the final and got a 102, then TAd for it. Answer here is however much you need. But as others said, for memorization-based ones like upper level bio or anatomy, keeping up with material (flashcards, reviewing notes) a little bit every day will go a long way

 

[deleted804295]

I studied for about 8 hours a week in o chem. 16 hours during exam weeks.

My other classes maybe 1 hour a week and 4 hours during exam weeks.

 

[DNAJB6]

It depends on you, the rigor of your school's curriculum, and even the individual professor within a program. Spend as long as it takes to get A grades. I know that is vague, but it is the "right" answer.

 

[Gilakend]

If you aren't happy then study more efficiently (blindly adding more hours is a recipe for burn out). Trying to maximize your efficiency is the #1 thing you can learn how to do. 1 hour of my senior year studying was like 3 hours of freshman year studying.

Most pre-med classes you can get by just studying a few days before the exam. I was never a "do a little every day" person. I would say if you actually studied every day you could get by with 1 hour per class per day and then obviously a little more before the exam. The only class I consistently studied for was physics because we had weekly quizzes.

For me (and a lot of people), though it was not really studying more than you need to in order to complete any required work and then the week of the exam studying a ton.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Same as I studied for non prereqs. 1-2 hours per hour of lecture (so 3-9 hours per week). Maybe a little extra before tests. If you are putting in the work and it’s still not jelling or you aren’t getting the grades you feel you should be, it might be a problem with how you are studying and not how much.

 

[Edx102$]

If you aren't happy then study more efficiently (blindly adding more hours is a recipe for burn out). Trying to maximize your efficiency is the #1 thing you can learn how to do. 1 hour of my senior year studying was like 3 hours of freshman year studying.

Most pre-med classes you can get by just studying a few days before the exam. I was never a "do a little every day" person. I would say if you actually studied every day you could get by with 1 hour per class per day and then obviously a little more before the exam. The only class I consistently studied for was physics because we had weekly quizzes.

For me (and a lot of people), though it was not really studying more than you need to in order to complete any required work and then the week of the exam studying a ton.

thank god im not the only person whos never studies unless its within a week before the exam. everyone on here studying every week for all their classes is stressin me out.

 

[Gilakend]

thank god im not the only person whos never studies unless its within a week before the exam. everyone on here studying every week for all their classes is stressin me out.

Different strokes for different folks. I didn't mind putting off studying until the week of the exam, for others it would stress them out.

Med school on the other hand...

 

[JSD2]

Depends on the class. For O-Chem I did 3hr/week with a tutor on non-exam weeks, 6hr on exam weeks (not all at once though!). Bio was maybe 1-3 hours during exam weeks otherwise not at all (but I've always found it fairly intuitive). Other chemistry courses have been more like 3-6 hours during exam week (none the rest of the semester). Physics is my hardest subject so I usually end up devoting the 4-5 days before the exam to reviewing material (probably at least 10 hours in total).

It's different for everybody, the value of your studying isn't just the raw hours put in, it's the quality of the studying that your actually doing that really matters. Think about it like this; if I and an experienced fashion designer were each given 6 hours to make a dress, one of us will produce a substantially nicer garment than the other and it sure as hell ain't me. Sure we each spent the same amount of time making the dress, but the designer used their time better because they used the most efficient techniques.

 

[Cornfed101]

thank god im not the only person whos never studies unless its within a week before the exam. everyone on here studying every week for all their classes is stressin me out.

It's a trade-off. I would study Anki on the schedule that it gave me and I wouldn't study any extra when exams came cause I already knew it. That's pretty low stress.