P2 Year Advice?

[smileyman22336]

Currently taking Pharmcokinetics and Medicinal Chemistry 1. This second year is way more intense than the first year, with regard to volume of material. The problem I'm having is that there are many pwps and each pwp has over 60 slides worth of material, and quite frankly a lot of it is memorization...but there's just so much I can do before everything starts mixing. I'm sure hundreds of other pharmacy students before me have had this same issue, I'm just wondering what was your technique to absorbing it and memorizing it for the exam despite exhausting volume of information? Thanks a bunch guys.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[wclark89]

Currently taking Pharmcokinetics and Medicinal Chemistry 1. This second year is way more intense than the first year, with regard to volume of material. The problem I'm having is that there are many pwps and each pwp has over 60 slides worth of material, and quite frankly a lot of it is memorization...but there's just so much I can do before everything starts mixing. I'm sure hundreds of other pharmacy students before me have had this same issue, I'm just wondering what was your technique to absorbing it and memorizing it for the exam despite exhausting volume of information? Thanks a bunch guys.

Med chem is easy. Once your know the MOA, just learn the SAR of the specific class of drugs. Most of the medications within a class share the same SAR. If you haven't gotten to SAR in med chem 1 yet, it's "Structure Activity Relationship" and it refers to the pharmacophore that the class shares. If you haven't gotten to therapeutics yet, 60 slides are a short set. Therapeutics 1 and 2 averaged about 160-200 slides.

 

[BeLikeBueller]

Med chem is easy.

Ignore this, that's my best advice. [I get that the poster is trying to give you an "easy" way to approach med chem, but this is just what worked for them and their specific medchem class - it may not apply to you]. Unless you have a strong chemistry or biochemistry background (i.e. a BS degree), medchem is probably going to be tough. There was a consensus at my school that medchem was tough (especially second semester). Then again, the difficulty of any class is going to vary greatly depending on the professors and your school's specific curriculum. I do have to agree though that therapeutics is going to have "more slides." Still, IMHO, I think therapeutics is easier than medchem - it's easier for me to relate to than a drug structure. But again, that's just my experience, and everyone who responds is going to have a different take.

The goal for you right now is rote memorization. The best way to accomplish that is through repetition, recognition, and recall. i.e. go through the material more than once, attempt to pick out/recognize key words/pictures, and then try to recall that information.

Your other goal is to...

Best of luck!

 

[dblock05]

You need to figure out what works for you. For example, i could look at slides all day and I wouldn't get anywhere, I need to write down on a piece of paper all the material and the muscle memory sort of helps me remember it. Many of my friends also write down the material on a piece of paper to help them retain it

 

[phathead]

Agreed, tried different systems until you find something that works for you. There is no right or wrong way to do it, everyone is different. It's more important to not fall behind studying because you'll find yourself in this endless cycle of despair.

You'll get used to the large amount of material in time. I recently took a 300 level undergrad course and was incredibly bored with the pace of the material. Funny how that works.