Study Schedule of a Premedical Student

[turrgavi]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if you could please share you study schedules here with me. I work a lot and study full time and I feel as if I could be better spending my free time studying but have trouble sticking to the exact schedule.

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[coldcase331]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if you could please share you study schedules here with me. I work a lot and study full time and I feel as if I could be better spending my free time studying but have trouble sticking to the exact schedule.

There really is no need for a schedule, it's all based on a system that will work for you. For me, I would do all my work Mon-Fri. Once 5pm rolled around on Friday, I wouldn't pick up a textbook/study until Sunday after the falcons played. The key is being flexible, set a goal of what you want to do accomplish for the week. That way if a friend wants to hangout or there's a party that you want to go to, you can just switch around your schedule to accompany it.

 

[Hospitalized]

Study quite a bit. Otherwise waste time and feel like I should be studying.

 

[eteshoe]

Ask yourself the following:

1. If you spend your free time studying, how long until burnout?

2. Since med school + residency + life is going to be hard, regardless of studying, is it worth it to spend your precious free time studying?

Literally break up your studying (a bit each day plus a day off) and have some fun. This road is way too long to spend every waking moment studying. Good luck!

 

[EaglesontheWarpath]

Totally depends on your preferences. Unlike @coldcase331 I could never be that disciplined to kill myself during the week and not do anything on weekends, so usually what I would do is prepare all materials (eg. outlines, notecards) that I would want to study during off weeks, and then a week before an exam I would sit down and make a plan as to how I am going to study those materials to do well. I played a very intense club sport in college, which had practices from 7-9 every week night so I knew that my best study time would be shot, and I would lose about 4 hours a night due to the sport, so I had to do work on weekends.

A lot of it also depends on the amount of prep you need for the class- for organic I spent probably 15-20 hours working on non-testing weeks, and then ramped that up to closer to 50-60 right before an exam, whereas for calculus I would spend about 4 hours the night before the exam doing practice problems and studying formulas. I did very well in both classes, but they required drastically different amounts of work.
I do highly recommend the "week before" thing-it's a great way to realize how much work you will have to study, and allows you enough time in case you need to spent a lot of time on one thing.

 

[7331poas]

There really is no need for a schedule, it's all based on a system that will work for you. For me, I would do all my work Mon-Fri. Once 5pm rolled around on Friday, I wouldn't pick up a textbook/study until Sunday after the falcons played. The key is being flexible, set a goal of what you want to do accomplish for the week. That way if a friend wants to hangout or there's a party that you want to go to, you can just switch around your schedule to accompany it.

Might as well not turn the TV on, we all know what the panthers are about haha

 

[coldcase331]

Unlike @coldcase331 I could never be that disciplined to kill myself during the week

A lot of it also depends on the amount of prep you need for the class- for organic I spent probably 15-20 hours working on non-testing weeks, and then ramped that up to closer to 50-60 right before an exam

I guess this also comes to personal preference, but I don't think I ever killed myself during the week (unless I had like 3+ exams in a week). It was just staying on top of material so that it made reviewing for exams easier. Also, I don't think that amount of hours, even for organic, is necessary. It's all about using your time efficiently.

 

[bananafish94]

I don't have a set study schedule. I work three jobs so a lot of my schedule revolves around that. Each day, I make myself a to-do list of the things that absolutely must be taken care of that day, as well as some "bonus" things that I can do if I finish those. I don't do anything fun until everything is done. It's also a matter of gaining the experience necessary to say which classes you actually need to put everything into. I know that I'll be fine if I only study two hours for psychology, but if I did that for psychopharmacology it would be a death wish.

 

[EaglesontheWarpath]

I guess this also comes to personal preference, but I don't think I ever killed myself during the week (unless I had like 3+ exams in a week). It was just staying on top of material so that it made reviewing for exams easier. Also, I don't think that amount of hours, even for organic, is necessary. It's all about using your time efficiently.

I'm with you on efficiency, I just threw out hours to show how much work it took me. For undergrad I found it easier to cram and not stay on top, but honestly staying on top of everything probably would have cut down on the time I spent studying and made my life less hectic.

 

[turrgavi]

Any effective study techniques that you guys found more effective than others?

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[rocklobstr]

Any effective study techniques that you guys found more effective than others?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using SDN mobile

I like to make flash cards for each days lectures as the semester goes. That way when a test comes up I have all my study material organized. It also makes you look over your notes a little while you're making them, but, to be honest, I usually do it pretty mindlessly. It'd probably help more to take a second and think about each card that you make as you go.

 

[cbarne01]

In undergrad, I would "schedule" tasks in my time between classes so that I could not work (so much) on the weekends. I didn't want a hard schedule but by planning how to use dead time between classes/work/activities I was much more effective.

 

[Styrene]

Never made a schedule for anything in my life. I just studied when I felt like it. Luckily for me and I assume many others who end up in med school, that added up to several hours per day.

 

[kanda1o]

I used to use all the time between classes/lectures/labs to do the busy work, and then use 4pm-bedtime for concrete textbook studying. I'm a morning person, so I scheduled all my classes for the AM's, get them out of the way, then hit the textbooks hard in the evening.