Daily # of actual study hours?

[wanttopass123]

Hey guys, I'll be applying to medical school in the upcoming cycle and I wanted to know how many hours do you and most of your friends in school study? This can be class time + separate studying time. Typically do most medical students only get through 1 pass of the material until leading up to the exam (ie 1x pass for lectures for that particular day). I'm assuming most schools have around 40 lectures a week and exams every 2-3 weeks equating to about 120 lectures per exam. What are some ways to make sure to retain all this volume of information.

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[FamousLinen]

Depends on the school mainly. I do like 2-3 hours of mandatory stuff a day, 1.5 hours of watching or reading lectures for the first time, and 1.5 hours of studying things I already learned in a typical day. Weekends usually like 3 hours of studying a day, including watching lectures from like Thursday or Friday if I didn’t yet. Less when no exams are coming up, more when an exam is close. Sometimes I don’t study at all during a day. Sometimes I’ll study a lot more. Mainly this comes down to your school though. Mine is pretty relaxed. Yes there are people who study a ton. But this is what my schedule and some of my friends look like. Still manage to do above average and also have plenty of time to do whatever fun/lazy stuff I want to do.
But I have friends at other schools who have it bad and have to study a ton more. But then again, there are people at my school like that. It’s up to you tbh. I’m fine with only do slightly above average on exams as we are P/F, some still want to be top of the class. At ranked/graded schools, everyone generally works a lot harder.

 

[Hopeful101]

Probably like 10hr a day including everything....studying/mandatories. Little less on the weekend. We got like 2 tests a week and usually a couple quizzes with A/B/C grades reported so threes really no escape. It sucks. And for me at least it takes more than one pass.

 

[slowthai]

Hey guys, I'll be applying to medical school in the upcoming cycle and I wanted to know how many hours do you and most of your friends in school study? This can be class time + separate studying time. Typically do most medical students only get through 1 pass of the material until leading up to the exam (ie 1x pass for lectures for that particular day). I'm assuming most schools have around 40 lectures a week and exams every 2-3 weeks equating to about 120 lectures per exam.

Right now it's 3-5 hours a day of studying, on average. I let my workload dictate my hours, not the other way around. I study every single day. The typical advice is to make sure you get at least 3 passes of the information, which leads to my next point.

What are some ways to make sure to retain all this volume of information.

Let me tell you about a little something called Anki. It will turn you into a step crushing automaton with no feelings and a high step 1- oops, step 2 score. Give it a test drive. It's not an automatic, but I'm sure you'll pick it up if you stick with it. You'll be thanking your lucky stars that you used it once you get over the hump. In all seriousness, check out AnKing's video series on Anki. It'll be a big help.

 

[Gilakend]

I applaud anyone who has a consistent schedule. Some days it's 0 some days it's 12+.

 

[Detailsmatter]

It all depends on your mindset and how many mandatories your school has per day. We really don’t have mandatories and on average have 20 lectures a week. We’re pass/fail so I ignore lectures now and just use outside resources and anki. It’s worked out great and I study 6-8 hours of pure study time. I usually study 8-12 with an hour lunch and go from 1 until 4 or 5pm. On weekends I only do my anki reviews which can take about an hour or so each day. This schedule has worked great for me and I have a great balance. During first semester we had anatomy so those weekends before the test I studied more but that’s more of the exception for me. Everyone’s different though. I like to power through my studying and get my shxt done so I can relax and not think about it after 5 pm and on weekends be free. Others like to study in 2 hour chunks with long breaks inbetween and they’ll be studying from 9am to 10pm. I personally don’t like that because it feels like I’ve been studying all day but to each their own. Everyone will find a routine that works for them


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[longhaul3]

Hey guys, I'll be applying to medical school in the upcoming cycle and I wanted to know how many hours do you and most of your friends in school study? This can be class time + separate studying time. Typically do most medical students only get through 1 pass of the material until leading up to the exam (ie 1x pass for lectures for that particular day). I'm assuming most schools have around 40 lectures a week and exams every 2-3 weeks equating to about 120 lectures per exam. What are some ways to make sure to retain all this volume of information.

No way. That's 8 hours of lecture a day. Half that would be a lot. I think when I was in school I probably had 10-15 a week at most.

Edit: To answer the question, I probably studied about 3 hours a day most days and then an extra 2-3 the days leading up to an exam.

 

[Justheresoiwontgetfined1]

Will highly depend on school structure and how your exams are. I got lucky, we have p/f with NBME exams and little mandatory stuff which makes studying much easier. Usually do about 9-12 and then take a lunch break, then back to the grind till 4 or 5. Might ramp it up the week before an exam and then relax a bit after.

 

[EmilKraepelin55]

I echo the 3 pass rule, and the allowing the workload to dictate the number of hours. Last semester (I’m an MS2) we had about 40 lectures for almost every test block, and so I studied about 6-8 hours outside of class per day with 12 hour days every day for 1 week until I took my exam. Now we have about 20 per block, and so I have done about 3-5 per day and usually longer on weekends (although today I decided I wouldn’t study at all). I like to do an 8 am - 3 or 5pm on weekends generally. 8 am to 6 or 7 pm every day leading up to a test. But it varies. I listen to my body. If I am tired and not seeing any progress after a few hours, I tend to stop for the day and pick up the following day. That happens only once in a while the though.

 

[FMDoge2020]

Most study at least 9hr with lecture included. People usually do first pass right after watching the lectures. Then a mix of 3~5passes of each lecture before the upcoming exam.

The passes become more efficient each time you look at it. And flashcards/Anki are popular study tool used.

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[stickgirl390]

I’d estimate around 12 hours a day I spend doing something school-related.

 

[Phloston]

Hey guys, I'll be applying to medical school in the upcoming cycle and I wanted to know how many hours do you and most of your friends in school study? This can be class time + separate studying time. Typically do most medical students only get through 1 pass of the material until leading up to the exam (ie 1x pass for lectures for that particular day). I'm assuming most schools have around 40 lectures a week and exams every 2-3 weeks equating to about 120 lectures per exam. What are some ways to make sure to retain all this volume of information.

No one can really answer that question for you because of variation between institutions and intensities of syllabi.

How much you study depends on how much you "want it."

Don't listen to me though. I wasn't a good student. I studied zero during MS1/2 and got mediocre grades.

...Then I studied 8-12 hours/day the following year during my research year and broke 260 on Step 1.

Yeah.

 

[Schwifty]

Hey guys, I'll be applying to medical school in the upcoming cycle and I wanted to know how many hours do you and most of your friends in school study? This can be class time + separate studying time. Typically do most medical students only get through 1 pass of the material until leading up to the exam (ie 1x pass for lectures for that particular day). I'm assuming most schools have around 40 lectures a week and exams every 2-3 weeks equating to about 120 lectures per exam. What are some ways to make sure to retain all this volume of information.

40 lectures a week is insane, my school we have about 8-12 hours of lectures per week excluding labs. Most tests cover 20-30 hours of lecture, sometime more, but we have exams about every 3 weeks. Right now I study about 10 hours a day, there was one week in my neuro block where I studied 15+ hours a day, that was a rough week but I haven't had anything like that since. Learn how to use Anki, use premed decks like zanki to retain the information, I recommend looking up the Anking on YouTube to get started with it

 

[Fatalis]

When I was in Med school, had lecture 1-5 daily, would eat then study from 6 till midnight/ 1am and 10hrs or so each day on weekend.
Ms2 we had lecture8-12, I would then study from 1 until 10-midnight. Long days but there are some days that I miss that life of knowing you are learning something new daily

 

[Fried Plantaris]

At a 1.5 year preclinical program on any given week (not the one before the block test)...

20 lectures a week give or take. Wake up at 7am. Do 1 hour of old block review from 8-9am while waiting for lectures to post. Then I'll watch the lectures, read the notes, and do some anki on the side until around 4pm. Break for the gym and dinner, go back to work at like 7 and study until 9:30, and then bed at 11pm. Generally if we have a mandatory then that eats into the 10.5 hour study days.

Weekends are a bit different where I probably average like 4 hours a day, with sunday usually a bit heavier workload

 

[libertyyne]

4-8 hours of butt in seat time everyday. Realistically studying about 4 hours. Would titrate up before exams, i still remember i did 3k anki cards the day before neuro in house exam, that was misery, and i dont remember anything from that unit as well as I should.

 

[DPTinthemaking15]

This is coming from someone that went from a solid 10-12 hours a day to 5-6 hours (It has been a helluva ride). I attempted Anki at first, but with our school schedule, it was too much (2-3 exams per week). Now I just cram the ridiculous amount of school related bs in my schedule and I am about to incorporate Zanki/LY in my schedule. I went from low A’s, B’s and a C scattered in every now and then. And now I’m at consistent B+’s and low A’s. I could care less about class rank, so if I drop to B’s, I’ll be happy lol.

A typical day looks like this:

-Wake up at 5 AM (I’m most productive during this time).
-Truly start studying at 6AM because food, walking the dog, Youtube, etc..
- I use Osmosis because we had some studs that made practice questions for our lectures. I go through the previous days lecture practice questions. This usually takes 1-2 hours because I figure out why the right answer is right and the wrong are wrong. And at this point I’ve seen the material 2-3x. And I’ll probably see it one more time before test day.
-Next, I do 3 lectures per day. So, I preview the lecture (no less than 10-15 minutes) and 2x speed lectures to save time. Then I do a “post view” of the lecture if we have a crappy professor. All of this usually takes anywhere from 4-5 hours.
-If I add in Zanki, I’m assuming it will eat up more of my day. But compared to studying 10-12 hours to what I have now, I’ll take it.

Sorry for the grammar, currently procrastinating an exam and just wanted to post this in hopes that it may help.


Edit: Just started reading all of the other post and it seems like the secret is in the sauce. It seems like 3 passes through the material is the sweet spot. I like 1-2 of those passes being practice questions because it makes me pull the info together.

 

[mistafab]

Number of hours is less important than you think. Hopefully you’ll see what I mean.

 

[Rogue42]

We have 20 hours of lectures a week (4 lectures in the morning). We have two tests a week usually over things that were covered in previous weeks.
I have a good memory, and spend roughly 8 or less hours per exam. So roughly around or usually less than 36 hours a week in total with class time. Comes out to be about 2 extra hours of studying daily, but TBH I usually study two nights before the exam in 4 hour chunks. I average a 3.65 gpa.

I have classmates that study all day every day, and others not as much as I. I would say that most people probably spend around 50 or more hours a week studying / in class.