Do you ever feel....

[marie3212313]

like you won't accomplish your long term goals of getting into dental school. Right now my mind is going crazy, I have 4 exams, 3 quizzes and have been studying 12+ hrs a day for 2 weeks and it is only the first few weeks of school. My eyes are bloodshot red and I can't think straight. I am a junior right now and am scared that my grades are going to drop. I transferred from a community college (3.9gpa) right out of high school and I am now at a 4 yr university. I swear all my teachers think there students have no lives. How did you guys get through the tough times in the undergraduate years? I feel like I study my ass off and then comes test time and there is no possible way to retain and comprehend everything the teachers want from you. I am trying for all A's but I am thinking that won't happen and that worries me about my gpa dropping. I don't procrastinate I just can't physically and mentally study like this forever and retain all the information even though I have been for 2 weeks. How did you guys do it? Maybe I just have tough teachers. I dunno. I know 1 bad test grade won't kill me but I want all A's and right now it seems absolutely impossible. Sorry to vent so much. Please give me your insight of tough times in undergraduate years. I don't know how long my body can do this, no sleep and staring at notes all day long.

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[dackmonkey]

like you won't accomplish your long term goals of getting into dental school. Right now my mind is going crazy, I have 4 exams, 3 quizzes and have been studying 12+ hrs a day for 2 weeks and it is only the first few weeks of school. My eyes are bloodshot red and I can't think straight. I am a junior right now and am scared that my grades are going to drop. I transferred from a community college (3.9gpa) right out of high school and I am now at a 4 yr university. I swear all my teachers think there students have no lives. How did you guys get through the tough times in the undergraduate years? I feel like I study my ass off and then comes test time and there is no possible way to retain and comprehend everything the teachers want from you. I am trying for all A's but I am thinking that won't happen and that worries me about my gpa dropping. I don't procrastinate I just can't physically and mentally study like this forever and retain all the information even though I have been for 2 weeks. How did you guys do it? Maybe I just have tough teachers. I dunno. I know 1 bad test grade won't kill me but I want all A's and right now it seems absolutely impossible. Sorry to vent so much. Please give me your insight of tough times in undergraduate years. I don't know how long my body can do this, no sleep and staring at notes all day long.

put down your books and go have a beer for god's sake.

 

[johntara04]

like you won't accomplish your long term goals of getting into dental school. Right now my mind is going crazy, I have 4 exams, 3 quizzes and have been studying 12+ hrs a day for 2 weeks and it is only the first few weeks of school. My eyes are bloodshot red and I can't think straight. I am a junior right now and am scared that my grades are going to drop. I transferred from a community college (3.9gpa) right out of high school and I am now at a 4 yr university. I swear all my teachers think there students have no lives. How did you guys get through the tough times in the undergraduate years? I feel like I study my ass off and then comes test time and there is no possible way to retain and comprehend everything the teachers want from you. I am trying for all A's but I am thinking that won't happen and that worries me about my gpa dropping. I don't procrastinate I just can't physically and mentally study like this forever and retain all the information even though I have been for 2 weeks. How did you guys do it? Maybe I just have tough teachers. I dunno. I know 1 bad test grade won't kill me but I want all A's and right now it seems absolutely impossible. Sorry to vent so much. Please give me your insight of tough times in undergraduate years. I don't know how long my body can do this, no sleep and staring at notes all day long.

Take comfort in the fact that if you are lucky enough to get into dental school (and by looking at your grades, you probably will) you will only get to study more and sleep less.

 

[johntara04]

Also, our physio teacher told us that you can go three days without sleep as long as on the fourth you get 18 hours to catch up. Seriously, make sure your life is balanced. You need to study hard, but you need to have some ME time everyday to relax, unwind, and just enjoy life. If you aren't living in the now, then what is the point?

 

[Mother Thersea]

time management

 

[Streetwolf]

time management

Absolutely. Anyone who studies that much in the first two weeks of any undergrad year is crazy. You just shouldn't have to. It's undergrad...

Your study habits are obviously not working out. I suggest taking a good look at them and fixing them up a bit. Just because you study for 12 hours doesn't mean you are benefiting from 12 hours of studying.

 

[I'mFillingFine]

Your study habits are obviously not working out. I suggest taking a good look at them and fixing them up a bit. Just because you study for 12 hours doesn't mean you are benefiting from 12 hours of studying.

So true, so true. I see this all the time in dental school too...people sitting in the library for hours and hours and not getting any real studying done. I find it helpful to lock yourself somewhere silent and quiet (even if you use earplugs), NO WHERE near the internet, and just go stepwise through the work slowly. Every few paragraphs (or powerpoint slides, or pages, depending on what you're reading), stop and tell yourself what you just learned so that you know you can repeat it back. Try teaching it to someone else, even...that's a huge help.

 

[chrisvocker]

a dentist friend said it best:

balls to the wall or
nothin' at all

 

[TheWiredNerv]

put down your books and go have a beer for god's sake.

/Agree

 

[DentistRob]

Do yourself a favor and get a B, get involved in some extracurriculars, and try to enjoy your undergrad a little. If you've got a 3.9 at this point, you're doing pretty dang good. Keep it up.

 

[loved]

just try the best you can. how can you fault yourself when you have tried your best? shoot for the straight A's but don't tear yourself up if it doesn't happen.

good luck on those exams&quizzes!

 

[supraman]

Do you mind sharing what classes they are

 

[dudewhensmydat]

like you won't accomplish your long term goals of getting into dental school. Right now my mind is going crazy, I have 4 exams, 3 quizzes and have been studying 12+ hrs a day for 2 weeks and it is only the first few weeks of school. My eyes are bloodshot red and I can't think straight. I am a junior right now and am scared that my grades are going to drop. I transferred from a community college (3.9gpa) right out of high school and I am now at a 4 yr university. I swear all my teachers think there students have no lives. How did you guys get through the tough times in the undergraduate years? I feel like I study my ass off and then comes test time and there is no possible way to retain and comprehend everything the teachers want from you. I am trying for all A's but I am thinking that won't happen and that worries me about my gpa dropping. I don't procrastinate I just can't physically and mentally study like this forever and retain all the information even though I have been for 2 weeks. How did you guys do it? Maybe I just have tough teachers. I dunno. I know 1 bad test grade won't kill me but I want all A's and right now it seems absolutely impossible. Sorry to vent so much. Please give me your insight of tough times in undergraduate years. I don't know how long my body can do this, no sleep and staring at notes all day long.

The odd thing about life is that you don't appreciate things until they're gone, even massive amounts of studying and hard work. But when you get into dental school (which you will), you'll say to yourself: "I'm glad I tried hard; actually...I should've tried even harder." Keep it up, you're on your way...

 

[marie3212313]

supraman... My classes include, Biology 2, Chem, Statistics and Abnormal Psy. And abnormal psy is the most time consuming besides Stats. I thought Chem and Bio would be the hardest but it seems to be the opposite this semester.

 

[ADentalHopeful]

I'm doing my undergrad stuff, and just started too. You are so right that chem isnt that bad. Im taking psyc too but I dont really need psyc but i am doing it for dental hygiene back up ($50/hour in BC wooot!!) anyways..
It can be stressful, but what i do is i make an outline of what i have to accomplish each day and i check things off as i do them. It becomes way less stressful when your brain sees things being checked off and thinks "Ah! accomplishing things!"
For memorization courses dont stare at the notes for 12 hours straight!!! thats the worst thing you can do. As soon as you start getting notes just review them for like 10 to 15 min each day and then starting like 3 days before your test slowly cram more and more, and take a break after 2 hours (max) or studying. Don't watch tv. Tv is evil when it comes to breaks.
I got 1 Q wrong on my psyc mid term..and a 90% on my chem.. trust me, it works better!!!

once you get everything u planned to do for the day done... go hang out with friends or do a hobby ( i draw portraits which also helps for manual dexterity and it is relaxing) and if u feel stressed just go back and study more.
hope that helps. Definitely dont quit now, your first year should be the easiest! lol!! Have fun, laugh, sleep..

 

[ummjoey]

i agree with the other people. you need to learn how to study efficiently.

my first quarter at my university i also studied a lot, but as each quarter went on i studied less and less. i still kept up my grades. i just learned how to study efficiently.

this cleared up a lot of time for me to do extracurriculars. make sure you find some time to do ECs. i think it will be very hard to get into dental school without any ECs.

make sure to do some "fun" stuff. during my spare time i work out, build and paint models, play some musical instruments, and other stuff. all this stuff built my manual dexterity and i also put them on the application.

edit: grammar error

 

[pmantz]

NO WHERE near the internet

It sucks when your notes are on your laptop, and every time I disable my wireless card I reactivate it... Kind of like right now.

I agree with you, I am pretty awful with time management but the time I do spend studying is very productive. I just wish I could start studying for anatomy more then 3 days before the test.

 

[NSUfutureDDS]

It can be stressful, but what i do is i make an outline of what i have to accomplish each day and i check things off as i do them. It becomes way less stressful when your brain sees things being checked off and thinks "Ah! accomplishing things!"
For memorization courses dont stare at the notes for 12 hours straight!!! thats the worst thing you can do.

***

As soon as you start getting notes just review them for like 10 to 15 min each day and then starting like 3 days before your test slowly cram more and more, and take a break after 2 hours (max) or studying. Don't watch tv. Tv is evil when it comes to breaks.
I got 1 Q wrong on my psyc mid term..and a 90% on my chem.. trust me, it works better!!!

I agree with the first part, it helps me to learn too -- I write "To do" in my agenda and I try to finish the things that take the least amount of time first, that way I can feel like I just wiped a crapload of work off my to-do list. The second part however, is something that might work only for dentalhopeful. I know if I reviewed my bio notes for only 15 minutes a day, I might as well not study at all -- but D.hopeful can do it and pass which is why it works for some but not for all.

I suggest taking more breaks... do something to relieve stress (work out, take a jog, punch a bag, do a kick boxing class, swim whatever amount of laps, I don't know).
Try to decide on a better arrangement of studying times... Don't give up though... just don't give yourself an aneurysm either

 

[Aceofspades]

put down your books and go have a beer for god's sake.

He probably isn't old enough to drink

 

[dackmonkey]

He probably isn't old enough to drink

assuming the OP isn't old enough to drink, i would expect that he/she would get the point i was trying to make and indulge in SOME kind of leisurely activity.

 

[ADentalHopeful]

lol u guys are funny. Im just wondering.. does your school sell beer on campus? my school is going to start doing that. That just seems so weird to me. Is that weird? It's like, "yay organic is done, let's go get drunk at school"

 

[La Dentista]

lol u guys are funny. Im just wondering.. does your school sell beer on campus? my school is going to start doing that. That just seems so weird to me. Is that weird? It's like, "yay organic is done, let's go get drunk at school"

Seriously? Mine doesn't, and there are always cops busting underage drinking and massive beer-pong parties there. I guess if anything goes wrong with drinking, the school has to take responsibility too.

 

[Blarelli]

I always thought if you didn't have a little bit of that 'feeling' at the end of the semester, then you aren't pushing yourself hard enough. Good time management sure helps dull the pain though.