Does anyone go to class?

[Gleevec]

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Ive read a ton of threads about students who found that skipping class is the best thing you could possibly do to learn in med school?

Am I just getting a biased sample of the student population, and are there people who still go to class?

Also, for those who skip med school class regularly, did you have a similar habit in undergrad?

The reason I ask is that I seem to know the material that I attend lectures for way better than the material that I simply read out of the book. I even recognized this on a test, when I was sick for a week and missed a lot of class, resulting in difficulty on the test for those topics.

So my question is, are the really successful people that have found that skipping class in med school successful, are these the same ones that skipped in undergrad as well? Or is med school just a completely different ballgame in terms of how we learn? Because I actually find lectures in undergrad very useful and time-effecient, and I feel as if I am one of the few that might actually go to them in med school for that reason. Is this in fact abnormal?

Thanks for any insight,
Gleevec

 

[DireWolf]

I am one of those who skips a lot of class in med school. My attendance is usually around 20%, excluding labs and small groups. In undergrad I was even worse- around 10-15% attendance, excluding labs. This is more a product of how I learn more than anything else. I am a visual learner that needs to read text and look at pictures. The audio component does nothing for me. Since I was successful in undergrad, I decided to apply this to med school as well. So far it has worked out well. On the other hand, there are many people in my class that go to ~95% of the lectures. The audio component helps reinforce the concepts for them. I wouldn't sweat it. There is no "magic" path to success in med school. It is all about personal preference.

 

[THE instiGATOR]

I attend only classes that we are absolutely required to show for. Last year I attended a majority of the classes and didn't do too well. I was just too tired to study after the lectures. The fact that I too am a visual learner made this a problem, because I didn't get anything out of the lectures.

I actually attended class as an undergrad because my professors were quite good.

I've learned that I can do much much better in med school by skipping. What pisses me off, though, is when professors try to punish those who skip by putting something from left field on the test that only those who attended class were informed would be on the exam. I'm not going to be forced to attend by the threat of missing one or two whack questions. Oh well...

What also pisses me off is when those who actually benefit from attending class get all hostile and try to tell you that you should attend also. To each his/her own.

Guess I'm in a pissy mood because I'm stressed out at the moment.

 

[DireWolf]

Originally posted by THE instiGATOR
What also pisses me off is when those who actually benefit from attending class get all hostile and try to tell you that you should attend also. To each his/her own.

I find it amusing when some people that go to all the lectures talk behind your back or make derogatory comments about not attending classes. They are usually the most sleep-deprived and stressed out. My advice is to ignore them and take a nap.

 

[Kalel]

If you are used to learning from a lecture format, then you should still attend class in med school. At my school, the prof's would frequently mention small bits of trivia that weren't in our readings or lecture notes that would show up on our exam, giving people who attended class and paid attention an advantage. This used to drive me crazy, because if it's important enough for them to test us on, then you would think that they would want to give us the information in lecture notes as opposed to purposely withholding it. Anyways, at those types of schools, it definitely helps to go to class. A lot of med schools video/audio tape their lectures and put their slides online, so you can "attend" class even if you end up missing it. It's pretty interesting how a lot of med students complain about attending their 2-4 hrs of lectures per day because just 10-15 yrs ago, a lot of med schools used to have lectures that would go 7-8 hrs every day with attendance required, and slide show after slide show of information being bombarded to you, with most of the information being irrelevant leaving you to sift through the mess. I liked a lot of the 90's reform that most med schools had with streamlining lectures and cutting a lot of the useless teaching out, I don't think that I would have been able to survive the old format.

 

[Galaxian]

Most of the lectures at my med school are crap, so I didn't really attend the first two years, and I would have skipped all during the third year if they hadn't been required. Yes...I had a similar habit in college. No matter how "high yield" the lecture, I find that I always tune out within ten minutes, and would need to read the material anyways. Another thing, if I don't have the anxiety of an exam to push me, there's no way I'm gonna be bothered to read either. However, its good to go to lecture anyway, because you might pick up a few useful nuggets, its good to stay "in the loop" as far as school is concerned (important announcements, etc.), and its a good chance to socialize with your classmates.

 

[jbish]

I attend probably 90% of lecture...there are two professors who I always skip as they're either offensive or unbelievably boring..the rest I try to stick it out. Reading the above posts, I'm probably a big auditory learner. Some of my undergrad classes actually had attendance policies (with negative effects on grades for skipping) so I probably attended more than 95% of lectures in undergrad.

Our lecturers do sometimes include test material in their lecture that wasn't on the notes or wasn't stressed in the notes but was in lecture but normally you find out who those people are and haul ass to their lectures.

 

[Zweihander]

Two words:

Scribe service.
😀

 

[12R34Y]

I never go to class. worked my 1st year and is working my 2nd year as well.

Note service we have at our school has transcriptions of all lectures so we dont miss those questions that are presented only in lecture material.

I find that I can study from 8-3/4 each day and actually STUDY the material, work with and a actually LEARN it...............whereas if you spend all day in class...........when do you study? sleep? play?

unless you learn by listening (which I don't) then I would not attend. It allows for a ton more free time.

later

 

[DW]

I "selectively" attend lectures in med school. My attendance probably hovers around 50 percent, depending on the block (for biochem/genetics related stuff I probably showed up a third of the time, for anatomy/phys related stuff, closer to 3/4 of the time). Much like I did in undergrad, I think its very worth your time asking people who have taken the class before you about the lectures and what is useful and what is a waste of time to attend. The thing thats so different about med school versus undergrad I've found is (at least in my experience)...you can have up to a dozen different lecturers for a given subject in a given block with sometimes substantial quality differences, so you really have to ask around and find upperclassmen to give you insight. For example, the general consensus is that our anatomy and histology lecturers are amazing, and especially with Dr Falcone you're almost learning histology by osmosis in lecture, he's THAT good. contrast that with some of our embryology lecturers...lets just say i found i much more efficient to just read his notes in the cosy confines of my room and look at the animations. scoring at or above the mean on most of my exams in a pretty competitive class, so I'd say its working out so far.

I will leave you all with an invaluable pearl of wisdom from a member of the class of 2006 here at Cornell, I wont disclose their full name for the sake of anonymity, but I will leave their initials as "D.L." as I must give some acknowledgement for this:

"I?ve come up with a theory that sums up my philosophy and has yet to be proven false:
VL=1/SH
That is, the ultimate value of a lecture (VL) is inversely proportional to the number of times the sonic hedgehog gene is mentioned (SH). Remember that and you will go far."

 

[the_equalizer]

I went to class very regularly till my last year of undergrad. I started out going to class first year of med, stopped 3 weeks before thanksgiving, and am making about 70-75% of them now.

The thing is the tougher a class is, the harder you have to study for it. I mean, thats common sense. It reaches the point where going to class actually cuts in on study time potential. If you're going to study 4/5 hours a day, and go to class for 3 or 4, then you've ly got a couple of hours of "study" left in you. You skip class, study for a few hours, and then you're set.

Med school lectures are vastly,vastly different than undergrad for several reasons. First, whether a med school prof mentions something or not, or whether they said it would be on the test or not doesn't matter: you should probably know that material anyways. I go to a P/F school, so the latter statement is obviously biased in that direction. You're studying to become a doctor, you're not studying because you're a med student. There's a distinction to be made there.

Thus, whether I hear a cardiologist go on about transmural venous pressure or not doesn't matter, I still have to go home and read the physio book and beat it in. You'll make the judgement once you get to med school, I'd say the students who work the hardest/know the most are the gunners who attend everything religiously and study all the time, and the kids who skip all class and study in that time instead.

 

[Stinger86]

I attended 99% of my undergrad lectures because I attended a small liberal arts college with professors who required attendance. Plus, the quality of their teaching was, for the most part, excellent. My study habits however were crap. I only studied for an exam the night before, and I was able to keep up a decent enough GPA for admission to med school (apparently).

Following the first month of medical school attendance, I skipped the rest of the entire year. The lectures sucked and I absolutely abhorred the information we were being "taught". I had spent four years of college learning basic science so I could build medicine on top of it, and here I was again being taught the same information. It disgusted me, and I only showed up for exams. I even skipped the labs and small groups that were said to be required.

Second year I began to attend most of my pathology and microbiology lectures because I enjoyed the material. We actually had some very good lecturers, so it was an easy choice. Our genetics course blew goats, so I skipped the entire thing. Once second semester began in January, I began to skip just about all my classes, because the quality of the lectures went WAY down. I swear, at one point, I was convinced I would have to travel to a Middle Eastern university just to be lectured to by a person who spoke english. I currently only show up for the occasional pharm lecture and every thursday path lecture because we always have a "pop" quiz then.

Interesting thing is, skipping my classes first year hurt my grade slightly, but skipping classes second year didn't hurt at all. Of course, this is just my school, so find out what works best for you and go for it. Don't listen to people tell you that you should be going to class, especially if there's no reason to.

 

[omarsaleh66]

I get higher grades just staying at home and studying scribes than going to class. I think homeschoolers have an advantage cuz they can review the material like 3-4 times where people taht go to class can see it only 2 times.

However, I think that going to class is only a good idea if u look at the material before hand so going to class will be the second time to cover the material. Thats prolly the only good reason to go to class.

 

[OB1🤙]

I agree that staying home and studying on your own time at your own pace has proven to be far more efficient than sitting in lecture all morning. I went to class first semester because of the labs, but now that we don't have morning anatomy lab, you couldn't pay me enough to wake up early and drag myself to lecture, especially the ones where they just read the PowerPoint word for word (our neuro profs are notorious for this). That ought to be against the law.

That's just me though. Some people feel that since we pay on the order of $100 a lecture (!) that it's their "duty" to go. Some people need to hear and see the info to make it stick. Some people get up early in the morning and have nothing better to do than go to class. Whatever floats your boat.

 

[Jalby]

This also depends a lot on what type of school you go to. Mine has great notes and try to test only what is on the notes and no other thing, so you would think a lot of people would miss class. But right now, at the end of second year, about 60-80% of the people attend class. Some schools want to sperate out the different studnets, so they have stuff only in lecture that makes going class advantagous.

There is also a hours thing. If you have 32 hours of class a week, you don't have much other time to study and you'll go home to try and be more efficient. If you have 20 hours a week, you'll prolly go because you still have time to study.

 

[Doc Ivy]

However, I think that going to class is only a good idea if u look at the material before hand so going to class will be the second time to cover the material. Thats prolly the only good reason to go to class.

BINGO!!!
.... as someone who pre-reads the lecture notes and reads relevant chapters before lecture, I find that going to class is quite helpful to REVIEW what I've already read, and to get a sense of what that prof thinks is important. But honestly, if you approach the lecture cold without previewing it, then some profs are such bad lecturers that you're better off not going.

Lecture will NEVER teach you anything in med school, it's just an addtional opportunity to go over the material if you're an auditory learner, and a chance to ask the prof questions... but you will always have to TEACH YOURSELF

~doc

 

[Carbon]

It helps me to hear it. I attend about 90% of lectures.

 

[Stinger86]

Originally posted by Hawaiian Bruin
... especially the ones where they just read the PowerPoint word for word (our neuro profs are notorious for this). That ought to be against the law.

Amen. That would put 90% of my school's faculty behind bars.

 

[lola]

i always go to class. usually it is worthwhile for me. every once in a while it is not. it helps me to hear the information before studying it on my own.

 

[tidy_kiwi]

I've learned that I can do much much better in med school by skipping. What pisses me off, though, is when professors try to punish those who skip by putting something from left field on the test that only those who attended class were informed would be on the exam. I'm not going to be forced to attend by the threat of missing one or two whack questions. Oh well...

Yeah got to hate it when that happens....I have noticed that lecturers will quite often emphasise what they feel the important core info on any given topic is during the course of their lecture and that does help when it comes to cramming before exams....also most of my class is really nice so if you don't go to a lecture someone will be able to tell you what the lecturer wants you to regurgitate verbatim in the exam.

 

[A.D.O.R.]

Undergrad: I attended 98% of my classes. I was a chem. major and took lots of bio. classes so lectures were very helpful.

Med School: I attend 98% of the lectures because I like to hear what the lecturer thinks is important. I usually don't read the material ahead of time. When I did, the lectures were pointless because I would sit there thinking "I've already read this. When is it going to get interesting?" Now I am usually two days behind in the reading and I haven't had any real problems with it, yet. Things did get kind of hairy when we had small groups the next day or the same day we were lectured on the material.

In closing, I'll just repeat what everyone else has already said, you will develop your own personal style once you get to medical school.

 

[CrashinStoneFish]

I probably attended class about 75% of the time as an undergrad..

Now into my second semester of school, I can say I attend 10% of the time...I basically go to my required classes....and sometimes just to socialize because I haven't seen my classmates in awhile!!😛 No joke! First semester, I probably attended greater than 50% of the time...but much less toward the end of the semester...I'm doing MUCH better now that I have stopped going to class...people who attend class regularly don't seem to understand this, which is frustrating...Just because I don't attend class doesn't mean I don't study. I just seem to get up a couple hours later..and study harder during the day...We also have our lectures online...so this helps if I don't understand something...

Basically, like everyone else has said....you will learn how you learn all over again...do what is right for you..and don't feel pressured to go to class if it isn't doing anything for you..(for me I would either fall asleep or talk to folks around me..and then be too tired to study later!😀 )

 

[kilroth]

Gleevec, have you decided on a school yet? I am hoping to get into NU which only has 10 hours of lecture a week. Being a morning person, the 8-10am lectures and then 10-12 labs do not bother me at all. The plan is to study everyday until 10 or so at night. Hopefully this will free up some of my weekends to hang out with my girlfriend.

Loyola is the same combo of lecture and pbl, so I am leaning towards it if I don't get into NU.

 

[kilroth]

Gleevec, have you decided on a school yet? I am hoping to get into NU which only has 10 hours of lecture a week. Being a morning person, the 8-10am lectures and then 10-12 labs do not bother me at all. The plan is to study everyday until 10 or so at night. Hopefully this will free up some of my weekends to hang out with my girlfriend.

Loyola is the same combo of lecture and pbl, so I am leaning towards it if I don't get into NU.

 

[siempre595]

It really depends on the class and who is lecturing. Some will literally read off their notes, in which case I could be home sleeping or somewhere reading for myself. Some actually teach though, which makes it really hard to gauge where to be. I think it's best to just go to the classes at the start and see what works for you. If you really try to go to everything and study a decent amount, while maintaining some kind of life outside school, it's probably not possible to sleep very much, which is never good.

 

[MediCane2006]

At UMSM, all classes are web-cast live and archived on the web. So if I don't feel like going to class I can watch from home!

Exam-wise, I find that going to (or watching online) lectures allows me to pick out the high-yield stuff that is *emphasized*. However, I think that in terms of quality of learning, nothing beats sitting down in the library with a good textbook and doing some self-directed study. The things that I best remember are the concepts that I taught myself.

Just my $0.02!

 

[Rod Farva]

No. I hate class.

 

[sacrament]

I don't even remember the last time I went to lecture. It wasn't in 2004, I can tell you that. Maybe last November.

 

[12R34Y]

For those of you who think abortions aren't HUGE cash cows.....and that planned parenthood does so much more than just abortion and birth control this is some interesting reading for you. Most of this gleaned from planned parenthood's websites.

When it comes to pregnant women deciding between abortion and adoption, more than 98 percent of those women seeking counsel from Planned Parenthood Federation of America ended their pregnancies with abortion in 2000, according to data collected by the organization.

Meanwhile, the number of adoption referrals by PPFA fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2000, to fewer than 2,500.

During the same year, Planned Parenthood clinics around the country performed almost 200,000 abortions, according to statistics available on the organization's Internet website.

Stated another way, Planned Parenthood abortionists performed almost 80 abortions for every adoption referral the organization made in 2000, the data show.

According to Planned Parenthood, there were 9,200 adoption referrals in 1997, but that number had dropped to 2,486 by 2000.

BIG MONEY FOR ABORTION!!

According to the Planned Parenthood website, the organization performed 197,070 abortions in 2000, representing tens of millions of dollars annually for the group in a single year.

Officials with PPFA did not respond to repeated telephone calls seeking comment for this article, but a female CNSNews.com staffer who contacted one of the group's abortion clinics Tuesday was informed that the cost of an abortion starts at more than $300.

According to Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., the price of an abortion for a woman who's been pregnant for 12 weeks or less is $325. At 13 weeks, the price rises to $350, with still higher prices for women who are further along in their pregnancies.

Using an average cost of $350 for an abortion, PPFA would have taken in nearly $69 million for abortions in 2000.

Abortions accounted for about 29 percent of PPFA's clinic income.

Estimates that since 1977, PPFA has made $815 million from an estimated 3 million abortions.

 

[12R34Y]

Amazing that 30% of the planned parenthood budget comes from abortion and the number is in the hundreds of millions.........wow.....abortion just might make them a few bucks.

don't kill the messenger i'm just getting this off of planned parenthood websites and CNN.

later

 

[japhy]

huh, what the hell was that all about?

 

[timerick]

Interesting discussion on abortion. Now we know where all the med students are when they're skipping class?

I can't imagine missing class in PA school. We have close to 100% attendence at all classes, and the class times are designed to really help us understand and master the material, as well as enjoy the process. Just sitting and reading books would be so boring. I like having immediate feedback and answers to my questions. I also really like the problem solving sessions and the clinical assessment classes where we act out exams and get immediate feedback from practicing clinicians regarding our technique and thoroughness. Can't learn those from books very well.

There is one class I really don't care for... "epidemiology, biostatistics and preventative medicine". But it's only because the instructor has a somewhat arrogant presence and gets angrily explosive at times. Our other instructors are wonderful. (Nice to have as my instructors a bunch of quality MD's and PA's I'd like to emulate personally.)

I feel sorry for those who are paying tons of money for med school and being given useless classes. You deserve better.

 

[CrashinStoneFish]

Oh no..I don't want people to think the teaching at my school is bad or anything...in fact...most of the profs are excellent..I just don't learn very well in that sort of setting..I'm not sure about everybody else though..

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by japhy
huh, what the hell was that all about?

Agreed.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by timerick
Just sitting and reading books would be so boring....

I like having immediate feedback and answers to my questions....

I feel sorry for those who are paying tons of money for med school and being given useless classes. You deserve better.

Good viewpoints, but you are looking at it from the standpoint of somebody who a) has never been to medical school and b) seems to learn through the auditory method.

Lots of people pay tuition and don't expect a thing from the classes. These people have always been self-directed learners and are quite capable of learning as much (or more!) as their counterparts who sit through lectures. In fact, these same people might struggle if the professors were incredible teachers, because then they'd be torn between attending lecture and studying on their own (the method that actually works for them).

Also, it seems that much of your post related to laboratory-type sessions, which I don't think the original poster was referencing when he posted. I think the jist of the idea is "who skips didactic classes?"

 

[deleted29780]

Well, I am the type who attends lectures almost 100%. I find lectures very informative, since most lecturers emphasize the facts they expect u to know 4 ur exam. At least that is what my lecturers do over here.
I know basic sciences is hell and all... I guess there is too much of crap to be learnt anyway. But we owe our future patients and nation.....
It would be gr8 to skip lectures... cos that will give me more time to study. I am the type who gets better with a material depending on the number of times I go thru it. I guess 😀
Basic sciences is hell anyway... but please when u start ur clinicals don't skip lectures. 😡
U may all lay to that.

 

[ndi_amaka]

Originally posted by japhy
huh, what the hell was that all about?

my sentiments exactly....