Falling behind in first year...

Started by LilyMD
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LilyMD

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Okay, I am a first year and two weeks into class...I am a non-science major and do not consider anything covered so far to be a "refresher." I know everyone says, "DON'T FALL BEHIND" but what happens when you do?

Obviously, you try to catch up...but I am feeling so overwhelmed about this mountain of information I have yet to digest that I don' t know even where to begin...do you actually try to watch all the lectures or be selective? Go back to the beginning? I try to go to class to not fall further behind, but truthfully, it's getting to the point that the class goes entirely over my head since I am missing the previous information!

Please help...I could use some encouragement!
 
If you're not an auditory learner, I find both watching lectures and actually going to class to be low yield (read - waste of precious time). And if you get behind, going to lecture can be especially pointless just because as you mentioned, you don't know what they're talking about.

Getting behind happens, and you can recover. So stop beating yourself up and figure out how much material you need to cover to get caught up. Work on getting through x many pages or x many days of topics to get to where you're no more than a few days behind. Just don't panic because it's doable, but it's critical that you have a plan and follow it instead of getting distracted doing less productive things.
 
Falling behind (in my opinion) will usually lead to people either

A) Bombing a class they "sacrifice" time in to catch up in other subjects.

B) Doing equally poorly in all classes.

Both options suck.

You're going to feel like you're falling behind anyway, even if you're not, so it's hard to say when you're really "behind". This doesn't help when you have lecturers who expect you to have memorized pulmonary physiology by Tuesday when it was taught on Monday.
 
LilyMD said:
Okay, I am a first year and two weeks into class...I am a non-science major and do not consider anything covered so far to be a "refresher." I know everyone says, "DON'T FALL BEHIND" but what happens when you do?

Obviously, you try to catch up...but I am feeling so overwhelmed about this mountain of information I have yet to digest that I don' t know even where to begin...do you actually try to watch all the lectures or be selective? Go back to the beginning? I try to go to class to not fall further behind, but truthfully, it's getting to the point that the class goes entirely over my head since I am missing the previous information!

Please help...I could use some encouragement!
Click to expand...

Go to class and start with where the class is now. Use the weekend, when you don't have lectures, to catch up. Don't try to catch up and sacrifice the current lectures.

Don't try to go for digestion at this point. Just go to where the class is; preview the material, listen to the current lecture and then review it when you get home. Then preview the next lecture and link it with the one that you know. You can fill in the holes on the weekend on a Saturday marking off the lectures that you have reviewed one at a time. Review the entire weeks worth of material on Sunday and be ready for Monday.

I have a feeling that you are dwelling so much on "being behind" that the anxiety is getting the best of you. If that is the case, speak to someone, a dean or counselor perhaps. You have to get out of your head, that being exposed to the material as a "science major" somehow confers some great advantage. Medical school is tough for everyone. If your science major classmates are bragging that it's not, then you are being "lied to". There is a huge volume of material period and everyone has to adjust to that volume.

The good thing is that you don't have to "digest" everything but you do have to review and review until you have learned the material. Don't feel compelled to listen and memorize every word of a lecture. Try to have an outline of the big picture and fill in the gaps.

The important thing is not to "throw up your hands" and decide that you will "never be able to catch up". You have to believe that what you were able to do as an undergraduate, will get you through medical school if you study efficiently. Good luck!
 
Really figure out what works better for you. I'm an MS1 also, and I realized that my brain works better in the morning and that I don't gain anything from going to class. This resulted in my staying at home and studying during lecture time. Then I can listen to the recorded lectures later to supplement my studying or I can go to different reference books to supplement my studying.

Like njbmd said (or kinda like it 🙂), don't try to learn EVERYTHING. I'm in the mindset now that I'm going to learn 80% of the information as well as I can. The other 20% I pray won't be on the test. Personally, I just can't digest all of the info that they throw at me, so you have to pick and choose. But don't feel like you are the only one behind, alot of other MS1s feel like you. At only 2 weeks you can still change your study style (I did after 2 weeks) and really do what works for you.
 
DoctaJay said:
Like njbmd said (or kinda like it 🙂), don't try to learn EVERYTHING. I'm in the mindset now that I'm going to learn 80% of the information as well as I can. The other 20% I pray won't be on the test. Personally, I just can't digest all of the info that they throw at me, so you have to pick and choose.
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I agree; learn the things that have been mentioned multiple times or seem to encompass multiple themes of a course. These have the added benefit of occasionally being on the USMLE. And hey if it's pass/fail, 80% of the material is 10% too much...not that I advocate shooting for the lower part of P = MD. But it's better than freaking out too.
 
There is much logic in many of the basic science courses.

Sometimes a study group helpsby quizzing each other, or by sharing pearls on how to remember or understand the material.
 
If you're starting to fall behind on this testing cycle, you may just have to focus on the high yield material, take a moderate to poor grade, and start afresh next cycle. Panic disturbs studying efforts. Don't spend too much time studying, it's counterproductive. Study smart, not long.
 
I have had it with all of the whining that goes on here. Do you mean to tell me that you had no idea of how much work this was going to be? We all knew from the beginning not to get behind. Now you did and you need to suck it up. Just study. Stop going out at night. Stop surfing the net when you are supposed to study. Above all else, stop whining!
 
Johnny_D said:
I have had it with all of the whining that goes on here. Do you mean to tell me that you had no idea of how much work this was going to be? We all knew from the beginning not to get behind. Now you did and you need to suck it up. Just study. Stop going out at night. Stop surfing the net when you are supposed to study. Above all else, stop whining!
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Wow. You're kind of a jerk.
 
Johnny_D said:
I have had it with all of the whining that goes on here. Do you mean to tell me that you had no idea of how much work this was going to be? We all knew from the beginning not to get behind. Now you did and you need to suck it up. Just study. Stop going out at night. Stop surfing the net when you are supposed to study. Above all else, stop whining!
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From a mouth of inexperience...the vast majority of students who ask this question are actually NOT messing around, and are putting in tons of work already, that's why they end up asking. Chances are, you'll feel like that too, just get to a little bit more of 1st year behind you. The pace picks up, I promise.

OP, no matter who it is, its so rare that youll find another med student who does not feel behind. I'll so as far to say that 98% of your classmates will feel like this at some point, no matter how hard you try or well you study. You may not be able to get every last detail in, but try your best. We've only had class for ~4 weeks now and just took our immuno exam yesterday, and I felt behind already at the end of week one. I studied ~8hrs a day after class (afternoons free or not), including weekends, and only went out once (a double date on Labor day) and struggled to stay on top of it all.

You are definitely not alone. It gets no easier, but what does get easier is your ability to manage the workload. Hang in there! :luck:
 
LilyMD said:
Okay, I am a first year and two weeks into class...I am a non-science major and do not consider anything covered so far to be a "refresher." I know everyone says, "DON'T FALL BEHIND" but what happens when you do?

Obviously, you try to catch up...but I am feeling so overwhelmed about this mountain of information I have yet to digest that I don' t know even where to begin...do you actually try to watch all the lectures or be selective? Go back to the beginning? I try to go to class to not fall further behind, but truthfully, it's getting to the point that the class goes entirely over my head since I am missing the previous information!

Please help...I could use some encouragement!
Click to expand...

prioritize. have a game plan. Know what is the order you are going to study things in. Focus on the high yield material, and learn the middle-yield material as you have time.

Personally I either pre-read before going to lecture, or don't go at all, with the latter being more frequent.

Also, if you are a lecture person, pre-read tomorrow's stuff rather than today's which yo havent seen yet. Of course it would make better sense with the previous days', but you shouldn't expect to go to lecture and not have questions afterwards anyway, even if you've done all the reading.
 
Johnny_D said:
I have had it with all of the whining that goes on here. Do you mean to tell me that you had no idea of how much work this was going to be? We all knew from the beginning not to get behind. Now you did and you need to suck it up. Just study. Stop going out at night. Stop surfing the net when you are supposed to study. Above all else, stop whining!
Click to expand...

Johnny D, your post was so helpful...I especially liked the part where you tell me how AWESOME you are and how much I SUCK. Nothing in my original post was whining, it was asking for advice...and frankly, you didn't provide any helpful advice, but I hope you feel better about yourself since that appears to be what you were aiming for...since you are caught up with studying, maybe you could be work on being less of an arrogant pr*ck.
 
LilyMD said:
Johnny D, your post was so helpful...I especially liked the part where you tell me how AWESOME you are and how much I SUCK. Nothing in my original post was whining, it was asking for advice...and frankly, you didn't provide any helpful advice, but I hope you feel better about yourself since that appears to be what you were aiming for...since you are caught up with studying, maybe you could be work on being less of an arrogant pr*ck.
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I like you- you're funny.

We are in our 8th week, so I don't have a lot of experience (i.e. take my advice with a grain of salt). I have a really small class size and going to school is mandatory. If you don't have the luxury of skipping class like me, you might try reading ahead. It helps if you have a vague idea of the subject before hearing the lecture. I have also started to utilize my upper classmates (as well as my classmates). I can't sit down and read the book, so I get outlines from my classmates and use the c/o 2010 study materials. It really helps to cut down the amount of info to learn.
:luck:
 
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OP-
You're going to fall behind...that's just the nature of the beast unless you don't sleep or you can read and retain material at a super-human pace. Just use your weekends wisely, and put the precious free time that you have to good use. Odds are you'll end up doing fine and that you're just freaking out because you've been in med school for 8 weeks and aren't quite adjusted to it fully.

If you completely shun your family/friends, TV, the internet, and sleep, you may be able to keep up. I also find that using illicit stimulants (meth/adderal/crack) in combination with a constant caffeine/epi/nutritional drip and placing a foley in yourself first thing in the morning helps to maximize study time by cutting down on those annoying bathroom/food/nap breaks.
(/sarcasm)
 
I don't think just because you weren't a science major you're completely unprepared...I mean, I wasn't a science major either.

Am I somewhat behind? Sure, I'm behind in Anatomy right now. But...so are the people who were science majors, since a good deal of them didn't ever take Anatomy (chem people, etc.).

If you work hard you can do very well even on the basic science stuff...it just takes a bit more work is all.

I did pretty well on my first biochem exam and I've never taken biochem in my life, but they seem to boil the med school version down to the basics so it's not like we have to master all the complexities of the sciences. Like, at least for our class we didn't have to memorize the structures of the amino acids, which I found fantastic since I utterly hated memorizing stuff like that in organic chem.
 
gujuDoc said:
BTW one last point: Not being a science major is not really as bad of a deterrent as you think. My professors from USF med say that they've done some rather non official surveys on this matter and found many times those who'd not had similar courses did better. They found that not having had a lot of these courses didn't make a difference.
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I forgot to address this, but I agree with it. I'll go as far to say that having an extensive science background vs not having one will make NO overall difference in your grade. I took tons of upper level sciences courses in college, and they helped me focus a little less on about 4 lectures per corresponding UG course- and thats when the college course was demanding! We generally had 25-30 lectures per exam 1st year. In total that probably amounted to about a week of "easier" studying. After that, my non-science classmates caught up real quick. Not only that, quite a few did better than I on those exams!

So dont let that scare you, it really makes no difference.
 
LilyMD said:
Okay, I am a first year and two weeks into class...I am a non-science major and do not consider anything covered so far to be a "refresher." I know everyone says, "DON'T FALL BEHIND" but what happens when you do?

Obviously, you try to catch up...but I am feeling so overwhelmed about this mountain of information I have yet to digest that I don' t know even where to begin...do you actually try to watch all the lectures or be selective? Go back to the beginning? I try to go to class to not fall further behind, but truthfully, it's getting to the point that the class goes entirely over my head since I am missing the previous information!

Please help...I could use some encouragement!
Click to expand...

Lily - i feel your pain. i just started too, and have had exams already but i was a nonscience major with ONE bio class (general bio, the prereq), and this first class we're in everyone talks about how much review it is. i feel as though no matter how hard i study, in this class, i'll never be above average...and its really frustrating (my grades have proved that so far). i hope in the next block of classes, we'll all be on the same playing field.

but i have a q for current students - do you think grades from 1/2 years are really imp't? i've heard, "as long as you pass" its okay, and the step 1 scores and 3rd/4th years count more...

can anyone speak to this?
 
Wow, I'm always behind. I go to lectures so that I've heard the material at least once. I usually fall a week or two behind, and then study the weekend before a test, or the week before a section final. Seems to work. I guess I'd rather have a life most of the time and step up to the plate with a long "learning session" (cram?) before exams.

But I can see why others try to not get behind. For the few times I've managed to do it, preparing for a test really was a breeze. I guess if you have learned everything already, what do you study for the exam?

As for the OP, my advice would be to continue going to lectures, and try to keep up as much as possible on the current material. Each afternoon try to review that day's material as well as one additional day's material starting from the very first day. After one week, you will only be one week behind. Use the weekend to get through several days of the second week's material, all of it if possible. Forget about the most recent week. After the weekend, hopefully, you will be marginally "up to date." You should know what areas were less clear during that focused and rushed review, so add those areas in for the following week as you also make sure you keep up with current material.

If, however, you've been putting in a couple of hours a night and several a day on weekends for the first two weeks, and still feel two weeks behind, something is not right. Either your expectations are too high and you don't realize everyone is in the same boat, or you need some outside help on stud habits and techniques. Hopefully you've just been goofing off and now it is time to buckle down?
 
DoctaJay said:
I'm an MS1 also, and I realized that my brain works better in the morning and that I don't gain anything from going to class. This resulted in my staying at home and studying during lecture time.
Click to expand...

So that's where you disappeared to...
I might have to give that a try after exams next week.

And does anyone else feel kinda frustrated with the whole "Half the things you learn now are going to be obsolete by the time you get into practice, but you just don't know which half" thing? I've heard that a number of times now.. from professors... There has to be a better way...
 
SemperJeff said:
So that's where you disappeared to...
I might have to give that a try after exams next week.

And does anyone else feel kinda frustrated with the whole "Half the things you learn now are going to be obsolete by the time you get into practice, but you just don't know which half" thing? I've heard that a number of times now.. from professors... There has to be a better way...
Click to expand...

Golden Rule of Medical School: Don't hang onto every word that comes out of your professors' mouth. Most of it is useless which is why a sizeable number of students choose to stay home and learn the material n their own. Nobody has a crystal ball. If they did, they would use it to get the winning numbers for next weeks Lotto and make more money than teaching in a medical school.
 
To repeat again: DON'T GO FOR DIGESTION AT THE START. The big picture tends to come into view later, and your repeated reviewing starts to come into place. My first 10-15 hours of studying immunology resulted in very minimal learning, but the following 10-15 hours picked up the pace dramatically as I started to realize what the big picture was and how exactly all the different portions of the system interacted. You would have a much harder time learning the specifics of a car until you knew what the intended purpose of a car actually was.
 
Though some curriculums promote digestion much, much earlier in the process.

I suppose if I sat through a whole course just learning the kreb cycle and other biochemical pathways and metabolites, I might not even find the big picture let alone understand it.

Details should come in the context of the patient as a whole, physiological and pathological states, and clinical applications. If your schools doesn't teach that way I'd suggest trying to learn that way. Otherwise things will never stick, and you'll just rememorize everything for the boards and still not carry much real knowledge into rotations and/or residency.
 
I'd like to echo what shredder said regarding efficient studying - smart study is key. There are a couple salient points to keep in mind for efficient studying:

- Find your best studying method. If visual, manage your studying through the use of diagrams. Flow diagrams / "concept diagrams" are wonderful studying tools. For an example of this, check out Lippincott's Illustrated Biochem; at the end of each chapter there is a concept map. Try to make your own. Or make your own flashcards. If you learn well by audio means, listen to lectures or talk to your peers about the material

- Break down your studying into smaller, manageable chunks. Do not attempt to tackle a large topic in one sitting. Study for an hour, get up, walk around for a bit, consolidate what you just read. If you go on for hours on end, you'll tire and lose focus, and invariably you will waste time.

- High-yield studying is key. That mountain of info is mostly fluff, and while you will be expected to remember details, certain details are more critical than others, and definitely large-scale concepts are important. What's important and what's not? Well, that's the biggest challenge as a med student. It's just something you have to figure out over time. Pay attention to what lecturers tend to stress, and keep in mind the learning objectives for your lectures.

- Repetition is invaluable. Read your notes over and over. Highlight them, annotate, summarize - do whatever it is you do - and read it all again a day later. Repetition could also be achieved by reading the material in multiple formats - supplement your notes with readings. Review books are useful for this purpose.

- USE PRACTICE QUESTIONS! This is my favorite way to study. It's a change of pace from "okay, read this, write that, memorize memorize memorize". Practice questions are all about applying what you've learned, and seeing if you learned it. Use old exams if they are available and ethically allowed. If not, there's tons of other resources to turn to for practice questions. It's important not just to figure out the right answers, but also look and see why the wrong answers are wrong (and what makes them tempting as distractors).



Well, I hope that helps you a little bit, and don't worry, a lot of people struggle at this stage in their career... have confidence in yourself and you can make the needed adjustments to succeed in medical school. Good luck.
 
LilyMD said:
Okay, I am a first year and two weeks into class...I am a non-science major and do not consider anything covered so far to be a "refresher." I know everyone says, "DON'T FALL BEHIND" but what happens when you do?

Obviously, you try to catch up...but I am feeling so overwhelmed about this mountain of information I have yet to digest that I don' t know even where to begin...do you actually try to watch all the lectures or be selective? Go back to the beginning? I try to go to class to not fall further behind, but truthfully, it's getting to the point that the class goes entirely over my head since I am missing the previous information!

Please help...I could use some encouragement!
Click to expand...

I am a lot further away from this than the rest of the posters. I am an attending, took anatomy in 1994. I am currently med school faculty. I was a non-science major and recommend this:

1) forget about digesting the information. First two years are about breadth, not depth.

2) If you do badly (ie, fail a test), study differently, not twice as hard the same way. I shared a cadaver with one of the four students who failed gross. He was an outliner in undergrad. Had to make outlines on legal pads of all material, and the mechanics of writing were taking up too much time to cover everything. When he failed the first test, his solution was to outline in even more detail. He should have taken an entirely new approach. (Yes, we all tried to help him.)

3) be careful who you study with. If someone is confusing you, or trying to psych you out, get away from them

This is likely of little comfort to you now, but through this process your brain is already becoming a doctor's. By the end of this semester, you will likely notice that you are more efficient in day to day life than your non-medical friends. It becomes more and more pronounced, until one day you will be juggling family and 30 patients a day with relative ease.
 
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