First Year Experience

[superbill2]

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This is a Question for Current Pod students.

What was your experience for your 1st year of Pod school? I'm excited and nervous beyond belief about starting in August. Anyways some of my mates are hating their first year of DO/MD and are overwhelmed to say the least. Was/is first year in Pod school a trying time for you guys? Is it manageable? Is there no life apart from studies? Do you get your weekends off?

I'm ready to work hard at it, but I'm curious what your experience was and what kind of lifestyle I get to look forward to my first 2 years.

 

[DrMushroomFoot]

IMO, the academics really depends on how motivated you are in school. How well do you want to do compared to your peers? For example, my goal is to be #1 in my class, therefore I spend most, if not all my time studying, including the weekends (At my age, it takes a great deal of time for remembering things compared to when I was younger). On the other hand, If I wanted to just pass all my classes (min of 70%), I could do so on an 8-5 studying schedule (or less) and relax the rest of the day and enjoy my weekends.

 

[AttackNME]

superbill2, they transition you into the curriculum smoothly, and everyone else is just as excited and nervous as you are. Just relax, do a bit of reading if you want. I recommend everyone read "Born to Run" if you haven't already, get an idea of where the recent minimalist shoe movement came from, and get pumped!

 

[hightower]

Just get ready for a big load. No individual class is going to kill you (minus biochem and neuroanatomy maybe) but the load does take some getting used to. I tried having my wife work part time the first year which was a mistake looking back on it. I had to watch our boy over the weekend several times just before big Monday tests. We should have played it smarter. She cut her schedule down a lot the second year leaving me more time to study at critical times and it has payed off. By the second year you are used to the load so you have to still work hard but you don't feel as overwhelmed. You will have some free time for sure but you can never just take a week off from studying or you will get buried. Two words to describe the first year at DMU, "leap frog". There is always another test coming up and as soon as you are finished with it you start studying like crazy for the next right away. You will have a down week here and there which is nice. Just go in expecting to work hard and you will be fine.