Hand-made flashcards impossible in med school?

[PopeKnope23]

Hey everyone! I am an incoming M1 this fall and I'm just starting to think through possible note-taking and study strategies. Of course, I won't know what works til I get there, but I kinda wanna see if my undergrad method is at all possible.

What I found works for me is printing off and annotating the lecture slides, re-listening to the podcast at home as I then make paper flashcards, and then using a whiteboard to review the flashcards as exam gets closer.

As you can see, I love my handwriting and paper studying. I just don't know if this will be sustainable in med school. I have a Mac but I hateee typing notes. I also don't like iPads at all and don't really wanna buy one. I'm pretty stubborn lol.

Thoughts? Thanks!

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[ciestar]

Anki

 

[username456789]

I made/used hand made flash cards in M1/M2. It was super time-consuming but I really think it helped tremendously. Even just the process of writing them out helped more than making electronic ones I think. My usual method was to read lecture notes/watch the lectures and take my own master set of notes based on this combination. Then I would make flashcards based on these notes each weekend and review them before I would go to bed during the week.

I am honored every pre-clinical class ( and this was at a school where honors actually meant something since no more than 10% of the class was eligible each course.)

 

[wanderingorion]

I find that actually reviewing the flashcards helps me learn more than spending the time making them. If a good portion of your learning is through formulating and writing the cards by hand, then do whatever works for you.
I will say though, the volume alone will make this very difficult.

 

[deleted967981]

I had a friend in grad school who made hundreds of notecards for a class we were taking, while I did Anki cards of the material. We both made As, but I got more sleep than she did that semester.

My biggest beef with her huge stack of notecards (aside from the waste), was that it wasn’t really a portable system. I could do anki cards waiting in line at the store or sitting in a waiting room, but she was packing 500+ cards around with her at any given time.

I haven’t actually started Med school yet, but I’ve read that a typical lecture can be 100 slides or more. Assuming 4 lectures per day, an exam every two weeks, and one notecard per slide (conservative), you could be looking at upwards of 4,000 notecards for ONE TEST. That’s for one class, too.

 

[PopeKnope23]

Thank you all for the insight! I tried Anki for the MCAT and I just couldn't get it to jive with me. I would not mind trying it again once med school starts. Luckily our first block is clinical stuff, which students have said requires little time outside of lecture, so that gives me the opportunity to play around with stuff a bit! It just scares me trying something totally new and then getting a bad score on my first exam.

Did any of you or anyone you know print off the lecture slides? Or is that also too much to do?

 

[Goro]

Hey everyone! I am an incoming M1 this fall and I'm just starting to think through possible note-taking and study strategies. Of course, I won't know what works til I get there, but I kinda wanna see if my undergrad method is at all possible.

What I found works for me is printing off and annotating the lecture slides, re-listening to the podcast at home as I then make paper flashcards, and then using a whiteboard to review the flashcards as exam gets closer.

As you can see, I love my handwriting and paper studying. I just don't know if this will be sustainable in med school. I have a Mac but I hateee typing notes. I also don't like iPads at all and don't really wanna buy one. I'm pretty stubborn lol.

Thoughts? Thanks!

If it works and you can manage your time properly, then stick with what works.

You'll know by the end of your first exam block or two if this is sustainable.

 

[Dr. Rafiki]

Buddy of mine sat in every single lecture, with the PPT on full screen and wrote out hand made flashcards while somewhat following along with the prof (he was usually a couple slides behind). He said it worked out great and he got pretty good grades. He was also one of "those guys" who would pretty consistently party on the weekends.

Then came dedicated, where he pretty much followed the UFAPS method which is tried and true, and for that he turned to anki to hammer down the likes of Sketchy and Pathoma. We both took STEP on the same day and I asked him what he did with all those flashcards he wrote out over 2 years - he burned them all in a giant bonfire night the night before taking STEP. I LOL'd.

As for me, I couldn't get on the Anki train as I'm not a computer programmer and as such, the interface was close to impossible to navigate and SUPER user unfriendly. I mostly made / used Quizlets. That said, I also turned to the golden premade Anki decks for dedicated and have zero regrets. Still horrible to navigate but having thousands of premade cards to really hammer down various resources is too valuable to pass up.

 

[mrbreakfast]

I used handmade flashcards for preclinicals and did quite well. Yes, making them will take extra time (you ain't going to class if you're doing this) but the actual process of making (very detailed) cards is effectively studying. I'd only have to run through a section of cards a few times to be ready for the exam. Just give it a shot.

 

[anon6134]

You will probably try to make hand written cards for an undetermined amount of time before you give up and switch to something else. I made hand written cards the first half of anatomy and it was not sustainable unless you have some complex about it in which case you will literally exist on this earth to solely write hand written cards for two years of your life. My suggestion is to play around with anki and start off with it. Even electronic typed cards are a massive time sink

 

[Osteosaur]

this is not undergrad or instagram med school. bunch of highlighters and pretty cards are not going to help you. the volume of information is too great to make writing and color coding worthwhile.

Anki's power is in its review schedule which it plans out for you.

 

[Chibucks15]

My class had a collaborative quizlet page that has bailed me out all of second year when I put stuff off and study for boards. Highly recommend making one

 

[PopeKnope23]

Thank you everyone! I am going to try using both flashcards and Anki in the beginning and see how they compare. All I can say at this point is that it looks like I’m in for a reaaalll treat 😆

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

I am also someone who generally prefers handwritten notes/flashcards. Handwritten flashcards are definitely possible for certain topics, though would quickly get unwieldy if you're trying to put all the possible information on them. I've done exclusively handwritten notes throughout first year, and I'm doing pretty well with it. For me though, the process of writing the notes the first time is more important than actually going back and reviewing them - if you're someone who needs to actually look back through your notes, digital is probably the way to go.

 

[Planes2Doc]

You can always start and see if it works for you. If not, just abandon it and switch over to Anki.

 

[Medic741]

Hey everyone! I am an incoming M1 this fall and I'm just starting to think through possible note-taking and study strategies. Of course, I won't know what works til I get there, but I kinda wanna see if my undergrad method is at all possible.

What I found works for me is printing off and annotating the lecture slides, re-listening to the podcast at home as I then make paper flashcards, and then using a whiteboard to review the flashcards as exam gets closer.

As you can see, I love my handwriting and paper studying. I just don't know if this will be sustainable in med school. I have a Mac but I hateee typing notes. I also don't like iPads at all and don't really wanna buy one. I'm pretty stubborn lol.

Thoughts? Thanks!

I'm the same way. Didn't take a single note during M2 and my grades went up markedly. Also a Mac-user and you're in luck. Give this a try to cut down on time it takes to make a card. Apologies for the long instructions below, but wanted to be complete so it's helpful! You could even try this before med school starts by trying it out with a youtube video or something to get a hang of this system.

First install Anki. Create a new deck for each class (eg, microbiology) you're in and a new deck for each exam (eg, micro ex1) for each class. Click and drag the exam deck into your class deck to nest your exams within the class you're making decks for. Open the (for example) micro ex1 deck and hit "add cards". Make the Anki window small and put it up to the side.

Open up your browser and whatever lecture-recording software your school uses and launch the lecture w/in the software.

With your Mac strike command+shift+5. This will open up a custom screenshot toolbar that will allow you to move the pre-selected area over the video lecture feed. You'll also see a region of the screen that will show "options", click this and change "save to" option to "clipboard."

Start the lecture. As you watch it whenever a slide comes up that you're like this would be a good slide or professor really emphasized that idea hit command+shift+5 and then hit enter. The video feed screen capture will then be saved to your clipboard and can be pasted into the back side of the Anki card (kind of like what you did by hand).

On the front try asking open-ended questions that require recall. On the back side of the card in addition to the slide you pasted in, add a few words of text of the key concept or extra info from the lecturer that's relevant. My cards would usually include 2-3 questions on the front and 3-4 slides on the back.

This process worked *extremely* well and cut down my lecture-watching time to ~20 minutes for a 50 minute lecture by the end of second year and was consistently getting A's by making decks and going through the decks for each exam starting 2 days before the exams. If a course gave clearly stated "learning objectives" I would also be sure to make a card for each LO.

Good luck! Med school is actually really fun and you'll be pretty happy with how much flexibility and free time you have during the first 2 years.

 

[PopeKnope23]

I'm the same way. Didn't take a single note during M2 and my grades went up markedly. Also a Mac-user and you're in luck. Give this a try to cut down on time it takes to make a card. Apologies for the long instructions below, but wanted to be complete so it's helpful! You could even try this before med school starts by trying it out with a youtube video or something to get a hang of this system.

First install Anki. Create a new deck for each class (eg, microbiology) you're in and a new deck for each exam (eg, micro ex1) for each class. Click and drag the exam deck into your class deck to nest your exams within the class you're making decks for. Open the (for example) micro ex1 deck and hit "add cards". Make the Anki window small and put it up to the side.

Open up your browser and whatever lecture-recording software your school uses and launch the lecture w/in the software.

With your Mac strike command+shift+5. This will open up a custom screenshot toolbar that will allow you to move the pre-selected area over the video lecture feed. You'll also see a region of the screen that will show "options", click this and change "save to" option to "clipboard."

Start the lecture. As you watch it whenever a slide comes up that you're like this would be a good slide or professor really emphasized that idea hit command+shift+5 and then hit enter. The video feed screen capture will then be saved to your clipboard and can be pasted into the back side of the Anki card (kind of like what you did by hand).

On the front try asking open-ended questions that require recall. On the back side of the card in addition to the slide you pasted in, add a few words of text of the key concept or extra info from the lecturer that's relevant. My cards would usually include 2-3 questions on the front and 3-4 slides on the back.

This process worked *extremely* well and cut down my lecture-watching time to ~20 minutes for a 50 minute lecture by the end of second year and was consistently getting A's by making decks and going through the decks for each exam starting 2 days before the exams. If a course gave clearly stated "learning objectives" I would also be sure to make a card for each LO.

Good luck! Med school is actually really fun and you'll be pretty happy with how much flexibility and free time you have during the first 2 years.

This is FANTASTIC! I would have never ever thought of something like this! Thank you so much for the detailed instructions! I will go ahead and give it a try on a youtube vid. I'm actually excited to try this because it seems like a much faster way to do what I've always done! Thanks!!

 

[Medic741]

This is FANTASTIC! I would have never ever thought of something like this! Thank you so much for the detailed instructions! I will go ahead and give it a try on a youtube vid. I'm actually excited to try this because it seems like a much faster way to do what I've always done! Thanks!!

Excellent! Really glad this was helpful. Another tip is to (requires an iPad Pro w/ pencil which I can't recommend highly enough) launch Anki, open the deck you're studying, tap the 'options' gear wheel thingy and tap 'toggle scratchpad'.

This opens a scratchpad at the bottom of Anki. If you like hand writing it's a great check on learning thing that you can then make cards that say 'draw the XYZ pathway' and you then try to reproduce the pathway on the Anki scratchpad. I incorporated this into my decks and it was pretty clutch.

@PopeKnope98 let us know what you think of this system! Curious to hear other's perspectives on it

 

[Medic741]

I had a friend in grad school who made hundreds of notecards for a class we were taking, while I did Anki cards of the material. We both made As, but I got more sleep than she did that semester.

My biggest beef with her huge stack of notecards (aside from the waste), was that it wasn’t really a portable system. I could do anki cards waiting in line at the store or sitting in a waiting room, but she was packing 500+ cards around with her at any given time.

I haven’t actually started Med school yet, but I’ve read that a typical lecture can be 100 slides or more. Assuming 4 lectures per day, an exam every two weeks, and one notecard per slide (conservative), you could be looking at upwards of 4,000 notecards for ONE TEST. That’s for one class, too.

If you're making 4k cards/test you're doing it wrong. By paying attention to what the lecturer emphasizes and doing pre-studying before the lecture (watch Sketchy Path/pharm/micro, Physeo for physiology, Pathoma or BnB before watching your school's lecture) you'll have a solid foundation before learning the irrelevant crap your school wants you to know.

Then you can focus your cards on the 'fluff' because you already understand what's going on.

My study group's goal was to make decks that would be <200 cards per exam

 

[mistafab]

I highly recommend you use a pre-made deck instead of making your own.

Yes, your own cards would be better. But the extra 4 points on the exam is not worth the extra 10 hours a week of work. You can add custom cards to decks that are pre-made for important points, but working from scratch is a recipe for self-loathing.

 

[Spectreman]

Recently finished 2nd year and made my own Anki cards for every class. Recently opened them all just for funzies- 33,000 cards. I personally made 33,000... insanity. Also it was complete overkill, by the end I was able to narrow it down to no more than 25 cards per lecture. You have to learn to go high yield on lecture so you have time for board prep.

But yeah, stick with what works and refine your time management - you’ll make it work!

 

[docmcstuffins3]

I thought I had to write things down to remember them and so I spent the first semester of med school essentially rewriting all the lecture slides by hand on paper... waste of time. You will find out that it's not writing that makes you remember it's the act of actually thinking about the material and understanding it. You only think it's the writing because it slows you down enough to think about each concept.

 

[Ttubule]

M4 here.
I was big on handwritten notecards in undergrad but be prepared to change a lot about your study habits in medical school.

Anki is really good for a couple reasons. It’s quicker, portable (as mentioned), and the spaced repetition is something you can’t mimic easily with handwritten cards. One thing you may find as you go is that lectures aren’t all that high yield in the grand scheme of things so devoting an inordinate amount of Time to them isn’t necessarily the best use of your time. Bear in mind that the only thing that really matters from your first two years is step 1 and the pre-existing study materials for that are higher yield than your lecture slides, and in my experience Anki works very well with first aid as well as question banks.

Also, you don’t need to be a computer programmer to use Anki. Pay the onetime $30 for the phone app. Making cards on it is as easy as sending a text, just don’t feel like you need to get fancy with your cards.

 

[TheIllusionist]

Anki.

Quizlet, if you want to be cute.