Handwritten flash cards vs. Anki ?

[Foot Fetish]

I'm starting medical school next month, and I'm trying to decide if I should keep relying on handwritten 3x5 flash cards or if I should adopt a flash card program like Anki? I know Anki is wildly popular among med students, but I have some reservations. I'm a huge fan of hand-written index cards. They got me through undergrad and helped me achieve a great score on the MCAT, so I'm wary of switching. I feel like the process of handwriting the cards helps in memorizing the content, and it just feels really satisfying to hold a physical card in my hand. It feels more "substantial" if that makes sense. The only major drawback is the time it takes to make them. Making cards on Anki would save a big chunk of time since I type significantly faster than I write (plus I am a bit OCD about making the cards look really neat...)

Do people still use 3x5 index cards for studying or is it an outdated practice that will make me look like a fool next to my tech-savvy peers?

Any input would be appreciated. Thank you!

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[WheezyBaby]

The volume of material is not remotely conducive to hand writing cards imo

 

[Foot Fetish]

The volume of material is not remotely conducive to hand writing cards imo

Fair point. But I just want to point out that there is a fine line between saving time and diminishing returns. For example, you could save EVEN MORE TIME by just downloading a pre-made deck, like Brosencephalon's famous Anki deck, thus bypassing the card-making process altogether...but I think this would just be cheating yourself out of a more thorough study experience. There is definitely something to be said about making the cards yourself. I guess adopting Anki and making them myself might be the happy medium.

 

[OnePunchBiopsy]

Hand-written notecards have the added advantage of being made by you, and the process of making them also helps learning.

That being said, I always made very complex notecards in undergrad and med school forced me to switch to using Anki. If you use the Image Occlusion 2.0 mod you can screen capture powerpoint slides and make notecards directly from the tables/diagrams your professors used. There are tutorials for it on Youtube.

Using Anki and Image Occlusion 2.0 I once made 350 notecards in 20 minutes be using a screen cap of a page of vocabulary words and their definitions.

Anki + Practice Questions (Textbook, Qbank) was all I needed throughout preclinicals.

 

[Leggo_my_benzo]

Do you dude. If you think you can make 100+ handwritten cards per day (more like 100+ per dense lecture), go for it. Who cares what others think if it gives you results you want

 

[arewethereyet...]

I tried anki for the first 2 years of med school and didn't really latch on to it, now I'm studying for step 2 and finding it really helpful to be able to search for stuff in my cards and be able to pull my phone out at any moment to get some done. I'm also a check box checker and having a set amount to do and getting them done each day makes me feel accomplished.

 

[xffan624]

I tried anki for the first 2 years of med school and didn't really latch on to it, now I'm studying for step 2 and finding it really helpful to be able to search for stuff in my cards and be able to pull my phone out at any moment to get some done. I'm also a check box checker and having a set amount to do and getting them done each day makes me feel accomplished.

Anki is great during 3rd year, where the information you learn all year is all building towards Step 2 CK. I used it throughout the year with pre made decks (pretty easy to find as the material is much more standardized due to NBME's). I kept using them throughout the year. Then when Step 2 times comes you don't have to spend as much time relearning all the information. Having recently gotten my Step 2 CK score back, I can say it definitely gave me a good result.

 

[ski89]

I'm starting medical school next month, and I'm trying to decide if I should keep relying on handwritten 3x5 flash cards or if I should adopt a flash card program like Anki? I know Anki is wildly popular among med students, but I have some reservations. I'm a huge fan of hand-written index cards. They got me through undergrad and helped me achieve a great score on the MCAT, so I'm wary of switching. I feel like the process of handwriting the cards helps in memorizing the content, and it just feels really satisfying to hold a physical card in my hand. It feels more "substantial" if that makes sense. The only major drawback is the time it takes to make them. Making cards on Anki would save a big chunk of time since I type significantly faster than I write (plus I am a bit OCD about making the cards look really neat...)

Do people still use 3x5 index cards for studying or is it an outdated practice that will make me look like a fool next to my tech-savvy peers?

Any input would be appreciated. Thank you!

You will not be able to keep up making your own cards. Simple as that. After year 1 I had about 10k cards. Furthermore, there is so much more to Anki than a simple flash card program. There are multiple card types available including image occlusion as others have mentioned, the ability to have all of your cards synced to your phone, and most importantly the spaced repetition algorithm that makes Anki so damn good. There is simply no good argument to be made for using handwritten cards over Anki.

I would definitely recommend making your own cards in Anki. I think it allows you to retain the information better as you mentioned and also assures that you are only studying information that you deem important.


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[Foot Fetish]

You will not be able to keep up making your own cards. Simple as that. After year 1 I had about 10k cards. Furthermore, there is so much more to Anki than a simple flash card program. There are multiple card types available including image occlusion as others have mentioned, the ability to have all of your cards synced to your phone, and most importantly the spaced repetition algorithm that makes Anki so damn good. There is simply no good argument to be made for using handwritten cards over Anki.

Ok, you pretty much just sold me on Anki. Do you recommend the actual desktop Anki program or Anki Web? Anki Web seems like a way simpler user-interface, but I don't think it supports the fancy image occlusion mod.

 

[StrongIslandDoc]

Anki is great during 3rd year, where the information you learn all year is all building towards Step 2 CK. I used it throughout the year with pre made decks (pretty easy to find as the material is much more standardized due to NBME's). I kept using them throughout the year. Then when Step 2 times comes you don't have to spend as much time relearning all the information. Having recently gotten my Step 2 CK score back, I can say it definitely gave me a good result.

I'm actually interested in knowing how you are using ANKI for 3rd year. I'm taking Step 1 in 9 days and on my walk home tonight I thought to myself "I cannot wait to delete this app forever." What sort of utility are you finding it has during clerkships?

 

[xffan624]

I'm actually interested in knowing how you are using ANKI for 3rd year. I'm taking Step 1 in 9 days and on my walk home tonight I thought to myself "I cannot wait to delete this app forever." What sort of utility are you finding it has during clerkships?

Makes for easy studying during clerkships if you put it on your phone. There are already tons of premade decks online for the clerkships. Also 3rd year is less about cramming and more about studying a little bit everyday as the tests are spaced out further apart, but you have less time to study. Anki is an ideal way to accomplish this.

 

[ski89]

Definitely use the desktop version, but also make an account on Anki web. This allows you to sync cards between your computer and phone (the phone app costs 25$ but it is more than worth the cost).

As others have recommended, I suggest you watch some YouTube tutorial videos to get a feel for how it works. The interface can be somewhat intimidating and confusing at first but once you get the hang of it you will love it.


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[Redpancreas]

I'm starting medical school next month, and I'm trying to decide if I should keep relying on handwritten 3x5 flash cards or if I should adopt a flash card program like Anki? I know Anki is wildly popular among med students, but I have some reservations. I'm a huge fan of hand-written index cards. They got me through undergrad and helped me achieve a great score on the MCAT, so I'm wary of switching. I feel like the process of handwriting the cards helps in memorizing the content, and it just feels really satisfying to hold a physical card in my hand. It feels more "substantial" if that makes sense. The only major drawback is the time it takes to make them. Making cards on Anki would save a big chunk of time since I type significantly faster than I write (plus I am a bit OCD about making the cards look really neat...)

Do people still use 3x5 index cards for studying or is it an outdated practice that will make me look like a fool next to my tech-savvy peers?

Any input would be appreciated. Thank you!

Handwriting flash cards won't work. Invest in a different method. Just my two cents. You'll be surprised how just reading the material and hand writing some scratch notes may work.

 

[Promethean]

Brosencephalon's deck is bomb, yo. Yes, it is better to make your own... if you know what the heck you are doing and how to use cloze deletions to make a really effective deck. If you don't want to invest that kind of time, Bro's is the best I've found. It saved me in a few of my courses, where I found it higher yield than some of the materials we were directed to study.

 

[username456789]

The volume of material is not remotely conducive to hand writing cards imo

I did it in Med school. It was a lot of work but it paid off.

Of course, Anki wasn't really a thing at that time I don't think.

I used Anki in residency because I got lazy.

 

[<L>]

I did it in Med school. It was a lot of work but it paid off.

Of course, Anki wasn't really a thing at that time I don't think.

I used Anki in residency because I got lazy.

I'd never even heard the word Anki until I was almost done with residency.

<get off my lawn>

 

[lymphocyte]

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[lymphocyte]

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[ski89]

I did it in Med school. It was a lot of work but it paid off.

Of course, Anki wasn't really a thing at that time I don't think.

I used Anki in residency because I got lazy.

Yeah I'm sure it can be done. Just like I could ride a horse to school instead of driving a car and still do just fine.. But it sure would make my life a lot easier to just use a car.


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[username456789]

Yeah I'm sure it can be done. Just like I could ride a horse to school instead of driving a car and still do just fine.. But it sure would make my life a lot easier to just use a car.


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Maybe, but I'm not so sure I would've done quite as well, and may not have graduated top of my class and matched my #1 Derm program.

Two years of busting my hump was well worth it to make the rest of my life a lot easier than many on here.

 

[ski89]

Maybe, but I'm not so sure I would've done quite as well, and may not have graduated top of my class and matched my #1 Derm program.

Two years of busting my hump was well worth it to make the rest of my life a lot easier than many on here.

lol way to fit in a nice humble brag. Cool you worked your butt off and matched derm. That has nothing to do with whether Anki is better than hand made cards. It's really not even debatable. I'm glad you're happy though.


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[username456789]

lol way to fit in a nice humble brag. Cool you worked your butt off and matched derm. That has nothing to do with whether Anki is better than hand made cards. It's really not even debatable. I'm glad you're happy though.


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There was nothing humble about my post.

 

[ski89]

You are obviously lost.
Make this into a nice crisp hand written flash card:
Front: humble brag
Back: when someone boasts their accomplishments to make a point, yet the point could have been made without any such boasting.. It is an expression and yes by definition is not actually humble.




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