Hey guys, I'm a freshman (rising sophomore) at a top 20 university and premed. I took gen chem, calc 1, neuroscience, abnormal psych, and a few English classes this year and my gpa is ~3.0 (2.969 last semester but with this semester it should be a 3.0 cumulative). Basically, I was the star of my high school and I don't know what happened in college. It's not like I didn't try in high school and don't have study habits. I worked my butt off during high school and was basically the cookie cutter applicant and got into my number one school. However, now that I'm here I feel like I can't balance things and like I still have "senioritis" from high school. I'm not able to focus or study like I used to. I'm just frustrated because I feel like I could've done better than my ****** gpa indicates and now I feel like my chances at med school are shot, especially since a lot of my premed friends have close to a 4.0 and internships this summer and everything. Advice?
Help me I suck
- Thread starter doctor988
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2011
- Messages
- 382
- Reaction score
- 748
😆I needed that today.
Anyways, your chances are not shot (yet) but you do need to get it together from now on. I suggest taking a lighter load and working on your study habits next term. Talk is cheap, if you feel you could do better academically prove it and make it happen.
Also this "woe, is me" thing happening on SDN lately needs to stop right now.
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2010
- Messages
- 2,613
- Reaction score
- 740
Finals are coming around man... its to be expected.
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2012
- Messages
- 1,147
- Reaction score
- 748
Don't expect to do well when you overload yourself. You have to learn your limits!
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 841
- Reaction score
- 521
This is very true. The sooner you know your limits, the better. I know it's hard, but try not to compare yourself to others and what they're doing. It'll help keep you sane.
Take a deep breath. Now, stop comparing your self to other premed students it doesn't do you any good. I would argue that most premed students were the "star" of their high school. However, undergrad is a completely different level of academia. You actually have to study... a lot! If you are truly passionate about trying to become a doctor you need to realize that you will have to make some sacrifices along the way, (i.e. not going out every weekend, or going to Coachella two weekends in a row). Here is some basic advice:
- Study a little bit every day. You don't have to study 7 hours every day (you will totally burn yourself out if you do), but do at least a little bit.
- Go to office hours! You will learn more this way and maybe get some great letters of recommendation in a couple of years.
- Try to skim your lecture notes before lecture. You don't have to memorize anything, just get the main idea of what the professor is going to be talking about.
- I would suggest taking advantage of tutoring, and premed counselors to see why you are not doing as well as you would like to in your classes. You may just need to figure out how you study. This is easier said than done.
- Use your summer wisely and do some shadowing.
- Medical schools will look at your progression in academic performance when you submit your application, so your chances are not shot.
- Don't freak yourself out by reading a ton of SDN forums... your only a freshman right now.
- Oh yeah and have some fun, don't let school completely consume you.
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2013
- Messages
- 272
- Reaction score
- 229
Haha, you don't suck. I wish I knew I wanted to attend medical school at your age; it would have made my life a whole lot easier.
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2011
- Messages
- 382
- Reaction score
- 748
True but are they the only ones taking finals? My advice seems harsh but it's just tough love. These forums are for advice not pitty. Too many "I suck" threads lately and if you pay attention to the pattern almost all of them admit to not even studying. How can you suck if you are not actually trying? If someone is studying their butts off but can't seem to the make the grade we can offer study tips and tricks. However, if they haven't even studied once or opened a book there is nothing we can do for them. In this case, op must learn how to be an "A" student in college by working on his/her study habits with a lighter load and the rest will take care of itself. College is different from high school. For one, there is no star. Second, you will not be able to get "A's" in your science course without strong studying habits. This will continue in med school there is no escaping this.
I definitely agree that I need better study habits but I can't seem to find something that works for me. Does anyone have any suggestions? My main problem is finding somewhere quiet without people/friends around. It seems like college has made it significantly harder for me to find a place away from everyone else where I can really focus. Also for science courses I'm having trouble figuring out how to study for tests.
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2011
- Messages
- 382
- Reaction score
- 748
Which class?
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2014
- Messages
- 1,483
- Reaction score
- 924
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2014
- Messages
- 299
- Reaction score
- 263
I don't know where you are, but if your university has a college town, look into places where you can study; a bookstore, a book mill, outside on the veranda of a hotel/store. If there are other colleges in the area, go to their libraries or study spaces. Are there dorms that have quiet floors? Secret library spaces? Outdoor areas away from loud people? I remember places on my campus no one went to because they simply were out of the way of mainstream traffic; niches and spaces where it's absolutely quiet, or at least there were no major distractions. Heck, even waking up early before most people gives you a couple of hours of complete silence, minus the maintenance and cleaning crews that come by and do work. You'll be starting your day off right too if you wake up early and get a head start on your work.
Now with study habits, ask yourself, "Am I studying smarter? More efficiently?" For how one studies in high school might completely need a makeover for undergrad studies and beyond. Pushing long sessions with no clear purpose won't help. work accomplished = time spent x intensity. If you have focused study sessions that are geared towards specific goals/objectives, it decreases the amount of time you need to spend, because you're accomplishing a lot more within that time of focused studying vs. unfocused studying which leads to putting in more time.
So figure out if your study habits are helping you learn and understand the material so that you can apply the information to new situations. Particularly for technical courses, such as math, chemistry, physics, it's key to know the information inside and out because the professor can give you questions that you've never gone over in homework and practice exams, yet the answer lies in how well you know your material and can apply it.
From there, hack and slash, tweak and polish. There are tons of books, articles, etc. on study habits: Cal Newport's How to be a Straight-A Student in College book, but going to his website calnewport.com and checking out his study hacks blog is just as useful, if not more; Scott Young's Learn More, Study Less, or Learning on Steroids; Medicine From the Trenches blog has excellent studying articles. You just need to find the ones that are right for you as a learner. Are you visual? Tactile? Audio? Combination? Need to use metaphors? Have to create images? Work better in the morning? Afternoon?
This is the time to finesse, because studying is a skill. It can be made better. Undergrad is your time to tailor this skill so that when you get into medical school (if you choose to pursue it up to that point), you'll know how to tackle the vast volume of information you need to learn and know.
Now with study habits, ask yourself, "Am I studying smarter? More efficiently?" For how one studies in high school might completely need a makeover for undergrad studies and beyond. Pushing long sessions with no clear purpose won't help. work accomplished = time spent x intensity. If you have focused study sessions that are geared towards specific goals/objectives, it decreases the amount of time you need to spend, because you're accomplishing a lot more within that time of focused studying vs. unfocused studying which leads to putting in more time.
So figure out if your study habits are helping you learn and understand the material so that you can apply the information to new situations. Particularly for technical courses, such as math, chemistry, physics, it's key to know the information inside and out because the professor can give you questions that you've never gone over in homework and practice exams, yet the answer lies in how well you know your material and can apply it.
From there, hack and slash, tweak and polish. There are tons of books, articles, etc. on study habits: Cal Newport's How to be a Straight-A Student in College book, but going to his website calnewport.com and checking out his study hacks blog is just as useful, if not more; Scott Young's Learn More, Study Less, or Learning on Steroids; Medicine From the Trenches blog has excellent studying articles. You just need to find the ones that are right for you as a learner. Are you visual? Tactile? Audio? Combination? Need to use metaphors? Have to create images? Work better in the morning? Afternoon?
This is the time to finesse, because studying is a skill. It can be made better. Undergrad is your time to tailor this skill so that when you get into medical school (if you choose to pursue it up to that point), you'll know how to tackle the vast volume of information you need to learn and know.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2014
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 22
There's still a chance !!
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2012
- Messages
- 1,118
- Reaction score
- 905
Seriously... we saw someone use the word "doom" in a recent thread.
S
Served
Anything less than a 4.0 is an automatic rejection. I trust that you already know that.
Exactly how someone above mentioned that for technical courses the exams can ask questions that are never gone over in homework/class, that's what I'm struggling with. I usually reread the textbook/class notes and redo practice problems and homework but often I feel like that still doesn't encompass the depth of the material covered on exams and I'm not sure how to remedy this. And for classes that I have difficulty with it's my science courses. This year it was chemistry but I'm already finished with that now. Coming up it'll be organic chemistry, bio, and physics.
If you can't answer those types of questions, then you are not understanding the material. That's not something we can help you with nor is it something that can be done with brute study strategies. You need to spend a significant amount of time trying to answer why things happen the way they do. At first it will "hurt" your brain and discourage you because it seems like you are wasting your time but think of it as strengthening that part of brain muscle. It will get easier the more you practice thinking why things work the way they do.
- Joined
- Feb 29, 2012
- Messages
- 907
- Reaction score
- 1,199
Take heart! You're in the majority.
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2013
- Messages
- 313
- Reaction score
- 226
Exactly. This is the difference between high school and college. In high school, chances are you have seen all the questions on the test before. Whether it was homework, quizzes, or projects. Think of how many grades you had in high school. I remember in my courses, tests were only something like 10-15% of the final grade each. That's why anyone who put in the effort in high school could be a star.
In college, it's different. You actually have to know what is taught in class. You won't be spoon-fed all the material. Each test is 25% of your grade and there's barely any homework to go off for test questions. I feel like you are trying to prepare for the exam and cheating yourself out of the material. Learn the material, not the questions
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2013
- Messages
- 272
- Reaction score
- 229
It is actually moving towards this. We joke now, but wait 5-10 years. I saw someone once post that applicants will eventually need to start their own charity, save babies from all around the world, and the like in order to become accepted. As hyperbolic as this sounds, it might not be that far off from the truth. Especially with many people padding or straight up lying on their application. Not to mention the ever-increasing number of med-school hopefulls, mopefulls.
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2013
- Messages
- 38,617
- Reaction score
- 76,043
You can come back from this. Just stop treating college like high school and you will probably be fine. The study habits you use in high school will not get you by in college, as high school is decided to provide you with knowledge on a silver platter, while college exists to teach you how to teach yourself, a skill that is critical in graduate school and life. You need to read every chapter, do every bit of assigned practice homework, and go to every lecture (some people say it's a waste of time, but I never missed one and did great in school by catching that 5-10% of extra material I'd have missed). When you don't understand something and get questions wrong, you need to examine not just what you did wrong, but why you did so, and how you can do things correctly in the future.
And don't you talk about senioritis. That's a BS term that lazy people use as an excuse to be lazy. If you had "senioritis" at the end of high school and into college, you'll have it near the end of college, and possibly into medical school. Stop blaming your problems on a fake phenomenon and own them. "I screwed up, I need to do things differently because I was lazy and I was not approaching the material correctly" will get you a lot farther than "I have senioritis." If you don't own your mistakes, and I mean really own them and take full responsibility, you can't fix them. So own that 3.0, and ask yourself why it happened. Were you out too late too often? Did you really put in all the hours you could have? Did you actually study as much as efficiently as you could have, or were you surrounded by distractions? Whatever made you fail, pinpoint it and fix it. If you didn't put in the time, put more in next semester. If you didn't study as well as you could have, work on your study strategy to optimize it, and remove your distractions while you're at it- don't study in your dorm, leave your phone in your car, avoid places with TVs or other distractions, don't study in groups if you tend to talk all the time, etc etc. If you were going out too much, stop it, unless you want to be flipping burgers and slinging frappuccinos for the rest of your life.
Above all, learn to be truly honest with yourself, or doing any of the above mentioned things will be impossible. Good luck.
And don't you talk about senioritis. That's a BS term that lazy people use as an excuse to be lazy. If you had "senioritis" at the end of high school and into college, you'll have it near the end of college, and possibly into medical school. Stop blaming your problems on a fake phenomenon and own them. "I screwed up, I need to do things differently because I was lazy and I was not approaching the material correctly" will get you a lot farther than "I have senioritis." If you don't own your mistakes, and I mean really own them and take full responsibility, you can't fix them. So own that 3.0, and ask yourself why it happened. Were you out too late too often? Did you really put in all the hours you could have? Did you actually study as much as efficiently as you could have, or were you surrounded by distractions? Whatever made you fail, pinpoint it and fix it. If you didn't put in the time, put more in next semester. If you didn't study as well as you could have, work on your study strategy to optimize it, and remove your distractions while you're at it- don't study in your dorm, leave your phone in your car, avoid places with TVs or other distractions, don't study in groups if you tend to talk all the time, etc etc. If you were going out too much, stop it, unless you want to be flipping burgers and slinging frappuccinos for the rest of your life.
Above all, learn to be truly honest with yourself, or doing any of the above mentioned things will be impossible. Good luck.
I think the key is what someone in a previous post brought up: Study a little bit every day. Seriously, never tell yourself you'll do something tomorrow, especially when you can do it today. If you get tired of studying physics for example, pull out an English paper and read that for a while- mix it up. And don't get discouraged by some of the sarcastic crap comments- those people have been on sdn too long and have forgotten what it's like to be in your shoes
