Hours per week for each year of school?

[Freakfarm0]

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You'd think that "if I more than doubled my study time, I'd definitely be a top 10 student," but it's not a linear climb. That's why people strike a balance that they're content with. You might, and you might not, but since you're not willing to put the effort forward, I guess you'll never know.

I'm aware I'll never actually know and also aware that there is no linear correlation between study time and grades. However, I do not need to have a "linear climb" to get into the elite tier students rankings.

 

[tco]

I'm aware I'll never actually know and also aware that there is no linear correlation between study time and grades. However, I do not need to have a "linear climb" to get into the elite tier students rankings.

Whether or not the curve is linear, hyperbolic, parabolic, or logarithmic is irrelevant.

 

[Fatalis]

MS1 for me was roughly 70-80hrs a week. Do whatever works for you. I knew people who would only get 4hrs of sleep a day and I did better than them, I also knew a handful of people who barely touched their notes and did very well. Find what works for you.

 

[loveoforganic]

Whether or not the curve is linear, hyperbolic, parabolic, or logarithmic is irrelevant.

I find it hard to believe that someone who can get by on less than 30 hours a week and come top third wouldn't be able to jump to honors with some feasible amount of extra work

 

[surftheiop]

>50% of your posts consist of your grades or research or the fact that you could get awesome grades and do research while working out while also teaching Step 1 courses where the average score was >240.

Seems like most of his posts recently are more trying to convince everyone that rads is super prestigous even though the match stats show rads prestige is dropping like a rock.

Spoiler in white:

His response is going to be "I talked to like every single PD of the top 20 rads programs and they all say their applicants are the most competitive of all time"

 

[drizzt3117]

Seems like most of his posts recently are more trying to convince everyone that rads is super prestigous even though the match stats show rads prestige is dropping like a rock.

Spoiler in white:

His response is going to be "I talked to like every single PD of the top 20 rads programs and they all say their applicants are the most competitive of all time"

Lol

 

[tco]

I find it hard to believe that someone who can get by on less than 30 hours a week and come top third wouldn't be able to jump to honors with some feasible amount of extra work

The work required to "get by" and the work required to be exceptional are two different beasts. 75% isn't that tough. 95%, on the other hand...

 

[loveoforganic]

In rereading the post, I agree that top 10 might be overly confident, but I would think somewhere toward the top would be very reasonable. We don't get class score distributions, so I don't know where I am, but I came out with ~93% average in my last semester, and I think I would have been below mean on tests only studying 30 hours a week (mean is usu low 80s). You can essentially triple what you're currently doing at 30 hours a week

 

[mimelim]

MS1 - 10-15 hrs/week
MS2 - 20-25 hrs/week
MS3 - 80+ hrs/week
MS4 - 40-80 hrs/week depending on rotation

I wish I had gone to less class than I did my first two years. I realized pretty early that MS1/MS2 classes had little relevance on hospital medicine and did other things with my time instead. I also focused on Step 1 and rocked it instead of ensuring I was honoring my MS2 classes.

MS3/4, I was in the hospital as much as the residents. If I wasn't doing team stuff, I would study or go learn how to read some radiographs, ultrasounds etc. You had to drag me out of the hospital and if I wasn't married, I probably would have lived there. As I told the surgery chair, there are no work hour rules for medical students...

 

[JackShephard MD]

MS1 - 10-15 hrs/week
MS2 - 20-25 hrs/week
MS3 - 80+ hrs/week
MS4 - 40-80 hrs/week depending on rotation

I wish I had gone to less class than I did my first two years. I realized pretty early that MS1/MS2 classes had little relevance on hospital medicine and did other things with my time instead. I also focused on Step 1 and rocked it instead of ensuring I was honoring my MS2 classes.

MS3/4, I was in the hospital as much as the residents. If I wasn't doing team stuff, I would study or go learn how to read some radiographs, ultrasounds etc. You had to drag me out of the hospital and if I wasn't married, I probably would have lived there. As I told the surgery chair, there are no work hour rules for medical students...

Why did you work so much harder as M3/M4? Change in motivation or what?

 

[drizzt3117]

I'm surprised at the high work hours in m4. Our school actually does have work hours for med students, we had to report our hours in the clinical years just like residents. Interestingly our work hour restrictions were the same as junior residents, not interns.

MS1 - 10-15 hrs/week
MS2 - 20-25 hrs/week
MS3 - 80+ hrs/week
MS4 - 40-80 hrs/week depending on rotation

I wish I had gone to less class than I did my first two years. I realized pretty early that MS1/MS2 classes had little relevance on hospital medicine and did other things with my time instead. I also focused on Step 1 and rocked it instead of ensuring I was honoring my MS2 classes.

MS3/4, I was in the hospital as much as the residents. If I wasn't doing team stuff, I would study or go learn how to read some radiographs, ultrasounds etc. You had to drag me out of the hospital and if I wasn't married, I probably would have lived there. As I told the surgery chair, there are no work hour rules for medical students...

 

[mimelim]

Why did you work so much harder as M3/M4? Change in motivation or what?

MS1/2 was a waste of time. I realized this about a week into MS1. I have never been one to care about grades. If I find something intellectually stunting, I don't spend time on it. I'll get the grades if I have to, but if I know that its a hoop for hoop's sake I have a hard time working on it. Keep in mind, there are few things that I have experienced that are as mind numbingly stupid as MS1/2. Might have been my school, might have been my year. I'm the kind of person that could have done probably 10 different majors from an interest standpoint, probably could have gone to law school or even gone into the lawn care business and found something stimulating. I spent probably less than 10 hours a week 'studying' in undergrad as a Physics major + pre-med. I probably did something academically related for 60+ hours a week through undergrad instead, there was too many interesting things around to study towards improving an 88% to a 95%. Fast forward to MS3/4, so much more to do, so much more around me. I probably spent 50% of the time my classmates spent studying for shelves on average and spent the rest of the time either on my team, in the OR or bugging the residents/attendings to teach me something in the nicest possible way.

I'm surprised at the high work hours in m4. Our school actually does have work hours for med students, we had to report our hours in the clinical years just like residents. Interestingly our work hour restrictions were the same as junior residents, not interns.

We have limits that like your school are tied to junior resident rules, not interns. However, we did not routinely report our hours to anywhere. They were not for the benefit of patients, they are there so that students can complain if a resident/attending is keeping them in the hospital unnecessarily. Nobody cared if you spent extra time in the hospital. My high hours probably reflects the specialty that I was going into. I was on a lot of surgical rotations. Beginning of July to end of November were all 5:30am to 6:30pm rotations with occasional evening stays because of interesting OR cases. I probably should have said 10-80 hours for MS4, I guess I did also have a radiology rotation that was ~10 hours a week in the spring as well as a non-direct patient care elective that was probably about that as well.

 

[Guillemot]

Most people lie about how much time they study. Just a little pro-tip for you.


For example, how about all those fat chicks that "never study" but are too busy studying to ever go to the gym.

 

[Freakfarm0]

In rereading the post, I agree that top 10 might be overly confident, but I would think somewhere toward the top would be very reasonable. We don't get class score distributions, so I don't know where I am, but I came out with ~93% average in my last semester, and I think I would have been below mean on tests only studying 30 hours a week (mean is usu low 80s). You can essentially triple what you're currently doing at 30 hours a week

Strangely enough my average is 89-90 in every class which means I've high passed half and honored half (depending on the subject grade scale). I figured this would get me into the top third. I really only think there are a few people in our class that average 97-98. But, I also feel like there are a lot of people around 90.

 

[Freakfarm0]

Most people lie about how much time they study. Just a little pro-tip for you.


For example, how about all those fat chicks that "never study" but are too busy studying to ever go to the gym.

Also, this is a pro-tip for real life. I don't think there is any reason to lie on the Internet (though this is SDN).

 

[iforget2]

When you guys are saying 60 hours a week does that include time spent in class and time spent studying on weekends?