How long do you guy typically spend studying in a day?

[Music MD]

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1st year - pretty much non-existant studying. i think i was too drunk to study. that and i realized i could get by just reading costanzo phys. prob average 3-4 hrs a day. but i was drunk tho.

2nd year - little less booze, more studying. started off slow around 4 quality hrs/day. when i realized this wasn't going to be enough, it got ramped up to about 6 hrs by the winter and then precipitously increased until i hit 12-14 hrs a day in the 8 weeks until boards, which thankfully just ended a few days ago.

 

[womp]

In med school, it's 12-15 hours per day, pretty constant. I give myself 30 mins for lunch and dinner, that's my only break. I take notes now and make them really neat and organized. I don't skip classes anymore and I stopped all my activities.

With this kind of studying, I sure hope you are honoring everything.

 

[Shadowmoses]

That's a legit plan. My study plan was pretty similar 2nd year

Say we were covering MSK and then Neuro in one test block. This would be my plan

MSK
1. Read Goljan and FA MSK
2. Read and highlight lecture ppt's
3. Do old exam questions (make notes) and UW questions

Neuro
Then repeat for Neuro but with Robbins Review MSK questions (highlight explanations) so that I reinforce the previous week's material.

When it got close to exam time I would review all the lecs and my notes from questions.

I felt like I was able to integrate well studying for Step 1 at the same time as studying for class

thanks very much for your input. As you mentioned with being able to integrate your class studies with step 1 studies, that is what I ultimately want to do as well, but previously I didnt have the time to do both due to inefficient study habits. It will be nice to feel less burdened now as well.

 

[BlueElmo]

In a kind of similar situation as Shadowmoses, I was wondering what I should do with those texbook-thick syllabi they give us for each module/course. They take so long to read, and I was wondering maybe I should instead just read review books and Powerpoint lecture slides? For those of you who receive syllabus for each course, do you guys actually study off of these? I did in 1st year, but it just took so much time and was so inefficient. I wanna ditch them 2nd year, but don't know if it's safe to do so.

 

[DrVanNostran]

In a kind of similar situation as Shadowmoses, I was wondering what I should do with those texbook-thick syllabi they give us for each module/course. They take so long to read, and I was wondering maybe I should instead just read review books and Powerpoint lecture slides? For those of you who receive syllabus for each course, do you guys actually study off of these? I did in 1st year, but it just took so much time and was so inefficient. I wanna ditch them 2nd year, but don't know if it's safe to do so.

The syllabi we received was essentially a collection of the power points and maybe some additional reading. I would essentially rewrite the syllabi into my own mini text book and read that 4-6 times at the minimum. Along with that, I would read First and and do Kaplan q-bank question for that particular subject.

 

[thepoopologist]

Whatever works man.

Your step 1 schedule very closely mimics my daily routine except for the snack part. I don't read books cover to cover unless it's a really good story book. In 3rd year of my undergrad, I had to go through the same thing (less time+more work) and so far med school, has not reached that level. Also, I start my day an hour earlier than you and I don't work out everyday. I only do breakfast on exam days or if I'm really hungry in the morning. Right after the exam, I'll watch a movie or go out with friends.

I'm used to this, it's so natural now that it's like brushing my teeth everyday. Maybe people don't get this serious until step 1, which is why I see so many complain threads during that time, but I've been studying like this since undergrad. I don't feel like I'm in jail, it's just work to me.

 

[Tapepsi]

I can't imagine myself studying 12 hours a day....

I guess I better enjoy my last full summer off while I can.

 

[Isoprop]

For people who rewrite stuff: how long does it take to do that? are we talking about annotating textbooks/notes? are you just copying? summarizing?

which subjects do you rewrite notes? is it all of them?

not trying to get people on the defensive. i'm just curious.

 

[Regal Regan]

For people who rewrite stuff: how long does it take to do that? are we talking about annotating textbooks/notes? are you just copying? summarizing?

which subjects do you rewrite notes? is it all of them?

not trying to get people on the defensive. i'm just curious.

I'll only speak for myself here, but here's what I do. First off, I attend class. I know you all think it's a waste of time, but I have to. I don't pick up anything from reading on my own. I need professors to explain things, and fortunately, none of my professors just read off the powerpoint. They actually do explain. As they explain, I annotate the powerpoints. We do have our lectures online, but I'm not motivated to do it on my own, so I attend class every day.

If we get out at noon, I come home and review the day's material. If we have labs, as is usually the case, I'll be in school until 3 or 5, so I generally take the evening off. The weekend is when the real work begins.

I rewrite my notes. No, I don't rewrite them word for word. What I do is consolidate them in my own words. I make plenty of charts for easy comparisons. We just did renal and the path is intense. I needed charts separating the pathologies into nephrotic syndrome on one side and nephritic on the other. I further subdivided them into what I would see on EM, IF, and LM for each disease and even drew out some pictures for each. I'm an auditory and a visual learner. I would have never kept the different diseases straight in my head if I just read about them or just heard about them. I need to see them separated on paper. That's the only way it sticks.

I also make charts for pharm and micro. For subjects like physiology, I need flow charts, so I take the powerpoints and my annotated notes from lecture and make flow charts for that. What happens first, then what happens, what's the stimulus for the thing that happens second, etc.

All this is done over the weekend. Sometimes I don't get the whole week's worth done so that means I fall behind, but usually I'm okay. Test week is pretty stressful for me because before I can review, I have to finish making my notes from that last week of lectures. That's really the only time I feel stressed though. The rest of the block is fine.

Our exams are more conceptual than pure memorization so you have to really understand and appreciate what's happening and why. You can't just memorize the slide and do well if you can't understand it and integrate it into everything else.

 

[tehdude]

You'll find there's a wide range of abilities in medical school. While there are those who study 12 hours a day just to pass, there are others who skip all their classes, spend 2-3 weeks chilling on the beach, then study the 2-3 days before exams and do fine.

 

[swolebrah]

Biochemistry 1 & 2, microbiology, embryology, histology, genetics, anatomy, physiology, advanced mammalian physiology. Yup, did that for all of them. I worked full time, have wife and kid so everyday studying just was not a part of my undergrad experience. I never missed class though. It worked well except for biochem 2 and organic 2. All other classes worked beautifully. Actually in histology and embryology, I would wake up morning of test at 4 am and study til the exam at 9am. Got A's in both, actually had only three Bs in four years (org 2, quantitative chem, animal biology). Don't ask what my grades were like ten years earlier in CC before going back and doing a full undergrad degree

Didn't have to take calculus

bro your my hero lol...not srs...wish I could do that but just can not.

 

[DermViser]

bro your my hero lol...not srs...wish I could do that but just can not.

I doubt he'll respond as his post was in 2011.

 

[swolebrah]

I doubt he'll respond as his post was in 2011.

**** I do this a lot , was just googling how to efficiently study for genetics and saw this post. My bad.

 

[tellmemore2020]

3-4 hours on regular days, 5-6 hours on weekend days, 6-10 hours for the 5 days leading up to a test.

 

[compstomper]

Strong necrobump. I get in around 4-5 hours a day not counting lecture time. Sunday is fun day for me and the missus, so no studying.

 

[GoPelicans]

I think I am averaing 25 hours a week of really focused studying. I need to increase that because I was below class average on 2/3 of my first few exams. I wish I could memorize faster.

 

[13132]

3 hours per day and 5-6 hours per day the weekend before the exam.

 

[Evisju7]

How much did you study in undergraduate?

 

[Evisju7]

*note:
My question is meant for current med students on this thread to compare their hours now and then

 

[compstomper]

How much did you study in undergraduate?

Other than 3-4 hours during midterm/finals week, never. Now, around 8 hours per day for 6 days a week not including lecture time.

 

[JP2740]

I found that 24 hours is honestly not enough time to study for everything in a day. I ended up inventing a time machine so I can study ~60 hours in a day which is honestly just perfect for me and allows me to have about 3-4 hours to myself to just chill etc.

 

[NontradCA]

The level of difficulty required to do well in med school is exaggerated quite a bit on SDN.

 

[DermViser]

The level of difficulty required to do well in med school is exaggerated quite a bit on SDN.

 

[sinombre]

The level of difficulty required to do well in med school is exaggerated quite a bit on SDN.

If anything it is significantly underplayed.

And it probably depends largely on curriculum. Having one final on 8 weeks of information is a lot more demanding than having a final on 2 or 3 weeks of information.

 

[touchpause13]

My goal is 8 hours a day every day (minus Fridays I typically only study 4 hrs then) including lectures/lab time

 

[NontradCA]

If anything it is significantly underplayed.

Really, I barely see people studying for 8 hours a day. Maybe because I'm a first year, but I've had a lot of time to do things outside of school.

 

[sinombre]

Really, I barely see people studying for 8 hours a day. Maybe because I'm a first year, but I've had a lot of time to do things outside of school.

That probably has a lot to do with it. I can tell you that when you get to second year the amount of information thrown at you will at least double.

I remember being told that last year and I didn't believe it. Boy was I wrong.

 

[JP2740]

I studied ~ 15 hours per day 2nd year including listening to lecture/attending required bull****. It was similar for 1st year. I don't really regret it. People will tell you that 1st and 2nd year is not clinically relevant but not only was I basically prepared to take step 1 right away, but I could say without a doubt, that my knowledge from 1st and 2nd year was directly translatable to 3rd year. And it answered the majority of pimp questions too!

 

[compstomper]

I studied ~ 15 hours per day 2nd year including listening to lecture/attending required bull****. It was similar for 1st year. I don't really regret it. People will tell you that 1st and 2nd year is not clinically relevant but not only was I basically prepared to take step 1 right away, but I could say without a doubt, that my knowledge from 1st and 2nd year was directly translatable to 3rd year. And it answered the majority of pimp questions too!

Is there anything in particular you do to retain all that information once you're done with a semester/block?

 

[JP2740]

Is there anything in particular you do to retain all that information once you're done with a semester/block?

Basically, for the lectures of a particular day, I would listen to those lectures/go through the info for that day. On the weekend, I would review all the information of the week. The next weekend, I would not only review the information for that week but also the weeks before for that block (if time permitted...very hard to do as you can imagine). I would not do anything in addition to retain the knowledge after a block was done. You will be surprised by how much you remember if you study that hard effectively and consistently.

When a block was done, I basically used that weekend if there was one to basically regain my humanity. This usually meant hanging out with my non-med school friends and get blacked out or have a date night with some chick of my past

 

[circulus vitios]

I studied ~ 15 hours per day 2nd year including listening to lecture/attending required bull****. It was similar for 1st year. I don't really regret it. People will tell you that 1st and 2nd year is not clinically relevant but not only was I basically prepared to take step 1 right away, but I could say without a doubt, that my knowledge from 1st and 2nd year was directly translatable to 3rd year. And it answered the majority of pimp questions too!

What the ****.

 

[JP2740]

What the ****.

Yea it is ****ed up. I didn't have much of a social life. But I'm a 4th year now, and I'm in a pretty good situation applying and all I do is chill now lol. If you can sell out for 1.5-2 years, it can make a difference for the rest of your life - remember, Step 1 can and will dictate what field you can go into or what program within a field you can go into. And there is indeed carry over into clinicals. It was worth it to me, but I totally understand if someone else would not want to subjugate themselves to the same torture method lol

 

[EMDO2018]

A DAY = 24 HRS, 15HRS STUDYING, 8HRS SLEEP, = 1 HR TO EAT, SHOWER, COMMUTE, EMPTY, BOWLS, its impossible unless you were sleeping 4hrs a night.

 

[DrEnderW]

A DAY = 24 HRS, 15HRS STUDYING, 8HRS SLEEP, = 1 HR TO EAT, SHOWER, COMMUTE, EMPTY, BOWLS, its impossible unless you were sleeping 4hrs a night.

You're out of your mind if you think working 8am to 11pm in medicine is impossible. Until recently, that was routine in residency. It's still routine in investment banking.

No one is advocating you should do that routinely 7 days a week or that is what is required to get through med school, but it's far from impossible.

 

[EMDO2018]

So are you sh*ting, showering, and eating simtaneously? Or sleeping 4-5 hrs a night?

You're out of your mind if you think working 8am to 11pm in medicine is impossible. Until recently, that was routine in residency. It's still routine in investment banking.

No one is advocating you should do that routinely 7 days a week or that is what is required to get through med school, but it's far from impossible.

 

[JP2740]

I slept about 5-6 hours a night. I didn't go to school unless I had to, and school was down the street for me (2 minute bike ride). Did I consistently hit 15 hours? maybe not. Might be more around 13 hours, but there were still days when I did 17 hours too. When it got to crunch time, I would use a timer on my oven to cook food while studying, then I would bring the food by my notes and study while eating. Not all the time, but yea you can do this ****. Makes you sound like a loser, but it paid off.

 

[DermViser]

I slept about 5-6 hours a night. I didn't go to school unless I had to, and school was down the street for me (2 minute bike ride). Did I consistently hit 15 hours? maybe not. Might be more around 13 hours, but there were still days when I did 17 hours too. When it got to crunch time, I would use a timer on my oven to cook food while studying, then I would bring the food by my notes and study while eating. Not all the time, but yea you can do this ****. Makes you sound like a loser, but it paid off.

 

[PL198]

I slept about 5-6 hours a night. I didn't go to school unless I had to, and school was down the street for me (2 minute bike ride). Did I consistently hit 15 hours? maybe not. Might be more around 13 hours, but there were still days when I did 17 hours too. When it got to crunch time, I would use a timer on my oven to cook food while studying, then I would bring the food by my notes and study while eating. Not all the time, but yea you can do this ****. Makes you sound like a loser, but it paid off.

what did you get on step 1..... like I understand people have different levels of dedication but if I've never once heard of any stud spending that much time studying. Sounds like inefficiency to me.

 

[Psai]

what did you get on step 1..... like I understand people have different levels of dedication but if I've never once heard of any stud spending that much time studying. Sounds like inefficiency to me.

His score is not your business especially when you're trying to judge him

 

[JP2740]

what did you get on step 1..... like I understand people have different levels of dedication but if I've never once heard of any stud spending that much time studying. Sounds like inefficiency to me.

Not inefficient. Look back at what I would do.

"Basically, for the lectures of a particular day, I would listen to those lectures/go through the info for that day. On the weekend, I would review all the information of the week. The next weekend, I would not only review the information for that week but also the weeks before for that block (if time permitted...very hard to do as you can imagine)."

Takes a long time to do that, but like I said I still remember a ton of step 1 knowledge and don't regret losing ~18 months. You could still have fun the summer in between lol. And like I said before, you don't have to study that much to be successful but it won't hurt you either. I'm not telling anyone to do this. And I don't really care if you think it's inefficient because I honored every class and did great on step 1. My friend, who's also kind of a mentor to me did the same thing at my same school, and his mentor did the same before him and we all did very similarly score/rank wise.

You don't have to study 15 hours a day, but if you can do it and you want to do it, don't listen to the **** other people will give you. I remember my roommate sometimes would have people over and sometimes I'd hang out and have a beer and other times I'd just study through it and they'd think wtf is wrong with me. Didn't let that affect me, don't really care. It will help you on your step 1 and your step 1 opens all doors. The significance of that exam cannot be understated. The nonsense about it's importance diminishing and that step 2 is becoming more important will be thrown your way many times in all four years. Before someone says it, once again, many people do great on step 1 without doing the above. People did better than me without doing the above. It worked for me, beyond just step 1 too.

Be honest about your goals and what you want for yourself. Studying the way I did is helping me reach that level. Nobody else has to fit in that equation (depending on your circumstance). People's opinions, other med students, etc. many won't be there anyway after med school. That step 1 literally can affect your entire career. If you want derm, ENT, top neuro or IM programs, step 1 will help get you there. On the other hand, if you're losing your mind during first and second years, I also found my plan would keep me ahead to the point where I could always take a step back, relax, and hit it again the next day (didn't happen often)

 

[Evisju7]

Well see, I already study quite a bit in undergrad. (My maths and labs take up a lot of time for "hw", and I try to do the readings when required. ) I'm putting in between 3-5 hours daily and then 5-10 on the weekend.

If med school is so much harder, like you all are saying, I will not survive!

 

[TwinsFan]

The level of difficulty required to do well in med school is exaggerated quite a bit on SDN.

This depends a decent amount on what school you go to and the calibre of students there.

Where I'm at has a reputation for intense/focused students and has fairly high average academic credentials (3.8+/33+ avg). From those I've talked to so far the average seems to be 6 hrs/weekday not including lectures with plenty doing more (8-10 hr/day + lecture). I started at 3 hrs + lecture and barely passed. I am now in the 4-6 hrs/day + lecture range and am doing well (avg-above avg).

However, scoring at the top of the class (middle of top quartile or above) basically requires 8+ hours/day + lecture at a minimum (there are a few exceptions) with most of the class still unable to get close as many are already doing this and score about class average. Everyone I talked to who was top quartile at my school in the past spent 80+ hours a week to get there and were academic stars prior.

 

[PL198]

Not inefficient. Look back at what I would do.

"Basically, for the lectures of a particular day, I would listen to those lectures/go through the info for that day. On the weekend, I would review all the information of the week. The next weekend, I would not only review the information for that week but also the weeks before for that block (if time permitted...very hard to do as you can imagine)."

Takes a long time to do that, but like I said I still remember a ton of step 1 knowledge and don't regret losing ~18 months. You could still have fun the summer in between lol. And like I said before, you don't have to study that much to be successful but it won't hurt you either. I'm not telling anyone to do this. And I don't really care if you think it's inefficient because I honored every class and did great on step 1. My friend, who's also kind of a mentor to me did the same thing at my same school, and his mentor did the same before him and we all did very similarly score/rank wise.

You don't have to study 15 hours a day, but if you can do it and you want to do it, don't listen to the **** other people will give you. I remember my roommate sometimes would have people over and sometimes I'd hang out and have a beer and other times I'd just study through it and they'd think wtf is wrong with me. Didn't let that affect me, don't really care. It will help you on your step 1 and your step 1 opens all doors. The significance of that exam cannot be understated. The nonsense about it's importance diminishing and that step 2 is becoming more important will be thrown your way many times in all four years. Before someone says it, once again, many people do great on step 1 without doing the above. People did better than me without doing the above. It worked for me, beyond just step 1 too.

Be honest about your goals and what you want for yourself. Studying the way I did is helping me reach that level. Nobody else has to fit in that equation (depending on your circumstance). People's opinions, other med students, etc. many won't be there anyway after med school. That step 1 literally can affect your entire career. If you want derm, ENT, top neuro or IM programs, step 1 will help get you there. On the other hand, if you're losing your mind during first and second years, I also found my plan would keep me ahead to the point where I could always take a step back, relax, and hit it again the next day (didn't happen often)

yeah that's fine, I just was fishing for the all honors thing or like " well I averaged a little below the pack," in which case that would obviously be a problem.

 

[PL198]

This depends a decent amount on what school you go to and the calibre of students there.

Where I'm at has a reputation for intense/focused students and has fairly high average academic credentials (3.8+/33+ avg). From those I've talked to so far the average seems to be 6 hrs/weekday not including lectures with plenty doing more (8-10 hr/day + lecture). I started at 3 hrs + lecture and barely passed. I am now in the 4-6 hrs/day + lecture range and am doing well (avg-above avg).

However, scoring at the top of the class (middle of top quartile or above) basically requires 8+ hours/day + lecture at a minimum (there are a few exceptions) with most of the class still unable to get close as many are already doing this and score about class average. Everyone I talked to who was top quartile at my school in the past spent 80+ hours a week to get there and were academic stars prior.

eh disagree. some people are honestly just smarter than others, not even at memorizing but just ability to compartmentalize things and remember them together or even organizing the information themselves. if I do 5 dedicated study hours/day, I never get worse than 85-90th percentile. I pretty much just find a review book that serves as an outline, and then go through the kaplan lectures and my lecture and annotate the **** out of the review book. By the time you've done that for all the lectures, you have like a master bible to study from and can focus on one thing, while hitting individual things being stressed by 3 different organizations. I know people that have 9 different charts and 4 different books they reference and that just seems so *****ic and disorganized that they are wasting lots of time on logistics alone.

 

[TwinsFan]

eh disagree. some people are honestly just smarter than others, not even at memorizing but just ability to compartmentalize things and remember them together or even organizing the information themselves. if I do 5 dedicated study hours/day, I never get worse than 85-90th percentile. I pretty much just find a review book that serves as an outline, and then go through the kaplan lectures and my lecture and annotate the **** out of the review book. By the time you've done that for all the lectures, you have like a master bible to study from and can focus on one thing, while hitting individual things being stressed by 3 different organizations. I know people that have 9 different charts and 4 different books they reference and that just seems so *****ic and disorganized that they are wasting lots of time on logistics alone.

I agree that some are smarter than others and many are probably inefficient. However, similar grade distributions for preclinical courses are found at many/most med schools with a significant difference in the calibre of student between the bottom US schools (new DO 3.4/25) and top ones, with a bunch in between. This probably implies harder testing on average to achieve the same grade distribution at the top schools.

So, at least where I'm at, most are putting in a lot of time trying be at the top or at least above average. Of course there are a few outliers, but almost everyone I've talked to is very academically talented and is putting in the hours. Most of our questions are 2nd/3rd order in paragraph vignettes, many times extrapolating a complex hypothetical scenario based on a sentence or two from the reading. So if you don't have everything memorized you basically have no shot at answering the questions, and if you do have it all memorized, they are still pretty tricky (basically a juiced up MCAT with a fifth answer possibility).

 

[MedWonk]

At the start of the year, maybe 2-3 hours per day followed by cramming for the exam. After barely passing the exam, more like 6-8 hours per day and watching lectures at 1.7-2x speed instead of going to them and going through the lecture and making my own notes right after. Supplement with FC, a little FA/some other board review resource, and multiple passes through the material. Oddly enough, doing well in medical school requires hard work.

 

[sbuxaddict]

At the start of the year, maybe 2-3 hours per day followed by cramming for the exam. After barely passing the exam, more like 6-8 hours per day and watching lectures at 1.7-2x speed instead of going to them and going through the lecture and making my own notes right after. Supplement with FC, a little FA/some other board review resource, and multiple passes through the material. Oddly enough, doing well in medical school requires hard work.

How do you like FC? Is it difficult to integrate with your first year classes?

 

[DrEnderW]

How do you like FC? Is it difficult to integrate with your first year classes?

I you want to use FC, I strongly recommend starting first year. Banking all of the content from first year while moving forward with 2nd year content and doing your daily reviews is not the best use of the program.

 

[EMDO2018]

Around 3-4 hrs a day not including lecture or lab on non test weeks. Tho there have been days on non test weeks where I didn't study at all or only for an hour or two. On test weeks I try to study 6-7 hours we have written test and lab practicals on the same day . Im not doing that well tho, maybe I should study more.

 

[EMDO2018]

My goal is 8 hours a day every day (minus Fridays I typically only study 4 hrs then) including lectures/lab time

When do you get out of lecture and lab? If you are 8-12 lecture and lab then you are only studying about 4 hrs a day.