how many hours a night do you study

BU Medical Sciences
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how many hours a night do you study

  • <= 1 hour

    Votes: 57 37.3%

  • 2 hours

    Votes: 39 25.5%

  • 3 hours

    Votes: 27 17.6%

  • >= 4 hours

    Votes: 30 19.6%
  • Total voters
    153
If I study less than four hours I day, I feel as if I'm doing something wrong... The horrors of being an IB program grad..
 
Depends if I have a test the next day or not. Seems most of you follow a foreign concept called "consistency".
 
Flamen04 said:
If I study less than four hours I day, I feel as if I'm doing something wrong... The horrors of being an IB program grad..
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Aww, you ruined it! (actually talking about the topic... tsk tsk)

Anyway, I don't study very much at all right now. It's summer!

Also it is highly variable during the school year. Some days I have tons of time to study, others I have no time.
 
I was going to make some stupid comment, but I didn't know what do you guys consider spam here and how uptight you were about it
 
in undergrad I studied 0 hours outside class on non-exam days. The night before test days it depends on the class. For a normal history/philosophy/music exam I'd study probably an hour. For o-chem/bio-chem/physics/etc probably about 5 hours. For o-chem I would get off work that night and spend pretty much all day studying, with breaks in between. It would add up to about 5 hours total though.
 
Unless there is a particular concept that is just bothering the heck out of me, I don't study until a couple of days before the test. On the first night, I become familiar with the material just by reviewing it. On the second night, I get it down pat. Even for something like Organic, I probably only studied 2-3 hours per test at most.
 
Flamen04 said:
I was going to make some stupid comment, but I didn't know what do you guys consider spam here and how uptight you were about it
Click to expand...

Very uptight about spam. 😡

uptight-policemen.jpg

(Photo was captioned "Uptight Police")

But not all stupidity is spam. Sometimes it's just stupid.
 
theres no choice for "all the time"

*no ones going to beat me DAM IT!
 
i am very diurnal. i loves that sleep, but i do study during the midday and in the morning. like right now, for instance, i am 'studying' for my anthropology summer class. curse you SDN!! *shakes fist*
 
Hmmm.... there's no option for "never." I would say less than one hour on average, since I don't study unless I have something coming up. During a week before a test I might get up to 2-3 hours per night.
 
QbaLibre said:
Hmmm.... there's no option for "never." I would say less than one hour on average, since I don't study unless I have something coming up. During a week before a test I might get up to 2-3 hours per night.
Click to expand...
Same here. I had something to do most nights, though.

Geez, there are a lot of people voting for 4+ hours. How are you guys going to cope with med school if college buries you that badly?
 
MilkmanAl said:
Geez, there are a lot of people voting for 4+ hours. How are you guys going to cope with med school if college buries you that badly?
Click to expand...

We're pre-meds. We're OCD. We want that 100%.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Geez, there are a lot of people voting for 4+ hours. How are you guys going to cope with med school if college buries you that badly?
Click to expand...


Actually, those who spent time studying in undergrad tend to feel less buried by med school than those kids who floated through, because they've developed time management and study skills that you absolutely have to have to be successful in medical school. Try studying for 2 hours a couple nights before a medical school test... I pulled a 14-hour study day the day before my cardiophysiology exam and barely scraped by (I was playing a bit of catch-up, but it wasn't like I hadn't cracked a book for weeks). One of my buds dropped out during her M1 year because she never had to study hard in undergrad and felt grossly unprepared to devote so much time to bookwork in med school.
 
FFwannabeMD said:
Actually, those who spent time studying in undergrad tend to feel less buried by med school than those kids who floated through, because they've developed time management and study skills that you absolutely have to have to be successful in medical school. Try studying for 2 hours a couple nights before a medical school test... I pulled a 14-hour study day the day before my cardiophysiology exam and barely scraped by (I was playing a bit of catch-up, but it wasn't like I hadn't cracked a book for weeks). One of my buds dropped out during her M1 year because she never had to study hard in undergrad and felt grossly unprepared to devote so much time to bookwork in med school.
Click to expand...

(Having voted for the '3 hour' option)

YES!!! 🙂
 
Actually, those who spent time studying in undergrad tend to feel less buried by med school than those kids who floated through, because they've developed time management and study skills that you absolutely have to have to be successful in medical school.
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I find that hard to believe. If you needed 4 or more hours of studying every day or almost every day to do well in unergrad, you're going to hate your life in med school no matter how good your time management skills are. That is, you may be well aware that you need to study for 10 hours every day(!) and know where the hours will come from, but how are you going to fit those hours in without making yourself a burnt-out zombie?
 
Pffft. It's summer! What's there to study?

I do read 2 -3 hours a night though, but that's just for funsies.
 
I voted for 3 hours since I'm only taking one summer class (Molecular Biology). During the normal term it's more like 4 or 5 depending on what's going on that week.
 
MilkmanAl said:
I find that hard to believe. If you needed 4 or more hours of studying every day or almost every day to do well in unergrad, you're going to hate your life in med school no matter how good your time management skills are. That is, you may be well aware that you need to study for 10 hours every day(!) and know where the hours will come from, but how are you going to fit those hours in without making yourself a burnt-out zombie?
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It's not that four hours is needed to sufficiently learn the matierial, it's not. When I study I try to learn everything that is required, but then once I do I go back and study more into detail about the little things that I don't need to know, usually for enjoyment and self-satisfaction.

Mind you I do this on nights when I'm in no rush, which is usually all nights not near a test.
 
Oh whatever. Don't give me that crap. It's obvious that there's a ton more work in med school than in undergrad, so if you need 4 hours to get things squared away in undergrad, you'll need more time in med school to maintain the same level of performance. That seems like pretty sound logic, right? I don't need to be in med school to see trouble a-brewing in that scenario.
 
Well I review all my classes for the day or rewrite notes, do practice problems, reread chapter, read the next section for each class. rinse wash and repeat

approximately 2-4 hours. 3 to 4 times a week. I cant cram 12 hours it doesnt really do anything for me and with work and other obligations I cant really devote a whole day just to studying.

But I do believe people who study more in undergrad will do better in med school because they know how they learn best. Practice does make it easier.
 
If you discount the time spent doing assignments & required readings, I may have actually studied 4 hours a month in undergrad.
 
When did it become uncool to study? I thought that was in high school? 😕
 
I dont study at all. I go to lectures, take notes. The night before the test, I read over my notes, and do some practice tests. It's worked well for me, except for biochem I/II, which doomed my gpa
 
seraph524 said:
When did it become uncool to study? I thought that was in high school? 😕
Click to expand...

What, and admit that they actually cared about grades and didn't actually have cool stuff to do that prevented them from studying because it was so cool and so fun? Did I mention that mainly cool people do this stuff too?
 
MilkmanAl said:
I find that hard to believe. If you needed 4 or more hours of studying every day or almost every day to do well in unergrad, you're going to hate your life in med school no matter how good your time management skills are. That is, you may be well aware that you need to study for 10 hours every day(!) and know where the hours will come from, but how are you going to fit those hours in without making yourself a burnt-out zombie?
Click to expand...

It also depends on what you did in undergrad. For me, biology was not hard to grasp and do well in, but organic chemistry took hours of working out problems. I decided to be a chemistry (spec. biochem) major because even though it was more difficult for me, I found the material more rewarding. Yeah, I may have breezed through with a 4.0 with a different major with a quarter of the effort, but if your attitude is to just 'get by' in school, you probably shouldn't pursue graduate school/academia.

Through pacing, I don't get zombied out by studying until the end of the day, then I do my own thing to re-energize. I've built up studying stamina, and I certainly don't hate my life. ...Ok, maybe I do in the hour right before a test 🙂 A lot of people who never studied for more than 20 minutes at a time in their lives will be fried after a 2 hour Starbucks session.

Some people got into med school because they had their **** together way in advance (from reading SDN, some had it together by preschool) - they're not usually the miserable ones, but the ones who sat back and watched the rest of us trying to scramble on board the ship.
 
I think that "if you have to study more than 4 hours then you are gonna suck in medical school " statement is unjustified.

I know a guy who studies probably 5 or 6 hours most days, but he really doesnt need to. He is one of the most friendly and naturally intelligent guys ive ever met, he just wants to know EVERYTHING, and his test scores show it. Like if you ask him a question, he can literally recite the answer word for word from the textbook.

Is this guy gonna have trouble getting by in medical school?? I highly doubt it. Will he have to learn to prioritize what to study? Most likely.
 
ChubbyChaser said:
I think that "if you have to study more than 4 hours then you are gonna suck in medical school " statement is unjustified.

I know a guy who studies probably 5 or 6 hours most days, but he really doesnt need to. He is one of the most friendly and naturally intelligent guys ive ever met, he just wants to know EVERYTHING, and his test scores show it. Like if you ask him a question, he can literally recite the answer word for word from the textbook.

Is this guy gonna have trouble getting by in medical school?? I highly doubt it. Will he have to learn to prioritize what to study? Most likely.
Click to expand...

From the med students I've talked to lately, this isn't true. The guy will do excellent, because most med schools tell you exactly what it is that you need to know. They present in such a matter that there is no question of whether you should really learn it or not. Instead, it tends to be presented in a neat bundle of information and they essentially say "know all of this for the exam." In this case, the aforementioned guy will do exceptionally well applying the exact same technique as he did in undergrad.
 
theroadtomed said:
From the med students I've talked to lately, this isn't true. The guy will do excellent, because most med schools tell you exactly what it is that you need to know. They present in such a matter that there is no question of whether you should really learn it or not. Instead, it tends to be presented in a neat bundle of information and they essentially say "know all of this for the exam." In this case, the aforementioned guy will do exceptionally well applying the exact same technique as he did in undergrad.
Click to expand...
I said he more than likely wouldnt have trouble in medical school, but he may have to learn to put more time into one subject and neglect another, just because theres only so much time in the day.
 
During the summer (now) I study from 3-6 hours a night. It depends on if a test is the next day or not. I tend to study more the night before.
 
I study until I learn all the material. It seems to be the best technique.
 
eleventy million, alex.
 
Last edited:
The night is for drinking and sleeping my friends. If a test is the next day then sleep can be replaced with several hours of cramming.

But if someone wants to study like crazy let them, to each his own.
 
dam im used to the study 5 min. b4 the test from high school. 4 hours per day! dam!
 
Man, I totally didn't expect people to be so much like "yea, i don't study, i'm just naturally smart!" Whoever said it's like high school totally hit the nail on the head. This is weird. I feel like i slipped into the twilight zone. I study quite a bit. I enjoy studying because I'm a curious student. I am sorta scared honestly that so many people simply seem to want to "get by." Even if I don't need to know, I have this desire to see every possible viewpoint of a topic. People that "get by" tend to do so my rote memorization, rather than understanding concepts which is what I try to do as much as possible. By the way, I've talked to a few doctors/med students, and all have agreed that time management is an important ally and that a good work ethic in undergrad goes a long way in medical school. Anyways, is there anyone else out there with a curious mindset? I hope I'm not alone. ;;
 
dtepper said:
Man, I totally didn't expect people to be so much like "yea, i don't study, i'm just naturally smart!" Whoever said it's like high school totally hit the nail on the head. This is weird. I feel like i slipped into the twilight zone. I study quite a bit. I enjoy studying because I'm a curious student. I am sorta scared honestly that so many people simply seem to want to "get by." Even if I don't need to know, I have this desire to see every possible viewpoint of a topic. People that "get by" tend to do so my rote memorization, rather than understanding concepts which is what I try to do as much as possible. By the way, I've talked to a few doctors/med students, and all have agreed that time management is an important ally and that a good work ethic in undergrad goes a long way in medical school. Anyways, is there anyone else out there with a curious mindset? I hope I'm not alone. ;;
Click to expand...

I keep my studying to a minimum by understanding the concepts in order to avoid excessive memorization. So I guess I'm half-way there.
 
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