how much did you typically study a week

[jsp132]

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for your prereqs 😴 i'm thinking I did not do enough hence the mostly B's I received so far

 

[SocialStigma]

I don't study unless it's midterm/exam time. I typically study 2 days for each course for midterms and then 2-3 days for each course during exams. It highly depends on the subject though, with anat&phys last year I was in the cadaver lab pretty much the entire week leading up to the exam. While for genetics, I got away with studying 2 days before the exam.

I have a problem where I mentally cannot study for 2 subjects at the same time..which means that I only start studying for the next exam when the previous one is done. Now that's fine when I have 2-3 days in between exams but last year I had orgo and then epidemiology the day after and I pretty much had a nervous breakdown that night since I had <24 hours to study for a 80% exam (there was no midterm, just a 20% essay and 80% exam). Luckily it was a) multiple choice and b) easy, so I still managed to get A- overall but if it was a harder subject then I would've been screwed.

 

[Dsmoody23]

for your prereqs 😴 i'm thinking I did not do enough hence the mostly B's I received so far

When I first came back to school, I was spending ridiculous amounts of time with my face stuck in a book. My social life was non-existent and I had no real hobbies or interests outside of my coursework. All I got for my trouble was a solid B average across the board.

After getting that first set of grades and spending a sad winter break wondering if I was simply a *****, I rethought my study strategy.

Half of the problem was spending so much time aimlessly reading in the textbooks and calling it studying. The other half was having no clear method for processing and retaining information. After spending some time learning how to turn all the incoming static of lectures, notes and readings into actual knowledge, everything got exponentially easier.

The simple fact of undergrad is that it's not that much information, and it's not that hard. Of course there are difficult subjects and topics, but on the whole, it's nothing compared to medical school. If you get yourself a set of good study habits and learn how your own brain processes information, there's no reason to ever wreck yourself studying constantly.

If you scrolled down here for the moral of the post:

You don't need to study a lot to do well.

 

[jsp132]

When I first came back to school, I was spending ridiculous amounts of time with my face stuck in a book. My social life was non-existent and I had no real hobbies or interests outside of my coursework. All I got for my trouble was a solid B average across the board.

After getting that first set of grades and spending a sad winter break wondering if I was simply a *****, I rethought my study strategy.

Half of the problem was spending so much time aimlessly reading in the textbooks and calling it studying. The other half was having no clear method for processing and retaining information. After spending some time learning how to turn all the incoming static of lectures, notes and readings into actual knowledge, everything got exponentially easier.

The simple fact of undergrad is that it's not that much information, and it's not that hard. Of course there are difficult subjects and topics, but on the whole, it's nothing compared to medical school. If you get yourself a set of good study habits and learn how your own brain processes information, there's no reason to ever wreck yourself studying constantly.

If you scrolled down here for the moral of the post:

You don't need to study a lot to do well.

That's true..........but the problem with me is retaining the information also.......but your right it could be the way i'm studying that could be the problem........Im like you just thinking memorizing everything is studying

definately have to change my habits

 

[breenie]

I have found for me that a lot of time = good grades.

I have also found that when it's crunch time, and I have limited amounts, I can STILL get good grades. I would say that quality of study time > quantity of study time.

Good studying requires you to be extremely self-aware. You need to know what works for you. For ochem, I would make notecards of all of the things that had to be memorized (reagents), and then I would usually draw out all of the mechanisms on sheets of paper until I understood them (wouldn't let myself cheat and look at notes). Then, I would just do as many problems as I could get my hands on, to make sure I was integrating the knowledge correctly.

That required a lot of time. For more biology oriented class, I pay attention in lecture and try to really learn as much as I can while in class. Then, when the exam rolls around, I'm just reviewing notes/concepts. That saves a lot of time, if you're actively learning in lecture. If lecture is useless, and you can learn more on your own, skip lecture and do your own work.

While I believe time is an essential investment into good studying, you'll be miserable if you're wasting time into an unsuccessful strategy.

I probably study an average of 25hrs/week outside of class. I think I over do it, personally, but I have good grades... so maybe it's worth it?

 

[psilovethomas]

If I'm not in class, at work, or on SDN 🙂rolleyes🙂, I am studying. None of my classes have homework due for points, but all of them have homework problems for practice and what not. I always do these assigned problems, read my books and notes, and get extra help from a grad student or prof if I need it. So, I'd say ~25 hours/week.

 

[EllieGirl89]

I'll be the first to admit that I suck at studying. I'm really trying to work on that this year in case I get into vet school, because obviously my study habits will require SERIOUS overhaul if I do.

That being said, my GPA is competitive. I am a total crammer, and while I know that won't work in vet school, it's worked very well for me in undergrad in most cases. There are some grades that probably would have been a lot better had my study habit been better but overall I'm happy with them.

My advice would be to find what works best for you for each individual class. For some classes for me that's meant reading the book, for some classes it's meant paying very close attention in lectures, and for some classes it's meant making notecards. Still others it's meant not studying at all because the material comes very easily to me without it and it just sticks.

Another example is my molecular genetics class this quarter. The material just wouldn't sick from listening to lectures. In fact, if he didn't take attendance for a grade I wouldn't even have gone to lectures. But we had practice tests online that drew questions from the pool of questions that our actual exam questions would come from. So I took those practice tests over and over and over again (usually anywhere between 10 and 30 times) the night before an exam and would make a notecard for each question and when I got one right I'd write the answer on the back and when I got one wrong I'd look up the answer and write it on the back. Then once I got all the questions on notecards I'd just use them like flashcards until I knew all the answers. This usually meant pulling an all-nighter, but it was worth it to me since I only had to do it six times the whole quarter. Then I just did the homework and the bonus report and attended class every day and ended up with a B+ in the class with relatively little effort, compared to what a lot of other people did.

So I guess I have sort of a "adapt and overcome" mentality when it comes to studying. Find what works for you in each class, find it out quickly, and then utilize it to your advantage.

Good luck!

 

[clairbear]

I probably put in about 25 too, depending on the week. For the pre-reqs I've taken so far, it ranges from not studying at all to putting almost all my effort into the class. I agree that it does have more to do with the quality of time more than quantity though.

For the first semester of biology, I did absolutely awful at first (bad enough that my professor offered to meet with me every week to go over stuff and help me with study habits because he was my freshman seminar professor). I put almost all my free time into the class, but I was mainly just reading and rereading. For me, I've learned its better to look at pictures from the power point slides or find videos on the internet that diagram the material than reading and after I did that, I got A's my tests that were left, but it was towards the end of the semester that I figured that out🙄.

On the other hand, for O-chem, I had an awful teacher whose teaching style did not suit me at all and all but maybe two people in my class were struggling. Towards the begginning of class, I tried to use what I learned in class and look at the diagrams from lecture, but they did not make any sense because everything was explained very poorly and when we asked questions, he either did not answer them completely, or he just walked away. In fact, after going to a test review he had, I felt more confused about the material than I did before. My three tests results were a C+, B, and a B-. Towards the end, I pretty much devoted my life to his class and went over problems from the book over and over and read the book's explanations or explanations from the internet and I ended up getting a 97 on my last test (with the curve points) and felt good about the final. I would of definately skipped that class if he did not give in-class quizzes sometimes.

 

[Tator17]

My situation is a bit different since I'm a returning student, but I had a lot (lot) of trouble with studying. I have always been a crammer, but that did NOT work with difficult classes like orgo.

For the biology glasses that were more memory intensive, I found that flashcards worked the best for me. Also, either typing or re-writing my notes after class helped as well.

For classes like orgo, I did what breenie did. I made flashcards, and studied with Cypress who made me try drawing the mechanisms over and over and over without looking at my notes or books. That helped both memorize the mechanisms themselves, and get a better feel for how mechanisms worked overall, so if I came to something I didn't know, I was more able to make an educated guess. I also always did all of the practice problems.

I would say that I spent 3 hours per class studying outside of lecture each week. This got ramped WAY up the week before a test, though.

 

[nyanko]

I'm another one who literally never learned how to study during any part of high school, undergrad or prerequisite courses. There are a lot of reasons and factors and I won't bore you guys with them, but suffice to say I didn't really learn how I learn until graduate school, and vet school has been quite an adjustment for me. I find what works for a lot of my classmates does not work for me. Repetition of straight up facts makes my brain shut down and I won't retain them - so if this to be my method I literally need to cram it all the day before the exam, but if I can put them into context and figure out how they fit into a bigger picture, I'll never forget them. So most of my actual studying focuses on the bigger picture, and finding my own applications and relevance to everything.

I think when I study with other people at all these are the most common outcomes:

me: "OH that makes sense because .....[something super convoluted that probably makes sense to me and only me]...."
study buddy:
me: 🙁 "err, nevermind..."

study buddy: 😀 "Oh I can remember these things because they're in this order...[mnemonic that makes my brain explode]..."
me: 😕 *blink, drool a bit*

This is either very time consuming or very efficient, depending on the subject, the way it's presented, my own pre-existing knowledge or interest, and the way it will be tested. But so far, it's worked for me in vet school.

Basically, I think the key to studying efficiently is to find the best balance between actually learning the material and figuring out what's actually relevant for the way you'll be tested on it. Those two things are not always synonymous, and sometimes you have to sacrifice one for the other. 😉

 

[Coquette22]

So most of my actual studying focuses on the bigger picture, and finding my own applications and relevance to everything.

This is how I am too. I can't learn independent facts without there being a larger context (well I can, but I suck at it). My biology classes are easy for me, because there's always a larger context that things fit into. Most of my profs try to integrate disease mechanisms ("This biological process functions in this disease, and this is why, due to failure of...etc") which really helps me. I attribute this to why I suck at organic chemistry. There was no larger context, just a bunch of meaningless reactions written on paper.

 

[scb44f]

This semester wasn't bad but I also don't force myself to sit down and study. I don't learn well from text unless I need clarification on how exactly something works, so I don't spend time reading unless there are clicker quizzes over the material. None of my classes did that this semester, so I didn't do much but study for tests.

I had a speech class that required maybe 2.5 hours outside of class for each speech (4 total).

I spent about 8 hours spread over 3-4 days studying for abnormal psych during test weeks (4 total), and for biochem, it was ~15 hours spread over 4-5 days for a test (3 total), both of which involved filling out study guides and studying them. There were also 2 homework assignments in biochem, which I spent about 2 hours a piece on.

Organic II was consistently 2 hours per week re-copying notes, homework assignments every other week that took maybe an hour to do, and then studying for tests. I made my own study guides for the tests and studied with a group, so I probably put in about 15 hours per test (4 total) spread over 4-5 days.

All of my tests and speeches were spread out through this semester, so one week I would do maybe 5 hours outside of class, and another week I would do 20.

ETA: Bigger picture stuff helps me in bio and chem classes. My biochem professor is an MD so she relates nearly everything to diseases and presentation of symptoms which is nice. My organic II professor started relating the topics we were learning to drugs, hormones, etc. which helped me see how it could come in handy.

 

[nyanko]

Well see the difference at least for me is that somebody else presenting something to me to try to help me understand its relevance is rarely helpful. I actually tend to need to reconcile things on my own to really understand them. So like, someone saying to me, "deficiency in x causes y for these reasons" goes in one ear and out the other unless I already know a lot about x or y. I need to process it and connect x and y independently for it to have any real relevance or value to me or for it to stick.

edit: this is why I feel like PBL would be super, super ideal for me...

 

[Dsmoody23]

Here's where I out myself as a lunatic.

I try not to ever spend more than 30 minutes at a time studying anything. I fill up my brain with as much short term information as I can in under half an hour, then go do something else.

After, I leave about 10% of my brain just casually thinking about the material, sort of like background music. Mentally picturing diagrams, pathways, vocabulary etc.

Then I lecture my dogs. (I warned you. Lunacy.) We walk about 45 minutes every evening, and I verbalize and explain what I've learned during the day to them. I'm really talking to myself, obviously, but I find putting things in my own words, especially in a non-study environment helps cement the information.

Equally, nothing proves understanding like being able to explain physics to a pit bull.

All in all, about 20 hours total of real focused studying per week.

 

[twelvetigers]

I finally figured out studying this year. But, I don't see a need to go into a lot of detail because I figured something else out, too. It's different for everybody! If I study a certain way, odds are, that won't work for you as well as it does for me. Do you learn by writing?If so, copy the notes! Do you learn by listening? Invest in a digital recorder. Rarely does reading the book or lecture over and over work (IMO) and highlighting isn't much different from just reading it unless you intend to DO something with what you've highlighted.

I used lots of resources this year that were not part of the curriculum this year. Wikipedia led me to relevant journal articles and terms. Google found exceprt from other textbooks. If I used my own textbook, I used the index to find what I wanted and didn't sit and read a whole chapter.

It also varies by class. Parasitology was just memorization. There's not really a way to 'big picture' that one - genus species, where is it, what it do, what's the life cycle, are you gonna die, treat with ivermectin. But for advanced micro, it was cellular processes, which very much fit with the 'big picture' approach.

In the end, I didn't really study more - I just studied better. So, try some new methods and see what makes the information stick.

Also... go talk to the professors! They can help you understand the material that THEY teach, imagine that! 🙂

 

[Boilercowgrl]

Depends on the class and how the information is presented. I guess for my science courses, I really have to think through the information because the way our material is presented are explaining processes and theory-based questions. So for physiology classes, I would have to write out the information, try to understand it, draw diagrams and even look up additional information that I didn't get. So I probably spend anywhere from 2-6 hours a day studying (including hw), and weekends 2-3 hours on sat/sun mornings. I am fortunate for where I work at school, I get a lot of downtime so I can study quite a bit. This past semester I had to do a lot of cramming before exams because my schedule was intense and I had to pick up extra hours. I feel like I always put more time into my science courses, and my humanities got less time this year. (Mostly because I really didn't enjoy the material much 😉 )

I rarely study for more than 2+ hours straight and take a good 1/2 hour break in-between studying. I try to make studying enjoyable, but for me, I have to put music or the tv on for background noise. And have all different colored pens and highlighters haha.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Then I lecture my dogs. (I warned you. Lunacy.) We walk about 45 minutes every evening, and I verbalize and explain what I've learned during the day to them. I'm really talking to myself, obviously, but I find putting things in my own words, especially in a non-study environment helps cement the information.

I totally did that through school as well. I still do it - I walk my dog about 4 -5 miles a day (hound = exercise maniac!) and I talk to myself/her, pretending I am explaining a lesion or pathogenesis to a fourth year student (since that is what I do a lot when I'm on the floor or teaching lab). Lunacy sure 😉, but I found it a great way to cement concepts in my own mind and be able to explain them better.

 

[bunnity]

I finally figured out studying this year. But, I don't see a need to go into a lot of detail because I figured something else out, too. It's different for everybody! If I study a certain way, odds are, that won't work for you as well as it does for me. Do you learn by writing?If so, copy the notes! Do you learn by listening? Invest in a digital recorder. Rarely does reading the book or lecture over and over work (IMO) and highlighting isn't much different from just reading it unless you intend to DO something with what you've highlighted.

I used lots of resources this year that were not part of the curriculum this year. Wikipedia led me to relevant journal articles and terms. Google found exceprt from other textbooks. If I used my own textbook, I used the index to find what I wanted and didn't sit and read a whole chapter.

It also varies by class. Parasitology was just memorization. There's not really a way to 'big picture' that one - genus species, where is it, what it do, what's the life cycle, are you gonna die, treat with ivermectin. But for advanced micro, it was cellular processes, which very much fit with the 'big picture' approach.

In the end, I didn't really study more - I just studied better. So, try some new methods and see what makes the information stick.

Also... go talk to the professors! They can help you understand the material that THEY teach, imagine that! 🙂

Definitely agree - everyone studies differently. For example, in anatomy this year the token piece of advice was to draw everything out and to read the book. I don't do either because they are a waste of time for me, and I am doing fine. There are people at my school that read the book, there are people that never go to lecture, there are people that study in groups... you have to find what works for you and not freak out that you're not studying the same way someone else is.

And I actually do just read the powerpoints when I study... I have tried more interactive ways of studying and they take more time for the same results. Just goes to show you have to do what works for you.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I am a total crammer, and while I know that won't work in vet school, it's worked very well for me in undergrad in most cases.

It can work more than you think for some classes in vet school. Not the biggies like Anatomy, but others can work just fine. I'm a crammer too (pressure helps me retain better) and got through vet school fine. You just can't cram for NAVLE though 😉

 

[bee83]

Then I lecture my dogs. (I warned you. Lunacy.) We walk about 45 minutes every evening, and I verbalize and explain what I've learned during the day to them.

I think that's a great idea. I know in my second semester of general bio I spent a lot of time just reading through the textbook and explaining it aloud to myself (sometimes quite animatedly). Even now I do best when I study in a house without other humans around because then I can talk aloud to myself without disturbing (or being disturbed by) anyone else.

Otherwise, though, the amount of time spent on a class really depends on the class. This semester I spent about 20 hours a week reading my biochem book and just trying to figure out all the stuff that went right over my head in lecture. Ended up with a B in that. But at the same time, I spent maybe two hours a week on my homework for physics class, and will hopefully be getting an A. So it depends widely.

Overall, I'm not at all a crammer and choose to take it easy and deliberately not stress before tests, so I take as much time as I can throughout the weeks before to really get the concepts down.

 

[nyanko]

It also varies by class. Parasitology was just memorization. There's not really a way to 'big picture' that one - genus species, where is it, what it do, what's the life cycle, are you gonna die, treat with ivermectin.

There is for me though. That's what you are trying to say...everyone's different, right? Relevant (to me, because of my background/experiences) connections may not be relevant or even make sense to you, but they work for me. Like bunnity can just read through powerpoints to study and you (or I!) can't. I personally NEED the deeper interaction with the material.

The "how much/how long" isn't really all that important, unless you're burning yourself out. If you can learn it in less time than someone else, you shouldn't feel like you need to put in more time just because. But if you don't feel like you're learning it where you need to start is quality, not quantity, like someone else said...

That's why I think people are sharing their own strategies etc, not to say "Hey you should do it this way" but more to illustrate how they reached their own balance there.

 

[scb44f]

There is for me though. That's what you are trying to say...everyone's different, right? Relevant (to me, because of my background/experiences) connections may not be relevant or even make sense to you, but they work for me. Like bunnity can just read through powerpoints to study and you (or I!) can't. I personally NEED the deeper interaction with the material.

The "how much/how long" isn't really all that important, unless you're burning yourself out. If you can learn it in less time than someone else, you shouldn't feel like you need to put in more time just because. But if you don't feel like you're learning it where you need to start is quality, not quantity, like someone else said...

That's why I think people are sharing their own strategies etc, not to say "Hey you should do it this way" but more to illustrate how they reached their own balance there.

Yeah, it's definitely important to learn what works best for you and not pay attention to the time. If I said I wanted to study 5 hours a day, I'd be bored out of my mind by hour 3, but if I wanted to never study, well, I wouldn't learn a thing. Unfortunately, I was dumb when I took organic I and I took the timed route and didn't learn much... I revamped how I approached the subject and improved my test grades from Cs in the first semester to As in the second semester (granted, there was a period of 3 years between when I took the first and second semesters).

 

[168135]

This semester, I cannot really put a number on how much I studied each week. It varied by a lot. I'm doing honours thesis... one week I'd be processing data in my free time between classes and the next, I'd be studying other subjects during my breaks.

I've changed my study habits quite a bit this year. Here are a few things I've learned:

1) The environment you choose to study in is important. If I try to study at home, I'm usually distracted. I'd get all my books and study materials ready, sit down, and then realize that there is dust on my tv or the floor really needs to be vacuumed and I cannot concentrate until those things are done. If I'm in my lab, I get a lot more done. I'll leave the door open. It gives me enough background noise to not go insane and it's welcoming break when someone pops in to say hello.

2) Skipping sleep does not help. If I try to study on 3 hours of sleep, I cannot concentrate at all. If I try to write a test on 3 hours of sleep, I'm like a zombie and have difficulty regurgitating much of what I know. I had a roomate who would study till 2am the night before a test and wake up at 5am to cram some more before a test. I did it with her a couple of times and I literally could not do the 5am thing.

3) When I feel my eyes getting sore and all I want to do is shut my books and go do something else, taking a coffee break really helps 🙂

I had to cram for all of my exams this semester: last day of classes was December 3rd and I have 4 exams in 4 days starting on the 7th. I had a migraine preventing me from doing much studying on the 4th and 5th. I spent the next 6 days in the lab... with the coffee machine... and still got 6-8 hours sleep each night.

 

[Coquette22]

2) Skipping sleep does not help. If I try to study on 3 hours of sleep, I cannot concentrate at all. If I try to write a test on 3 hours of sleep, I'm like a zombie and have difficulty regurgitating much of what I know. I had a roomate who would study till 2am the night before a test and wake up at 5am to cram some more before a test. I did it with her a couple of times and I literally could not do the 5am thing.

I'm the same way as you, SH. I don't understand people who do this. I function so much better if I study less but go to bed at a decent hour and get up at a decent hour.

I'm also not a person who can study for hours on end. I do better studying for an hour or two at a time over several days than studying for six hours in one day.

It's hard for me to put a number on my studying hours. Some subjects I never stopped studying because we had weekly quizzes. Some subjects I didn't touch until a few days before the final exam. Some subjects were harder so I had to review often.

 

[roughleggedhawk]

For me, the most effective strategy is going through my notes and constantly asking myself questions. So, for example, if I see a sentence that starts with "the eight carpal bones in the human wrist are..." I look away and try to name them all without peeking at the answers. I'll also glance at a page to get the gist of what it's about and then try explaining everything I can think of about that subject (out loud if necessary), then reading the page to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I can only do this intensive studying for a few hours at a time, because I often get sleepy and have to go take a nap after 3 hours or so. I used to resist the nap because I felt like it was wasting time, but it actually seems to help make whatever I've just gone over stick better. And like scarcelyheard and Coquette22, I'm useless for studying while I'm tired.

For difficult classes, I try to do about half an hour of this kind of studying every day that I don't have a lecture on it, and more just before tests. For easy classes, especially ones where the test questions are provided in advance, I'm much more likely to only start studying a few days before the test.

 

[168135]

When I started university, my advisor told me that in order to succeed, I should at least be reading the textbook before the lecture and reading my notes after it. He also taught me organic chemistry this spring and for every hour we spent in class, he wanted us to spend 3 hours studying it outside of class. He wanted something like 15 hours of studying each week from us! After the first week of class, he wanted us to write down how much time we spent studying that week. I was working two jobs and was quite happy with my 8 hours. Only one person in the class had studied enough for him to be happy... they studied for 20 hours. Gah.

I'm just a little amazed at how many people on here admit to cramming right before the test for "easy" classes and cramming for a few days before a more difficult exam. I was expecting to see more people begin studying a couple of weeks before a test and less cramming a few days before the test.

 

[SocialStigma]

I'm just a little amazed at how many people on here admit to cramming right before the test for "easy" classes and cramming for a few days before a more difficult exam. I was expecting to see more people begin studying a couple of weeks before a test and less cramming a few days before the test.

It's not by choice, at least in my case! I retain information A LOT better when I study under pressure. I will study for 7 hours straight with some 5-10 min breaks scattered throughout when it comes down to crunch time. But if I study too far ahead of time, I know that I still have time and instead what happens is that I end up skimming and taking 30 min breaks for every 45 mins of studying because I think "ah well I still have tomorrow..". Cramming is just what works for me, and the funny thing is that I still get adequate sleep, I just study really hardcore until 11pm-12am and then I'm done for the day.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I'm just a little amazed at how many people on here admit to cramming right before the test for "easy" classes and cramming for a few days before a more difficult exam. I was expecting to see more people begin studying a couple of weeks before a test and less cramming a few days before the test.

You really won't have time to study for weeks before a single test, because you will have other more looming tests to study for. I was used to having at least one exam a week, or sometimes two or three in one week separated by an off week, considering we were taking maybe 8 classes at any given time, although they were slightly staggered so that we did not have say 5 exams in one week. Four classses would start one week, two the next week, and maybe two after another two or three (all in decreasing credit hours, obviously) so the tests all go spread out - but there are still enough that you simply can't spend that amount of time focusing on one test.

 

[david594]

I'm just a little amazed at how many people on here admit to cramming right before the test for "easy" classes and cramming for a few days before a more difficult exam. I was expecting to see more people begin studying a couple of weeks before a test and less cramming a few days before the test.

Cramming works really well for some people and its pretty much the only way I study. On average I probably put 20-25 hours into each exam, spread over about 2 days.

 

[Nissan]

I never really studied regularly during the week in undergrad, and like many others, I would cram the day before big exams. Otherwise, I would wing it and pray that what I learned in lecture was enough. Oh, and if I didn't know it within the last few hours before the test, I wasn't going to know it by sitting there pretending I was reviewing.

Of course, this wasn't true for O-chem. I took that during the summer and all I did was complete the recommended practice problems at home and read the textbook on the train. And then sleep. Then wake up, forget to eat, and go back to hitting the books. I think hygiene was the first to go.

But anyway, I think the added pressure woke me up and I was secretly always afraid that if I learned something too early on, I'd forget the details for the exam. It doesn't make sense, but I made myself believe that 🙁.

When I did study, I had to make diagrams/flow-charts/illustrations of everything. If I couldn't make a picture out of something, I probably didn't learn it.

 

[bunnity]

re: cramming - I study every day for 3-4 hours AND cram for tests. When you're getting hit with 40 hours of lecture/lab a week, sometimes you have to do both.

 

[BlacKAT33]

re: cramming - I study every day for 3-4 hours AND cram for tests. When you're getting hit with 40 hours of lecture/lab a week, sometimes you have to do both.

when i got help this semester about studying the guy from the learning center told me people who are used to cramming in undergrad actually do better in vet school because they can cram the huge quantity of info in their head lol kind of funny, i did not expect that. But it is true. If i wasn't such a good crammer i would not have survived this semester.

Im looking forward to next semester so i can hopefully start it off right, even though i know ill never be able to "get ahead" and probably still have to cram (like bunnity just stated)

ps-bunnity i almost pulled off another miracle in bchm!! lol not quiet but at least i was close! i'm hoping since i didnt get that miracle i will get one in histo (much needed!!) haha

 

[thedogisgreen]

For me, the most effective strategy is going through my notes and constantly asking myself questions. So, for example, if I see a sentence that starts with "the eight carpal bones in the human wrist are..." I look away and try to name them all without peeking at the answers. I'll also glance at a page to get the gist of what it's about and then try explaining everything I can think of about that subject (out loud if necessary), then reading the page to make sure I didn't miss anything.

That worked for me as well for physio and neuro and such in undergrad. I would always go through and take intensive notes on my notes in diagram and much more organized form. Then I would either cover the key points and make sure I remembered them, or even make a little test for myself with fill in the blanks and go through it multiple times in the days before the test.
Mnemonics were a huge thing for me also; I always managed to come up with the strangest things that made absolutely no sense to anyone but worked for me. Problem was, sometimes they were so ridiculous that I had to stop myself from cracking up over them in the middle of an exam. 😀Which was especially bad the time I was sitting in the front row right next to the prof..