Or in this case, did not do themselves.
That's reasonable, but is it arrogant to try to prepare yourself? Before I joined the military, I wish I had better conditioned myself physically. It would have made the first few months easier. Is the arrogance in the idea that someone could give themselves a head-start in med school through self-study?
Let's assume that's true. If that's the case, the responses should have more along the lines of "Pre-study isn't very effective for reasons X, Y, and Z. But if you're determined, here are some resources that you might find useful." Some of the responses have been exactly like that and I tip my hat to those people.
What grinds my gears is the "get your peepee wet" comments to a guy who's just trying to prepare for what may be the most challenging part of his/her life. It's disrespectful of someone who's legitimately asking for advice and I don't like it. It's akin to bullying in my opinion.
Hi. I am a fourth year medical student, and I have been successful so far. Based on what you have posted, that puts me in the position you wish to someday reach.
Pre-studying is probably less than helpful. There are many reasons for this, and I'll give you a few of them.
The first few weeks to the first semester of medical school are spent bringing everyone up to speed. This may surprise you, but you and your classmates come from extremely different backgrounds in knowledge. All of you will have massive holes in your knowledge of basic biochem, anatomy, embryology, and physiology. The first portion of medical school is spent correcting that deficit. Trying to learn medical school material without correcting your baseline deficits is unlikely to be of use.
Very few individuals can, much less will, voluntarily drive themselves at the pace that medical school will. Even if you spend 3 or 4 months now on dedicated studying, you are unlikely to do so at the same pace you do then.
If you did manage to attain the right pace, then you would still be very inefficient. The goal of medical school is to gather relatively high yield information (although some do this better than others) and present it to you in an easily digestible manner. People spend years figuring out how to do this for you, designing curricula, creating lectures, refining them, etc.
It is unlikely that you will be able to independently replicate that effort. Even if you did, you would still struggle to decide what information you would likely be tested on, and what information was more or less likely to be on step one.
Oh, and frankly, if any of us seem sour on the topic, it is more likely than not
because we did do this ourselves and we
regretted it later. This is certainly the case for me. If there is any one thing that medical school teaches you, it is the value of time. It is the single most valuable thing any of us have, and we give it up for very little in return.
My advice on what would be useful:
1. Learning another language (especially Spanish). You won't' be a translator, but it is still valuable for forming connections and trust with patients.
2. Learning a programming language (this is simply an invaluable skill, and will open up a whole new perspective for you)
3 Becoming physically fit and having a good diet. It is much easier to maintain this than it is to attain it.
4. Maintaining and generating a strong support network (which you will absolutely need)
5. Meeting some of your classmates (see 4)
6. Making contacts at the university you intend to go to and reaching out about research opportunities (if you must do something more related).
Good luck with whatever you choose
. And again, just to familiarize myself with firecracker/anki, or whatever so I'm not fumbling through at the beginning.
