Is being a pre-med hard, or frustrating?

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

Just askin

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[Aerus]

Premed is kinda like

 

[JimmyJimJim]

It's frustrating how hard I scrutinized your survey coming here from 6 hours of problem sets.

 

[Spr1ngrolls]

There are phases. For an example: most of your pre-med classes aren't actually as hard as you'd think. It's more about understanding your professors and the way they like to ask questions or the topics they show a tendency for. In true pre-med classes, there are very much things known as "high yield" and "low yield" topics. Know your high yields and you'll fly through your classes. More often than not, having tutored many students through classes, students try to study everything and anything. There's actually a "method to the madness". Your professors are human too, they are likely to think exactly like you.

Example: The Orgo II at my school was notorious for being a death sentence for most GPAs but was required for a bio degree. It was hard because it was 9999999999999% memorization of obscure 30-step mechanisms. And you'll always come across that one person who always says "oh just understand it conceptually and you'll get it all correct". Well, I thank them for their suggestions, but that is not true at all. I mean lets be realistic. What I thought to be true, however, was that mechanisms on past exams are not likely to show up on the same exam. So essentially, I'd spend more time going through old exams and NOT STUDYING those mechanisms at all, focusing only on those mechanisms that were never tested before. And of course, on all my Orgo II exams when it came to mechanisms, I got full points.

So no, I wouldn't say it's hard. More so frustrating. Things like the MCAT aren't hard, they're frustrating. Needing to balance school, work, research, volunteering, personal life, unexpected events, sleep, and relationships can be challenging. But hard? I wouldn't say that.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Easiest thing i've done in my entire life

 

[814965]

Soul crushing

 

[Dagrimsta1]

I would say both.

Hard because if you don't know what you're doing going in, you're gonna have a bad time. The courses themselves aren't the hardest thing, it's the way the professor teaches. Sometimes they'll be dinguses and test you on tiny details while others will test general concepts. Others will throw in RIDICULOUS questions just to generate a curve... Also the time balance between work, school, EC, smoking weed, home duties, etc. It can get rough....

Frustrating because the deeper you get he more you realize the amount of bull**** you have to go through just to become a doctor. And then the amount of bull**** you have to go through in Med school. And residency... and life. You get the point.

P. S. If you ever get to Orgo, please don't memorize. Learn the basics and build of it. A lot of it is conceptual. Those 30 step mechanisms mentioned by @Spr1ngrolls repeat half the time and do NOT need to be fully memorized. Practice makes permanent. Study hard and practice, but most importantly, understand the basics well because this class will only go well if you have a solid foundation.

 

[Geo16]

I really like the process actually. Makes me feel dumb all the time, but still, I kinda like the challenge.

 

[rockersoccer]

I would also say both. The material is relatively hard, but manageable if you study enough. Anyone majoring in a hard science and taking the pre-med recs will certainly encounter at least one challenging class. It can also be difficult balancing research, interning, tutoring, clubs, etc., while doing all of the hard work of classes.

The frustrating aspect for me is seeing how some students are able to seemingly know none of the material and then magically do well on the exam after a cramming session. It doesn't work for most students, but for some it sure seems to! Not sure why, but that is definitely one of my pet peeves.

 

[stickgirl390]

Rocks are hard. Premed is challenging.

 

[DoctorSwagger]

I'd say knowing how to play the game of pre med is harder than the classes, because there is always something you can do to boost that CV


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[Goro]

Just askin

What do you think?

 

[markovchn123]

At times it is hard, and at times it is frustrating, but at the end of the day, I wouldn't have chosen a different path, except becoming a superhero, I would definitely choose that over being a pre-med

 

[RYost234]

I would think the pre med/dent process is more stressful than hard or frustrating

 

[blackbirdfly21]

Both, but the reward is worth it in the end.

 

[freak7]

It was hard because it was 9999999999999% memorization

Going out on a limb here and saying: that isn't true

 

[Turkishking]

I don't think it's hard, I think it may be frustrating at times.

 

[mwsapphire]

It's everything. Having to have great numbers/ EC's and still stay sane, while getting sooo mad you missed an A- by 1 percent, or crying b/c you could have studied harder for that test you got a 77 on but you were out with friends, and just trying to stay a decent person who doesn't drive their friends crazy.
So yes. It's both.

 

[Turkishking]

It's everything. Having to have great numbers/ EC's and still stay sane, while getting sooo mad you missed an A- by 1 percent, or crying b/c you could have studied harder for that test you got a 77 on but you were out with friends, and just trying to stay a decent person who doesn't drive their friends crazy.
So yes. It's both.

The only frustrating part is dealing with people. Other than that, I don't mind not hanging out with people. If I'm getting work done, I'm happy with my life.

If I don't have work to do like summers, I become stressed out. So I'm taking summer courses to compensate.

 

[mwsapphire]

The only frustrating part is dealing with people. Other than that, I don't mind not hanging out with people. If I'm getting work done, I'm happy with my life.

But hanging out instead of getting work done?
I have more specific examples but even SDN will think I'm nuts.

 

[Ho0v-man]

The hardest part was dealing with other premeds who immediately go into gunner mode and try to prove their innate superiority for no reason.

Gunner: "Yeah both my parents are doctors and know Dr. blah blah who's on the board at the university of X. I'm not too worried about my grades here since I've went on a mission trip to Africa and built a hospital or three there and have so much research experience. It's all so easy and I barely have to study."

Me: "I just asked for change for the vending machine..."

 

[mwsapphire]

The hardest part was dealing with other premeds who immediately go into gunner mode and try to prove their innate superiority for no reason.

Gunner: "Yeah both my parents are doctors and know Dr. blah blah who's on the board at the university of X. I'm not too worried about my grades here since I've went on a mission trip to Africa and built a hospital or three there and have so much research experience. It's all so easy and I barely have to study."

Me: "I just asked for change for the vending for the vending machine..."

So basically exactly what @Turkishking was saying....
What kinda pre meds do you guys know? I only know one person like this and she's aspiring to be a PhD, not an MD.

 

[Lifeblood_20]

Hard, but not frustrating. It is very fulfilling for me to volunteer my time for people who are different from me, study hard for classes and doing well, doing research that has the potential to better people's lives. Sure, some people are privileged. But since when was life fair? I do my best, work my hardest and smartest, and I know I will succeed. It's this process to success that should be cherished, not the success itself.
Remember, things are worth doing only because they are hard.

 

[Turkishking]

So basically exactly what @Turkishking was saying....
What kinda pre meds do you guys know? I only know one person like this and she's aspiring to be a PhD, not an MD.

I've got some tales to share

 

[TexasSurgeon]

I just think it's a lot of time management.

 

[mwsapphire]

I've got some tales to share

Share your tales.

 

[Turkishking]

Share your tales.

1. Met a kid who stole my notes the day before the bio exam. Claimed he never studied.

End of the tale. But it was a true story

 

[Ho0v-man]

So basically exactly what @Turkishking was saying....
What kinda pre meds do you guys know? I only know one person like this and she's aspiring to be a PhD, not an MD.

Ironically people who bombed the MCAT (below 15th percentile) who then "chose" to do something else.

 

[mwsapphire]

Ironically people who bombed the MCAT (below 15th percentile) who then "chose" to do something else.

That thought actually terrifies me ( like, what if it happened to us).

 

[Ho0v-man]

That thought actually terrifies me ( like, what if it happened to us).

Most of those people are cocky and take it cold despite an academic record that shows that they shouldn't take it at all. Magic thinking.

 

[JimmyJimJim]

Share your tales.

I spent the week before an Orgo exam completing tolerance adjustments to the 3D computer model of the prototype for a device I was patenting. I finally finished the adjustments around 2 the morning before the exam and I loaded one of the parts into my 3D printer for fabrication. I didn't think I was going to get any sleep with that thing running next to my bed, so I made coffee and studied. There were some odd mechanisms I thought might be on the exam, so I crammed those.

I get to the exam room and a girl sitting next to me was reviewing her flashcards. I saw some of the mechanisms I had studied and mentioned how I thought they were tricky. The girl said "yea, these can be tough if you're lazy, but if you study it's pretty easy".

 

[mwsapphire]

I spent the week before an Orgo exam completing tolerance adjustments to the 3D computer model of the prototype for a device I was patenting. I finally finished the adjustments around 2 the morning before the exam and I loaded one of the parts into my 3D printer for fabrication. I didn't think I was going to get any sleep with that thing running next to my bed, so I made coffee and studied. There were some odd mechanisms I thought might be on the exam, so I crammed those.

I get to the exam room and a girl sitting next to me was reviewing her flashcards. I saw some of the mechanisms I had studied and mentioned how I thought they were tricky. The girl said "yea, these can be tough if you're lazy, but if you study it's pretty easy".

She was saying that specifically to get a rise/reaction out of you and be satisfied with it- people will do that, pre med or not?
I mean, that was wrong, but it didn't scream " pre meds do this and nobody else" she could have easily been just a typical bio/chem/chem eng. major.
People did stuff like that in my hyper-competitive HS, and they definitely weren't pre med XD
That doesn't seem "competitive" to me, and she could have failed that exam but you wouldn't know, would you? You would just remember this comment about how " easy" orgo is for her. I've met people like this, they never are doing as well as they want to make it seem.
Boy, that was long.

 

[JimmyJimJim]

She was saying that specifically to get a rise/reaction out of you and be satisfied with it- people will do that, pre med or not?
I mean, that was wrong, but it didn't scream " pre meds do this and nobody else" she could have easily been just a typical bio/chem/chem eng. major.
People did stuff like that in my hyper-competitive HS, and they definitely weren't pre med XD
That doesn't seem "competitive" to me, and she could have failed that exam but you wouldn't know, would you? You would just remember this comment about how " easy" orgo is for her. I've met people like this, they never are doing as well as they want to make it seem.
Boy, that was long.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I was aware that she was just insecure and trying to get a rise out of me. It's fairly common behavior among premeds at my school, though I hear it's worse elsewhere. It's the zero-sum premed game they're trapped in which encourages them to act that way. As far as I'm concerned, friends beat rivals and are a damn sight better than enemies. While I'm happy to get in anywhere though, they're dead-set on Ivy or bust. I hope they find happiness in it down the line.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

It amazes me how clueless some pre-meds are about the med school admissions process. I mean, I'll admit that I don't know much about it (@Goro will be the first to agree with me on that )

But some pre-meds are living in another universe. I know one girl who has only 6 months clinical, zero non-clinical, no shadowing, literally QUIT school to study for the MCAT and got a 510, and is still applying next month because she thinks her 4.0 will salvage all that

 

[mwsapphire]

It amazes me how clueless some pre-meds are about the med school admissions process. I mean, I'll admit that I don't know much about it (@Goro will be the first to agree with me on that )

But some pre-meds are living in another universe. I know one girl who has only 6 months clinical, zero non-clinical, no shadowing, literally QUIT school to study for the MCAT and got a 510, and is still applying next month because she thinks her 4.0 will salvage all that

Tbh its easy to not know how much resume building you need to make a strong app, w/o this site I wouldn't know how important non clinical volunteerism is,and research, and the like. I though clinical/shadowing was all that mattered at the beginning.


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[Ho0v-man]

It amazes me how clueless some pre-meds are about the med school admissions process. I mean, I'll admit that I don't know much about it (@Goro will be the first to agree with me on that )

But some pre-meds are living in another universe. I know one girl who has only 6 months clinical, zero non-clinical, no shadowing, literally QUIT school to study for the MCAT and got a 510, and is still applying next month because she thinks her 4.0 will salvage all that

As long as she gets a LOR, she can lie about everything else and probably be fine.

I didn't know about ECs either. Hurt me during interviews in a big way.

 

[JJRousseau]

This may sound a bit harsh. But here goes: I don't really understand the pre-med cross. Sure, you need to take a handful of entry level science courses and do well in them. But getting into medical school is easier than, say, becoming a funded, tenured physicist or funded, tenured literary scholar and they don't seem to walk around campus with crowns of thorns. Life is hard and frustrating, I personally don't think being pre-med makes someone special in that regard whatsoever.


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[Ho0v-man]

This may sound a bit harsh. But here goes: I don't really understand the pre-med cross. Sure, you need to take a handful of entry level science courses and do well in them. But getting into medical school is easier than, say, becoming a funded, tenured physicist or funded, tenured literary scholar and they don't seem to walk around campus with crowns of thorns. Life is hard and frustrating, I personally don't think being pre-med makes someone special in that regard whatsoever.


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Agreed. I think the frustration is that it is challenging in its own own right but it's also a very random process getting into school. Very competitive people don't get in anywhere and random slobs like me do. The vast majority of premed undergrad degrees are worthless for anything besides applying to med school so it's an all-or-nothing type scenario that weighs on you after a while. At least that was the source of my stress.

 

[JJRousseau]

Agreed. I think the frustration is that it is challenging in its own own right but it's also a very random process getting into school. Very competitive people don't get in anywhere and random slobs like me do. The vast majority of premed undergrad degrees are worthless for anything besides applying to med school so it's an all-or-nothing type scenario that weighs on you after a while. At least that was the source of my stress.

I'm not a huge fan of a "pre-med" major, indeed I think these should be abolished by the universities that have them. Take the required coursework and major in something interesting to you.

 

[Lawpy]

This may sound a bit harsh. But here goes: I don't really understand the pre-med cross. Sure, you need to take a handful of entry level science courses and do well in them. But getting into medical school is easier than, say, becoming a funded, tenured physicist or funded, tenured literary scholar and they don't seem to walk around campus with crowns of thorns. Life is hard and frustrating, I personally don't think being pre-med makes someone special in that regard whatsoever.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

I'm not a huge fan of a "pre-med" major, indeed I think these should be abolished by the universities that have them. Take the required coursework and major in something interesting to you.

Yeah i definitely agree with this. I'd say the hardest part is excelling on the MCAT (as in scoring 515+, or even 520+) and actually applying. These times are critical and uniquely stressful.

The premed label is nonsense, seeing that 90% of such premeds fail to arrive at application stage, and less than half who do apply get accepted.

 

[Ho0v-man]

I'm not a huge fan of a "pre-med" major, indeed I think these should be abolished by the universities that have them. Take the required coursework and major in something interesting to you.

Agreed. But most of the premeds are majoring in biology/chemistry/or psych and have no intention of pursuing any graduate level degree in those fields. It's easy to say major in something you're interested in and take the required coursework. But if all of the required coursework is outside the scope of your major, that ends up being a lot of extra debt. Maybe that's okay for you. It's not for me.

 

[JJRousseau]

Agreed. But most of the premeds are majoring in biology/chemistry/or psych and have no intention of pursuing any graduate level degree in those fields. It's easy to say major in something you're interested in and take the required coursework. But if all of the required coursework is outside the scope of your major, that ends up being a lot of extra debt. Maybe that's okay for you. It's not for me.

Let's say you take 4 courses a term, and are gunning for matriculation immediately after senior year.
Requirements: 2 semesters physics, 2 semesters chemistry ,1 semester orgo, 1 semester biochemistry, 2 semesters biology, 1 semester writing, and 1 semester mathematics.

That's 10 courses of the 24 you have before sitting the MCAT senior year. Then you have an entire year to focus on your major. How many majors require more than 20 courses (60 - 80 credits)? Perhaps this requires some extra planning, but certainly not extra debt, even adding the 2 additional biology courses required at Texas schools. This also assumes that one never overloads.

EDIT: A quick perusal of some registrars illustrates this point. I'm linking Penn, because their system is intuitive in that a course is roughly a credit. Policies Governing Credits | University of Pennsylvania - College of Arts and Sciences

Notice that the majors approaching the 20 course limit are in the hard sciences and the pre-med curriculum is likely to overlap a great deal with these (e.g. biophysics).

 

[Ho0v-man]

Let's say you take 4 courses a term, and are gunning for matriculation immediately after senior year.
Requirements: 2 semesters physics, 2 semesters chemistry ,1 semester orgo, 1 semester biochemistry, 2 semesters biology, 1 semester writing, and 1 semester mathematics.

That's 10 courses of the 24 you have before sitting the MCAT senior year. Then you have an entire year to focus on your major. How many majors require more than 20 courses (60 - 80 credits)? Perhaps this requires some extra planning, but certainly not extra debt, even adding the 2 additional biology courses required at Texas schools. This also assumes that one never overloads.

EDIT: A quick perusal of some registrars illustrates this point. I'm linking Penn, because their system is intuitive in that a course is roughly a credit. Policies Governing Credits | University of Pennsylvania - College of Arts and Sciences

Notice that the majors approaching the 20 course limit are in the hard sciences and the pre-med curriculum is likely to overlap a great deal with these (e.g. biophysics).

Sure. But that's not really all of the prerequisite coursework. It is for some places. But certain places want ochem 2, microbio, stats, etc. There's also a whole section on psych/soc so you probably want to take a couple courses on that too. Let's not even get into the "recommended " courses.

If you want to apply broadly, you have to get these done. I can't remember which one, but I remember there being a DO school I couldn't apply to because they wanted me to have an upper level biology that I didn't take.

I can only speak from personal experience, but if I'd gotten my BS in what I wanted, I would have had 7 more classes to take. By majoring in psychology and minoring chemistry I just had 2 extra.

 

[JJRousseau]

I can only speak from personal experience, but if I'd gotten my BS in what I wanted, I would have had 7 more classes to take. By majoring in psychology and minoring chemistry I just had 2 extra.

I find this hard to believe, but your undergrad could well be an outlier in credits required for a major.

And sure, if you change my assertion to be: you can major in what you want and meet every requirement for every medical school admissions office in the United States. Then, yes, it is likely incorrect.

 

[pseud0]

Low level premed classes are pretty easy
Upper levels can be hard
The getting into med school part is the actual soulcrushing frustrating part. All that waiting and hoping....