Is Medical School THAT much worse than undergrad?

[Lonewanderer493]

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I feel like most premed undergrads who are actually going places keep pretty ****ing busy with studying, extracurriculars, and the MCAT. How would you guys compare medical school to your undergraduate experience in terms of amount of free time?

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Strictly speaking about free time, pre clinical years aren't too bad. You'll still have a good bit of free time, especially if you are a quick study.
I've had more time the past two years but that had more to do with quitting a 50-60 hour a week job while doing school full time.

 

[DrGoon]

I've found the exact opposite to be true. I probably spend 5x the amount of time studying in med school than undergrad.

 

[bananafish94]

Academically, it's considerably more intense. It feels like studying for finals everyday (because you are). But there's much less extra things you have to do than in undergrad so you have more time to devote to academics. All that being said, people don't know what they're capable of until they are confronted with it. If you put in diligent work everyday, it's not that bad! (He says, from the library at midnight on Saturday...)

 

[jqueb29]

If you were busy most of the time in college, you likely either were trying too hard or won't be able to grasp med school material quickly enough. Pre-clinical years, I probably had about 20% the free time I did in college. This past year of clinical clerkships, there were many times where literally the only "free" time I had was to eat or sleep. When you're working from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., then having to come home and read up on things related to your patients as well as studying for a shelf exam that you barely get time during the work day to study for, I think that's a lot harder than putting in like 15 hours the whole week for college.

 

[P0ke]

In undergrad, there are weeks where you dont have tests and can recharge your energy/hormone/spirit levels, so that you are fresh and ready to attack the next round of exams. In med school it's nonstop tests one right after the other, so your life has to be balanced enough that you can continue to operate at a high level without those "break" periods you have in undergrad. My school also has mandatory attendance, so it's really draining to have to sit in lecture all day, and then have to go home and study (it was my only acceptance, otherwise I would have chosen a school with optional attendance).

 

[NotASerialKiller]

P/F school without mandatory attendance here (M-1), and I find it easier than undergrad. Probably an equivalent amount of time spent studying, but without the uncertainty and fear of ruining your future with a couple sub-par grades. Fail a test? No problem, just take a re-write. Also the material should be more interesting if you made the right choice.

Obviously the clinical years will be completely different though

 

[PathoTurnUp1865]

If you're at an ABC school like me and want to get an A in every class, like me, then it's soooooo much more difficult than undergrad. I put in probably ~70-80 hrs/wk mon-sun. If I only wanted to pass I'd probably spend about half that time. College was a cake walk, I can't believe I thought any of those tests were difficult.

 

[P0ke]

P/F school without mandatory attendance here (M-1), and I find it easier than undergrad. Probably an equivalent amount of time spent studying, but without the uncertainty and fear of ruining your future with a couple sub-par grades. Fail a test? No problem, just take a re-write. Also the material should be more interesting if you made the right choice.

Obviously the clinical years will be completely different though

Don't pass/fail schools still internally rank their students, and the only difference with a graded school is access to your GPA/rank? I thought the deans letter still has to provide some sort of indication of your standing within your class.

 

[cactusman]

Don't pass/fail schools still internally rank their students, and the only difference with a graded school is access to your GPA/rank? I thought the deans letter still has to provide some sort of indication of your standing within your class.

I don't believe this is true for all P/F medical schools, but there's not much information about it.

 

[darkjedi]

It's significantly more work, but strangely less stress. There's less of a emphasis on grades, so you just focus on trying to learn as much as possible about something you're actually interested in (hopefully) instead of maximizing your grades, which believe it or not is not exactly the same thing.

 

[sullen-burger]

Don't pass/fail schools still internally rank their students, and the only difference with a graded school is access to your GPA/rank? I thought the deans letter still has to provide some sort of indication of your standing within your class.

There are some pure P/F schools with no preclinical internal rankings.

 

[thrudheim]

I have significantly less free time as a med student compared to undergrad, and I was very involved in undergrad.

Exhibit A: weekends. Most of my weekends now are spent reviewing material from the week prior, as opposed to undergrad, where I only ever studied the weekends before an exam. My only free weekends now are if I just so happen to have a test that lands on a Friday, which isn't as frequent as I wish it would be.
Tests are also much more frequent now than in undergrad, and one midterm in med school will cover the same amount of information as all the tests of one of my undergrad classes combined.

I am still involved in extracurriculars even now in med school, so I keep pretty busy anyway. Compared to now, every complaint I ever had about the amount of work I needed to do in undergrad seems like a complete joke.

 

[NotASerialKiller]

Don't pass/fail schools still internally rank their students, and the only difference with a graded school is access to your GPA/rank? I thought the deans letter still has to provide some sort of indication of your standing within your class.

That is correct. I know of a few schools (including mine) that just provide the quartile the student is in rather than a rank number for the Dean's letter, but they still have to give something comparing you to the rest of your class.

Also worth noting that at some schools if you have to retake a test, it will show up on your transcript that you had to remediate, which is obviously not ideal.

There are some pure P/F schools with no preclinical internal rankings.

At mine it is pure P/F. I've never had to re-take a block exam, but we were told that the only way it shows up on our transcripts is if we fail the re-take. Not the case at all P/F schools, but it sure does make things relaxed.

 

[parserfan]

I spent all of undergrD ****ing around jacking off. If med school was easier than undergrad, my future patients would be in some deep ****

 

[MSTP18]

I feel like most premed undergrads who are actually going places keep pretty ****ing busy with studying, extracurriculars, and the MCAT. How would you guys compare medical school to your undergraduate experience in terms of amount of free time?

A lot less free time because the volume of material you are responsible for is so much more. The actual difficulty/complexity of said material is much less than undergrad though.

The way I would classify difficulty/complexity vs. volume is: how easy would the test be if it were open book. I had many exams in college where having the test be open book wouldn't have improved my grade by much because the book wasn't going to just straight up give you the answer. In medical school, almost every test would have been a cake walk if it had been open book.

 

[MSTP18]

To clarify, every single MD school internally ranks their students at one point or another, whether or not that ranking is known to the students. Several of our deans/administrators have told us that they would prefer not to rank us at all but they are required to for the dean's letter for residency applications.

See the very bottom of page 3 here:
"Graphic representations of students’ comparative performance should be incorporated within the body of the MSPE, not as appendices. Doing so allows the narrative comments from the courses to provide context to the graphical representation"

You're still sort of twisting things. Almost no school is P/F throughout ALL 4 years (anyone other than Yale actually?). Many, if not most, schools that are pass/fail for 1-2 and graded for 3-4 will only rank based on the 3-4 years.

 

[MSTP18]

Unless I'm not understanding you correctly, none of what you said conflicts with anything I said. Grading/ranking only during M3/M4 is still ranking "at one point or another." I don't think we actually disagree here.

You're right, I don't know why I thought you were saying otherwise

 

[Levo]

The expectations change a little. In undergrad, I felt like if I wasn't getting all A's every quarter while juggling 5 different responsibilities outside of school, I was failing. In my (pass/fail) pre-clinical years of medical school, I gave myself a mental gold star for just surviving until the end of the day every day. This meant that I could allow myself to occasionally take a break and enjoy myself. During clinical years of medical school, the days are very long, but they also have plenty of variety and excitement to them, so they feel shorter.

 

[HybridEarth]

It is more difficult. I've noticed that classmates who tended to have a much heavier workload in undergrad (not just in the classroom) have a much easier time in terms of resilience when you feel totally overwhelmed. If that hasn't been your experience, prepare for some growing pains.

 

[mistafab]

You have it twisted op.

1) Undergrad was a blast
2) Med school is straight dope

Straight dope, OP - straight dope!

 

[mwsapphire]

Strictly speaking about free time, pre clinical years aren't too bad. You'll still have a good bit of free time, especially if you are a quick study.
I've had more time the past two years but that had more to do with quitting a 50-60 hour a week job while doing school full time.

50-60 hours a week?!?! While taking 15 credits a time? Thats impressive!


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[mwsapphire]

I don't believe this is true for all P/F medical schools, but there's not much information about it.

There is ranked and unranked P/F.


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[order66.exe]

It depends on your philosophy in medical school. If you are interested in just passing your classes, then it really isn't that much more challenging then undergrad, IF you have good time management. If you're interested in killing step and doing really well in your classes then you are going to have to put a lot of time in.

 

[CliveStaples]

My college years were some of the best days of my life. My brief moments of academic stress paled in comparison to the amount of work and anxiety that came with the preclinical years of medical school. That said, things got profoundly better once I got to the wards.

Preclinical years were much more challenging and time consuming than college.

 

[NotYou20]

In terms of just the time commitment, first year isn't that much worse than undergrad. In undergrad I didn't spend much time studying or doing homework but I had to go to classes and labs and worked 20 hours a week. Now I average 4 hours of good studying/watching lectures each day, 7 days a week. It's pretty rare that I can't make time to do something fun for a day, you just have to pay the piper before or after doing it. In undergrad taking days off didn't make me all that busy afterwards like it does in med school. But once you accept that its not a problem. Similarly, we have almost all of our tests Monday or Tuesday. And we have a test almost every week. So weekends spent studying more than going out. But then a lot of us go out often on Tuesdays. It was weird at first but now I'm used to not doing fun stuff on most weekends and enjoying weekdays more.

So I'm busier now but not much. The bigger problem is that its really repetitive. All the other things in undergrad were a pain then but distributing time like that was nice. Still, I enjoy what I'm doing in med school much more.

The caveat is that time commitment and attitude towards that time commitment varies a lot between people and you really don't know how much time you'll need to put in. You should go into it thinking it's going to be hard. Harder than I described. It's much better you be prepared for that than blindsided by it

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

50-60 hours a week?!?! While taking 15 credits a time? Thats impressive!


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When your job has mandatory overtime you do what you have to do. But yeah for about 3 years of undergrad my schedule was insane. Then I got into an accident and was like "you know what? I've got money saved up to take me through graduation so I'm not going back"

 

[akwho]

My undergrad: 1200 freshmen premeds -> 600 sophomore premeds -> 310 med school applicants -> 250 accepted med school applicants. 75% attrition rate and this is at a top-25 undergrad. Now you are sitting in a med school classroom next to the top 25% competing for the same grades and the whole curve has shifted to the right significantly.

I guess if you go to a P/F school, with no mandatory attendance, and you don't care about anything more than a pass, than med school could be easier than undergrad for the first two years only. If you want to crush med school you will be putting in many more hours than you did in undergrad.

 

[raiderette]

When I was in undergrad, I didn't study as much, but I worked 40+ hours a week, took 5-6 classes, volunteered, did research and ran a sorority for the last two years. My MS1 year at a school with a condensed curriculum has been easier compared to juggling. Still the sheer amount of knowledge in med school is more than undergrad. We are intelligent people and can do this.

 

[dpmd]

I found med school to be significantly easier than I had imagined it to be, but I had imagined a pretty grim scenario. I was at a school that was P/F for the first two years and the P=MD philosophy was very freeing. I still tried to learn lots, but since I struggled with basic science I focused more on clinically relevant stuff that interested me. Granted my step 1 score reflected that, but I am not convinced I would scored high enough to make a difference in the end result for residency even if I had spent all my free time trying to make the basic science stuff click better. Since I am happy with my specialty I can't say I have much regret.

 

[Lonewanderer493]

Academically, it's considerably more intense. It feels like studying for finals everyday (because you are). But there's much less extra things you have to do than in undergrad so you have more time to devote to academics. All that being said, people don't know what they're capable of until they are confronted with it. If you put in diligent work everyday, it's not that bad! (He says, from the library at midnight on Saturday...)

Lmao. Don't worry I'm in the library on Sunday night. The worst thing for me is all the extracirricular commitments I have. If I could just sit down at 5PM and study for a few hours a night I feel like I would be in great shape