To read one of your posts, I'd think I'd wake up with a book in my hand and sleep with one too, that my only break would be going to the bathroom.
Guess what -- during the week before exams that probably will be your life. You have no frame of reference, so what I'm saying sounds very ominous. Once you get to med school you will see what's what. It is NOTHING like college. You can't really compare it, so it's hard to convey to you. But yeah, you are going to study a lot in med school. Much more than in college. No matter how much you think you are working hard in college, it doesn't compare to what you are going to be doing in med school. But it won't be that big a deal because everyone else in med school is going to be in the same boat. It's not like college where you are forced to decide between studying and going to the tailgate party before the big game, because nobody else in the class is going to the tailgate party or the big game either. Misery loves company. You will be surrounded with folks who are working hard and doing what they need to do well. And so you tend to follow suit. And it doesn't seem so bad because you aren't surrounded by a party crowd.
Yes, your old friends will fall off in droves. They will call you and say, hey the gang is going out for beers and you are going to say "sorry, gotta study, maybe next time". Then they will cal land say, "hey, we are all driving out to the beach for the weekend, wanna come?" and you are going to say "sorry, gotta study, maybe next time". And after 3-4 rounds of this, they stop calling. Which is okay because by then you will have a new set of friends you eat meals with and head off to the library with and BS about classes with.
I don't know what med students are telling you you can get by on 1 hour a night studying, but I sure wouldn't buy it. As many med students tend to agree with my posts as contradict them, and many who contradict aren't as far along. Most people who succeed treat med school like a long houred, full time job. It honestly wasn't all that different than being a junior associate at a big law firm in terms of the hours you ought to put in to do well, but every person is different. For example, a typical schedule might be: You get up early, study, go to classes, eat lunch with the gang, study, maybe hit the gym for an hour, grab dinner with your buds, study, watch a little TV or play some video games or make a few phone calls for an hour or two, study a bit more, and go to bed. And then repeat. On weekends you study most of the day and maybe go out at night if it's not an exam week. And so on. The key to success in med school for most people is repetition. Cramming doesn't work in med school like it did in college. The volume of material is too big, and you need to remember it longer than just for the test (eg. the boards, your rotations). So you need to learn it for real and that takes repetition. So many people pre-read material before class, attend class, review the lecture notes and material after class. Then on the weekend they review the entire week's material again (weekends are great for this because it's the only two days a week where you aren't getting any new information). And then review everything again the week before the exam. This basically results in having gone through the material 5 times before the exam, and so you basically know it decently. Not reviewing stuff daily really doesn't work for most med students. There will always be the one guy who reads stuff once and knows it cold, and for him, yeah maybe 1 hour a day of studying is fine and he can go out 4 nights a week. The number of folks in the typical class of 150 who can pull this off? Maybe 1-2. More commonly you will meet folks who try to go out every night and just cram for the exams. Then fail the first exam, maybe the second. And more often than not they use it as a wake up call and become the guy who closes the library each night.
Bear in mind that in a class of 150, there will be 150 different study methodologies, and people will have 150 different approaches. Some will work, some wont. Those whose methods don't work have to change them up. Adaptation is the key to med school. Also bear in mind that with 120+ med schools there are going to be 120+ experiences. There are one or two med schools where you cannot fail. They have a P/P rather than a P/F grading system. In these schools I suspect folks can get away with a lot less studying. But in most schools there will be a significant number of people who fail tests, a lesser number who fail courses and have to make them up, and a hopefully smaller number who have to repeat the year. So there is a downside to coasting. All these people got into med school with A's. Some still end up doing the 5 year plan.
So yeah, it's not doom and gloom in that it's "bad". I enjoy med school. To me, this is "fun". I have no problem rolling up my sleeves and buckling down. All professional careers demand this. But don't kid yourself into thinking you won't be working harder than you ever have in your entire life. You will (give or take the very rare exception). Sorry, but that's just the truth.
And then third year is harder, but a different kind of hard. You'll be pulling 12 hour days on the wards and still have to come home and study for a shelf. But most find it "cooler" because you're actually doing stuff. And then residency will dwarf this -- longer hours, greater responsibility, still exams to study for. It never ends on this career. So brace yourself.
