Just my advice and experiences.
How to succeed in the post-bac and medical school:
1. Don't use drugs or "enhancers." You don't need them, you also do not want to be dependent on them. Caffeine is bad for you.
2. Attitude is everything. If you go into this program and medical school believing you will conquer it, you more than likely will.
3. Time is your friend, not your enemy. Use it efficiently. Study smart, not study long.
4. DO A LOT OF PRACTICE QUESTIONS. This is by far the biggest mistake I've seen with post-bacs and medical students. People will wait until the last minute to start doing practice questions when they should have started from day 1.
Do questions or think up questions after you learn the material (from day 1). Constantly ask yourself questions like "how will this professor test this," "how can she/he phrase these questions," "what is the point of this picture on this slide," "If b is correct, why is a/c/d/e not correct."
DO NOT BE AFRAID TO GET QUESTIONS WRONG. Research has consistently shown that students learn 4X as much from getting questions WRONG (and reviewing it) than getting questions RIGHT (and not reviewing it). So if you're too afraid to do questions because you might be wrong, you just wasted a potential to learn at 4x.
This goes for the boards also (I haven't taken it yet, but friends in competitive residencies have told me this), the more questions you do, the better you will do.
5. Don't compare yourself or your grades to other people. No one is the smartest or brightest at everything.
6. Don't just memorize, don't just focus on details. If you don't even understand the big picture, it's pointless to memorize the details.
7. If you can teach it to someone else or formulate a question and answer choices, you probably understand the material. If you CANNOT teach it to someone else nor can you form a question and answer choices, you probably do not know the material.
8. Very very few doctors work completely alone. Get used to socializing and getting along with other people. There will be 50 post-bacs and 225 1st year medical students at DCOM this Fall, you're not going to see eye to eye with everyone, but you should humbly try.
9. Active learning will always beat passing learning. If you can't sit in the lectures and concentrate...skip the lecture. Also, making 100 pages of hand written notes is completely useless if you can't even answer 5 practice questions on X subject. Notes are good if you actively use them. Notes are VERY VERY BAD if all you do is write them and then read them, then re-read them, then re-read them, then re-read them, and still can't answer practice questions.
10. Last of all, you're in the post-bac for a reason. Either you're like me and didn't know you wanted to be a doctor until you're 24 (business major), or you just messed around too much in college, or your MCAT or GPAs are low, or a combination of all of the above. This is your chance to prove that you can be and should be given a chance to be a doctor.
It might be your last chance to be in an American medical school, treat it as such.
Good luck
Feel free to ask me questions or other post-bacs (the ones accepted) questions this coming Fall. We're all pretty nice and have become a bit of a family (sometimes dysfunctional haha).
