Med school easier than undergrad?

[Droopy Snoopy]

I'd gladly take the 18-22/semester hours of med school over the same hours in an Engineering program in ChemE, Nucs, or Ele. Twenty lecture/chapter exam in med school classes WITH med students? Bring it on...................................... again.
Ten page Thermodynamics exam USING DiffyQ???? Hell naw! But maybe you need to experience BOTH to know where I'm coming from!

18 hours a week at your school ? Seriously?

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[OrnotMajestic]

I'd gladly take the 18-22/semester hours of med school over the same hours in an Engineering program in ChemE, Nucs, or Ele. Twenty lecture/chapter exam in med school classes WITH med students? Bring it on...................................... again.
Ten page Thermodynamics exam USING DiffyQ???? Hell naw! But maybe you need to experience BOTH to know where I'm coming from!

If give the choice of 18-22 semester hours of med school OR engineering, I'd take med school. Mainly because while I did well in some math/engineering classes that I took, I wanted to stab myself more than I do now.

That being said, I can't compare, since we are currently taking 31 credit hours, I'm in the middle of finals, and I've slept 6 hours out of the past 100 or so. I think I'd take engineering right now.

 

[whistler]

Even in gross anatomy you don't necessarily have to memorize a bunch of facts if you take the time to understand/visualize in 3-D how the body is put together and you learn muscle attachments. You can then draw upon your knowledge to determine what arteries etc would necessarily run near the structure, or determine the action of the muscle for example based on origins and attachments.

While it's great that you've figured out such a way of learning, either you are a friggin genius with a photographic memory, or you are bsing us. Take the heart for example I am visualizing all four chambers and the major arteries, are you telling me that it's intuitive that the circumflex artery branches off the LAD? Are you serious, it just makes logical sense that such a thing would happen? I mean thats maybe the most absurd thing I've ever heard. While a small amount of it is logical, most of it is brute memorization for the simple reason that there is no concept involved. This connects this and this. This branches off this, and this nerve innervates this and this. If you can show me the faulty "logic" I've had so far, I honestly would much appreciate because clearly I've tackled med school the wrong way.

 

[shivasHeroLike]

seems everyone has their own interpretation of what is qualified as easy.

i didn't like undergrad cause i was forced to take classes that I did not enjoy.

classes like physics/calc .. i despised learning it, hence thought it was difficult.
i feel easiness comes from enjoying the material because you're not forced to learn it just to get through & do well.. rather its out of curiosity to want to learn more becuz yu enjoy it.
which is why i did a lot better in undergrad biological sciences.

like a previous poster mentioned, med school is one biology course after another .. so the enjoyment factor is higher.

i also agree with the quality/quantity analogy with med/undergrad.

 

[FenderHM]

med school was significantly easier than undergrad. it wasn't so much that the material was more or less challenging, but the competition in med school didn't hold a candle to the competition in undergrad. simply, it was easier to be in the top quarter of the class in med school than in undergrad.

depends on where you go, i think

i feel the exact opposite. Easy to be above 75th percentile in premed courses. Hard for me to be in 75th percentile in med school. maybe i'll do better in biochem and phys than anatomy/histo but geez i'm giving all i got just to pass 4 now.

 

[Jamers]

One of my pre-med classmates was telling me that some of his friends were finding med school to actually be *easier* than their undergraduate degree (they were engineers). I get the impression that these folks are in the tiny minority, but just out of curiousity I ask the question: do you or someone you know well find med school to be easier than your undergraduate education (or easy as well)? (my goal here is to determine if these people were totally blowing smoke or not)

The information is the easy part, its the AMOUNT they hit you with that is the hard part.

 

[princessd3]

While it's great that you've figured out such a way of learning, either you are a friggin genius with a photographic memory, or you are bsing us. Take the heart for example I am visualizing all four chambers and the major arteries, are you telling me that it's intuitive that the circumflex artery branches off the LAD? Are you serious, it just makes logical sense that such a thing would happen? I mean thats maybe the most absurd thing I've ever heard. While a small amount of it is logical, most of it is brute memorization for the simple reason that there is no concept involved. This connects this and this. This branches off this, and this nerve innervates this and this. If you can show me the faulty "logic" I've had so far, I honestly would much appreciate because clearly I've tackled med school the wrong way.

Hmm, interesting. I didn't memorize my way through anatomy. I remember studying with one person who used the memorization technique that simply didn't work because you can only remember so much. I drew the whole upper arm on the board and started filling in arteries, nerves etc. She asked me about a particular muscle that I had not studied in detail and I was able to figure out it's blood supply, nerve supply etc, just based on where it was located. It's hard for me to explain and you may not believe me but you can definitely make a lot of sense out of gross anatomy. I still retain about 90% of what I learned in anatomy because I think about it in 3-D and not rely on meaningless memorization techniques.

 

[1Path]

It's hard for me to explain and you may not believe me but you can definitely make a lot of sense out of gross anatomy. I still retain about 90% of what I learned in anatomy because I think about it in 3-D and not rely on meaningless memorization techniques.

I know people like you and certainly believe they exist........they're called geniuses!

A photographic memory and good coloring book/drawing has certainly helped me so far in many classes. Irronically, I didn't have one when I was in my 20's.

 

[infiniti]

I don't think one has to be a genius to do that. Not that princess3d isn't one

Part of the trick is to learn the location of structures to one another (that way you won't have problems when the structure in question is one that can vary). I think I had to memorize a little for the first few weeks, but after a while, patterns of vascularization/innervation e.t.c become somewhat intuitive. Even nature follows a certain pattern!

 

[45408]

Hmm, interesting. I didn't memorize my way through anatomy. I remember studying with one person who used the memorization technique that simply didn't work because you can only remember so much. I drew the whole upper arm on the board and started filling in arteries, nerves etc. She asked me about a particular muscle that I had not studied in detail and I was able to figure out it's blood supply, nerve supply etc, just based on where it was located. It's hard for me to explain and you may not believe me but you can definitely make a lot of sense out of gross anatomy. I still retain about 90% of what I learned in anatomy because I think about it in 3-D and not rely on meaningless memorization techniques.

sure, you can categorize things to an extent, and just the name extensor carpi ulnaris tells you where it is, but either you know where the fabella is or you don't.

 

[hale-bopp]

While it's great that you've figured out such a way of learning, either you are a friggin genius with a photographic memory, or you are bsing us. Take the heart for example I am visualizing all four chambers and the major arteries, are you telling me that it's intuitive that the circumflex artery branches off the LAD? Are you serious, it just makes logical sense that such a thing would happen? I mean thats maybe the most absurd thing I've ever heard. While a small amount of it is logical, most of it is brute memorization for the simple reason that there is no concept involved. This connects this and this. This branches off this, and this nerve innervates this and this. If you can show me the faulty "logic" I've had so far, I honestly would much appreciate because clearly I've tackled med school the wrong way.

I don't think it requires a photographic memory, just a highly developed ability to understand things in 3-dimensions. I imagine there was still some memorization - i.e. the names of the blood vessels that branch off the subclavian and brachial, or the names of the nerves that come out of the brachial plexus, but then by rememberiing WHERE they go, in relation to the muscles (which also have to be memorized), the details of innervation and blood supply become intuitive, if that makes sense. I'm a spatial thinker, too.

I think for some people spatial thinking is really easy, while for others, rote memorization is easier. I'm impressed by anyone who can memorize all those details... I'd go nuts.

 

[Bubb Rubb]

sure, you can categorize things to an extent, and just the name extensor carpi ulnaris tells you where it is, but either you know where the fabella is or you don't.

but the fabella's name is so similar to the patella's, reflecting that they're on opposite sides: just take the p and the t, flip them upside down, and then swap their positions...



(nb: i'm not serious.)

 

[gostudy]

As for me, I'm bracing for the firehose (but I love this stuff, so in a way, I can wait to get all wet).

Believe me, no matter how much you adore biochem/phys/anatomy etc. there will come a point in your first semester when you get tired of these subjects.

 

[gostudy]

j

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojhE4VZKU54[/YOUTUBE]

 

[vtucci]

I agree that med school is easier. All the information that you are tested on in med school is presented in a very straight forward manner. Whereas in undergrad (at least in mine) the tests examined your ability to take the information they gave you and make additional leaps of understanding to come to a solution to the problem. Much more difficult.

Sure the pace is quicker here, but it is just digest, and regurgitate

That was true of first year courses but not of second year and beyond. My classes this year actually require thought and information synthesis, not just regurgitation-- thank god!!!

 

[SailCrazy]

sure, you can categorize things to an extent, and just the name extensor carpi ulnaris tells you where it is, but either you know where the fabella is or you don't.

And I do... it's in there where the ubulus connects to the upper dorsimus. Right?

 

[SailCrazy]

I know people like you and certainly believe they exist........they're called geniuses!

I don't think one has to be a genius to do that. Not that princess3d isn't one:

I vote for princess3d as genius.