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- Sep 13, 2002
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Here is a question that I answered on PM that I thought might help other Pre-med students. If you have any other questions, PM me. Good Luck to you all!!
Strong
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Hi,
I'm interested in medical school (I'll be a senior in college next year) but I'm unsure of a few things. Not to sound like an idiot, but how hard really is it? On average, how many hours a week do people study?Is there time for social life? I appreciate your answers!
Thanks!!
Becky,
It all depends on what you want out of medicine. For example, if you don't care about the best residencies or best specialties than it is not that bad. For example, there are people in my class, that don't work hard because they don't have to work hard. EVERY MEDICAL SCHOOL HAS THESE PEOPLE!!!
For me, I would like to keep my options open, so I do work hard in medical school. At the end of the day, I want to decide what specialty that I want to go into, not someone tell me what specialties that I am not qualified for.
As for medical school. I think of it like this. I usually study 30-40 hours a week. You have 30-40 hours (the numbers are for me, I am just giving an example using myself) a studying a week. You can do this during the week or during the weekend. The key is discipline. For example, if you relax here and there by week 2 you will be 30-40 hours behind in studying from the previous week. Plus it builds on itself. Once you fall behind, you lose your balance and play catch up. The classes move fast!! Before you know it, you can be 500 pages behind in book/class note reading!! And, if you fall behind the class lectures become meaningless because it won't make sense to you.
On the other hand, if you study 5 hours a day, and 8 hours on Sunday. You have friday nights, and all day saturday to yourself. So if you are very organized, you will have free time. Unfortunately, not many people are organized and disciplined. Organization and discipline are two different things. You can organize time to study and sit down at a desk with a book in front of you but you have to have discipline to actually have a productive study session!! If you ever sat in front of your desk with a book and an hour passed by and you only read 2 pages. This is what I mean by discipline.
As for the difficulty of the material. Course material is not that difficult. However, you have to put time into it because it is predominantly memorization. I scored a 38 MCAT and I know people that got 40's on their MCAT yet they have to work their butt off too. BTW, MCAT scores are meaningless once you get accepted. So everyone in medical school has to study regardless of their "test taking" skills. There are people that "appear" like they are not studying (and score high on exams). This just means they would just like the impression that they are not studying to stroke their ego or they have people that are envious of them thus gossip about them. Regardless, these people are studying their butt off too!!!
So in conclusion. Discipline to study 30-40 hours a week, organization to do it day by day because if you don't you will play catch up. Lastly, you need the motivation and persistance. Still, the most important quality is Passion. Passion can be good or bad. Some people have a pseudopassion i.e. money, prestige, AOA, best residencies etc. Still this isn't true passion. Passion is what drives your work ethic and persistance in medical school. When someone tells me they can't study in medical school i.e they are not motivated. This is because they have no passion to drive their motivation.
I hope that helps.
Strong
Strong
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,
I'm interested in medical school (I'll be a senior in college next year) but I'm unsure of a few things. Not to sound like an idiot, but how hard really is it? On average, how many hours a week do people study?Is there time for social life? I appreciate your answers!
Thanks!!
Becky,
It all depends on what you want out of medicine. For example, if you don't care about the best residencies or best specialties than it is not that bad. For example, there are people in my class, that don't work hard because they don't have to work hard. EVERY MEDICAL SCHOOL HAS THESE PEOPLE!!!
For me, I would like to keep my options open, so I do work hard in medical school. At the end of the day, I want to decide what specialty that I want to go into, not someone tell me what specialties that I am not qualified for.
As for medical school. I think of it like this. I usually study 30-40 hours a week. You have 30-40 hours (the numbers are for me, I am just giving an example using myself) a studying a week. You can do this during the week or during the weekend. The key is discipline. For example, if you relax here and there by week 2 you will be 30-40 hours behind in studying from the previous week. Plus it builds on itself. Once you fall behind, you lose your balance and play catch up. The classes move fast!! Before you know it, you can be 500 pages behind in book/class note reading!! And, if you fall behind the class lectures become meaningless because it won't make sense to you.
On the other hand, if you study 5 hours a day, and 8 hours on Sunday. You have friday nights, and all day saturday to yourself. So if you are very organized, you will have free time. Unfortunately, not many people are organized and disciplined. Organization and discipline are two different things. You can organize time to study and sit down at a desk with a book in front of you but you have to have discipline to actually have a productive study session!! If you ever sat in front of your desk with a book and an hour passed by and you only read 2 pages. This is what I mean by discipline.
As for the difficulty of the material. Course material is not that difficult. However, you have to put time into it because it is predominantly memorization. I scored a 38 MCAT and I know people that got 40's on their MCAT yet they have to work their butt off too. BTW, MCAT scores are meaningless once you get accepted. So everyone in medical school has to study regardless of their "test taking" skills. There are people that "appear" like they are not studying (and score high on exams). This just means they would just like the impression that they are not studying to stroke their ego or they have people that are envious of them thus gossip about them. Regardless, these people are studying their butt off too!!!
So in conclusion. Discipline to study 30-40 hours a week, organization to do it day by day because if you don't you will play catch up. Lastly, you need the motivation and persistance. Still, the most important quality is Passion. Passion can be good or bad. Some people have a pseudopassion i.e. money, prestige, AOA, best residencies etc. Still this isn't true passion. Passion is what drives your work ethic and persistance in medical school. When someone tells me they can't study in medical school i.e they are not motivated. This is because they have no passion to drive their motivation.
I hope that helps.
Strong
