Nobody goes to class?

[ATPMD]

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Hi all,

Reading these forums, a number of people say they never go to class, or only attend the handful of mandatory classes. I've got some questions:

How do you know what you need to learn if you don't go to class?

I assume you need to have a fair amount of discipline to do this. Did you take the same attitude when doing your BS/BA? Did you skip most of your classes and just show up for exams?

Are all classes recorded in some way (audio/visual)? If so, do all schools do this?

Some people say that they compress a 1hr class into 30mins. Does this mean you just go through the slides at your own pace?

Lastly, where do you go when you have questions? Do you go to the teachers? Don't they take exception to your skipping class then asking for help in their free time?

Looking fwd to hearing the answers, because this is the one thing I just don't get on this forum.

 

[NCF145]

Hi all,

Reading these forums, a number of people say they never go to class, or only attend the handful of mandatory classes. I've got some questions:

How do you know what you need to learn if you don't go to class?

I assume you need to have a fair amount of discipline to do this. Did you take the same attitude when doing your BS/BA? Did you skip most of your classes and just show up for exams?

Are all classes recorded in some way (audio/visual)? If so, do all schools do this?

Some people say that they compress a 1hr class into 30mins. Does this mean you just go through the slides at your own pace?

Lastly, where do you go when you have questions? Do you go to the teachers? Don't they take exception to your skipping class then asking for help in their free time?

Looking fwd to hearing the answers, because this is the one thing I just don't get on this forum.

Syllabi and watch lectures online

Nope, class attendance in undergrad was mandatory

Yes, no

You speed the lecture up to 1.5x normal speed with a program that does not alter voice quality (the lecturers do not end up sounding like the chipmunks).

Ask friends, professors, they don't care

 

[ATPMD]

Thanks NCF145. I guess I got lucky. None of my BS classes had mandatory attendance.

 

[bkpa2med]

Hi all,

How do you know what you need to learn if you don't go to class?

You'll learn that everything is fair game, emphasized or not. No ifs ands or buts.

 

[indo]

keys to surviving med school:
1) coffee machine
2) Ipod
3) software with adjustable rate audio playback.





Re: how do you know what you need to know?

Well, if it is written down, anywhere, you need to know it.

 

[ATPMD]

I imagine that's why it's so hard then bkpa2med? You have to know every line of every chapter, whether or not the teacher spent 10 seconds or 10 minutes on it. Am I correct?

 

[Occams Razor]

I have to go. They make me go.

 

[ATPMD]

If everything is online and nobody goes to class, it's starting to sound more like an online degree 😀

 

[Jwax]

If everything is online and nobody goes to class, it's starting to sound more like an online degree 😀

When I tell non-med school friends that I don't go to class & watch lectures online, they make this comment. I wonder if it decreases their confidence in physicians? Eh... the stuff we really need to be taught (i.e. can't really learn it on your own) is during the clinical years. We're just memorizing b.s. in the first two years, and you just figure out the best / most time efficient / least painful way to get through the b.s. (basic sciences / bull shizer / whichever 😀) years. Many classes in UG were mandatory, so I didn't get to skip too often. Our school has video capture recorded lectures (video of prof making marks on the slides and slide capture on the side), posted powerpoints, syllabi, and notegroups (where everyone is assigned a lecture hour to take notes on that we all look at to see what was emphasized). I'm personally a big fan of homeschooling... mostly because I'm not a morning person so 8am classes until 3pm don't work for me.

 

[TMP-SMX]

What's the point in being in a lecture hall of 300 people? It's not like you are getting any personal contact anyway. It's one thing when we have small group sessions for clinical medicine and laboratories but another for lecture. It's not an online degree. Labs are required as are patient panels where they aren't streamed.

 

[SeventhSon]

Hi all,

Reading these forums, a number of people say they never go to class, or only attend the handful of mandatory classes. I've got some questions:

How do you know what you need to learn if you don't go to class?

Class syllabus, or textbooks when the syllabi are atrocious. You can't write down everything the professor says anyway so trying to study from just what they say is more effort than it's worth. It is much more beneficial long term to learn as much as you can rather than just what your professor says.

I assume you need to have a fair amount of discipline to do this. Did you take the same attitude when doing your BS/BA? Did you skip most of your classes and just show up for exams?

I suppose it takes discipline. I didnt miss a single class my first 3 years of undergrad because attending classes was useful. It is impossible to listen, comprehend, and take meaningful notes in a med school class which makes attending largely a waste of time.

Lastly, where do you go when you have questions? Do you go to the teachers? Don't they take exception to your skipping class then asking for help in their free time?

e-mail professors, or bang your head against the wall and look for the answer online until you find it, ask classmates. Professors love when you ask intelligent questions, and while you are right that they are disappoined in knowing students don't go to class, you hardly have to make a point of that

 

[Law2Doc]

If everything is online and nobody goes to class, it's starting to sound more like an online degree 😀

At most schools anywhere from 40-60% of the class will attend regularly. It's all about how you learn best. If you have the discipline to sit down and truly study the material on your own, then go for it. Many people do find that if they aren't getting up to go to lecture, they sleep in, then work out, then goof off, and by the time they actually start studying half the day is gone. (which is a bad thing, given the volume of material you should be looking over daily).
Med school is about trying things and finding what works best for you. It is a bad idea to expect that what works for others will work for you -- everybody's optimal learning process is so different. So in a given group of 200 people, you will find something like 75 people who learn more effectively on their own with no lecture, another 50 who skip lecture but end up wasting more time than they should, and the remainder who probably learn more effectively in lecture. (Numbers are just pulled out of air, but that's my own estimate of how it breaks down). Figure out which group you are and run with it. Nobody is right or wrong here -- there are many ways to skin a cat. But there will definitely be an approach that is optimal for you and an approach which is foolish for you. And you won't know until you try each and compare results.

 

[78222]

I have only been to a handful of classes in medschool period. Most people try to attend classes for the first few blocks before realizing that it's less efficient than studying on your own - I made it less than two weeks. However, I should mention that I am really ADHD which makes it pretty hard for me to concentrate during lectures and I never really went to lecture in ugrad either if I could help it. For me, it is easier to just read the notes, listen to the podcasts, and read books. I like to have a lot of sources in front of me and I like to be able to fast forward through the low yield.

 

[Nodelphi]

All of you with recorded lectures are so lucky. 🙁 We had an incident of our stuff getting out and they barely allow us to access powerpoints online now.

 

[Tensyle]

keys to surviving med school:
1) coffee machine
2) Ipod
3) software with adjustable rate audio playback.





Re: how do you know what you need to know?

Well, if it is written down, anywhere, you need to know it.

so if they give you a chunk of chapters as the reading assignment, then anything within there is fair game? how do you know what stuff in there you need to study, and what you dont? I mean, im sure there are tons of diagrams and little-*** details in there, along with tables, dosages, etc...

 

[DrCurious]

Honestly, my attendance has to be no higher then 15-20%. I dont go because I dont think lecture is the way I learn best. I think one needs to figure out what works for them when it comes to studying, for me I go to lectures and fall asleep and therefore its a total waste. I have always been a person who crams for exams, thats what works best, so thats what I do. Go to lecture if you like to not because you think you have to, unless of course its a mandatory class.

 

[monkeymeg2]

your classes will come with a syllabus. its not like the ones you got in undergrad, its basically a book in itself. at my school, that's pretty much where the test material is. usually reading chapters in texts is used for clarification purposes or if a lecturer specifically says you need to look at it. but yes, everything in the syllabus for the course is definitely fair game.

 

[SupaManu]

I prolly really havent been to a class in 3 months and my grades have gone way up since i stopped going. I just read and also the 2nd years gave us a scribe cd w/all the notes they had last year, and since the lectures are pretty much the same i just use that w/the ppts...oh and i also get a good bit of sleep as well.

 

[Blesbok]

Think of class as an outline of what you need to learn. For example, there is no way that a pathology class could teach everything in big robbins in a year.

 

[Sartre79]

your classes will come with a syllabus. its not like the ones you got in undergrad, its basically a book in itself. at my school, that's pretty much where the test material is. usually reading chapters in texts is used for clarification purposes or if a lecturer specifically says you need to look at it. but yes, everything in the syllabus for the course is definitely fair game.

Not all schools do this though....mine in particular 😡

 

[Erina]

so if they give you a chunk of chapters as the reading assignment, then anything within there is fair game? how do you know what stuff in there you need to study, and what you dont? I mean, im sure there are tons of diagrams and little-*** details in there, along with tables, dosages, etc...

I think my school does a pretty good job of letting us know what's important. We have the syllabus, which consists of all of our notes. And then there are additional reading assignments, but if the book talks about something that wasn't mentioned in class, we most likely don't have to pay attention to it.

I think as you go through med school, you get better at figuring out what to spend most of your time on. Sure, technically everything is fair game. But you'll definitely want to concentrate on anything mentioned multiple times or stuff that lecturers spend a lot of time on.

 

[thedelicatessen]

Not everyone goes to lecture all the time at my school, but I would say more go to lecture than don't, which is probably because we don't have a service for synced recorded lecture to go with the slides. However, it's definitely doable to not go to lecture. We do have a note-taking service for the class and a few people who record the lectures for their own benefit who are always willing to share their recordings by request. Personally I'm more likely to attend the clinical correlation lectures (the MDs' style of providing material can be highly variable) and lectures that are in larger blocks of time compared to the lone lecture in the AM or PM.

Most classes provide detailed syllabi and/or self-explanatory powerpoints that suffice, and most people also have a supplemental BRS or other review book too. The textbook can be helpful, but it's usually wordier than the powerpoints, which also often contain the important figures from the book. The only classes so far where there's some mandatory attendance component are gross anatomy (dissecting), clinical (There is no real or standardized patient you can see at home.), and some PBL.

 

[Hurricane95]

At my school very few lectures are mandatory. All lectures are recorded and can be watched whenever we want (even archived lectures from previous years). You can even speed them up using e-nounce up to 2.5x (which is helpful when some lecturers talk suuuuppppeeeerrr sllllloooowww).

In undergrad I attended all lectures. I did engineering and my classes were all smaller size and mandatory. The only class I never really attended was organic 2 (to spend time with my gf during her break). But that lecturer went exactly by the book and I self-learned organic 2 via mcmurry 6e (got an A!)

You have to try both approaches to se what works best for you. I live kind of far and it's not time efficient for me to go unless forced (which obviously changes third year onwards).

 

[ATPMD]

Thanks for all the info guys. The recordings and powerpoints are very helpful. When applying to schools, how do you know if they provide this service? Is it something I should consider in the decision-making process?

 

[MDpride]

May be you can ask during interview or attend OPENHOUSE?

 

[MDpride]

Different college prof. emphasize different things and they may use different text books.
How do one know what is required study for STEP 1 ?



Are all schools required to meet min. teaching goals for basic science years?

 

[potato51]

i'm in the minority of my school that regularly attends lecture. maybe because i'm forced to engage myself in what the lecturer is saying and because it takes me even longer to go through a video/mp3 file. I don't think my grades differ either way though. Plus I like attending class since it's a pretty social atmosphere and it's nice to actually be around people instead of facing a computer all the time.

 

[Law2Doc]

Different college prof. emphasize different things and they may use different text books.
How do one know what is required study for STEP 1 ?



Are all schools required to meet min. teaching goals for basic science years?

For Step 1, you will get books like First Aid, BRS, etc and question banks such as qbank or world as study resources. What you didn't learn in class you will simply pick up during test preparation. As for minimum teaching goals, I'm sure the LCME requires schools to hit certain minimums, but most schools want you to do well on the Steps, and already would cover the applicable material. The issue is never whether you covered the minimum necessary -- it's whether you remember that minimum since it will be packed in with a maximum of other stuff that may or may not be as high yield. Med school is often described as like trying to drink water from a fire hose. All the water you need is there, but it's simply coming at you way too fast to absorb it all. I certainly wouldn't worry much about covering enough material for Step 1 at any US allo school. Any hurdles you hit will be your own, not the schools.

 

[DoctaJay]

Our school doesn't have a lecture recording service, so we made up our own,and we put itup for all of our classmates to use. Even if we didn't have that I wouldn't go to class...and I would probably still do just as well. In med school they basically want you to know everything. Even if I high light alot of important stuff in a packet, there is the possibility that they would ask me a question from something I didn't highlight, but eventually you get good enough that you can predict what they would ask.

Also, it helps to have a friend who loves to go to class, because you can hit them up for info that the professor stressed, although most times they stress stuff you would already guess would be on the test.

 

[Iquitos]

I found undergrad to be extremely subjective. Professors would get offended for not attending lectures then hammer you on essay exams. At my med school all the tests are multiple choice with the exception of practicals and soap notes. So that leaves most of the subjectivity out. I only attend required lectures and I figure that I will have to learn virtually everything in the professors notes or power point slides-both for lecture exams, then again for boards. If I know a proffessor has shisty notes and insists on adding things during the lecture, I will listen to the recorded lectures on double speed MP3.

Most lecturers=😴

 

[ZagDoc]

Been to every lecture this year but a handful. Most of our professors are pretty engaging, and the syllabus is just spotty enough that you can generally pick up a few extra correct ?s on the exam by coming. Plus I haven't bombed a test yet, so I'm kind of taking the "if it ain't broke..." approach. We're integrated curriculum with lecture only 8am-noon, and no online mp3/video, so that probably helps.

And I can't study as home. Between ESPN, my guitar, and the internet my apartment is an 800 sq ft vortex where focus and productivity go to die.

 

[da8s0859q]

Been to every lecture this year but a handful. Most of our professors are pretty engaging, and the syllabus is just spotty enough that you can generally pick up a few extra correct ?s on the exam by coming. Plus I haven't bombed a test yet, so I'm kind of taking the "if it ain't broke..." approach. We're integrated curriculum with lecture only 8am-noon, and no online mp3/video, so that probably helps.

And I can't study as home. Between ESPN, my guitar, and the internet my apartment is an 800 sq ft vortex where focus and productivity go to die.

Not an MS1 yet, but I've also adopted the "if it ain't broke" policy in undergrad. 150+ credit hours worth of college courses, and I've been to 99%+ of their lectures. Attending lecture and taking notes seems to spare me time otherwise spent reading.

Even for biochem. We had the big ol' Lehninger listed... and I used it for precisely one page. Ended up with a low 90something in the course.

Naturally, med school is gonna require a lot more reading on my part, but I'm hoping I'll be able to do something even remotely similar.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

My school has as student-run notegroups system where we get mp3s and notes for all the lectures. We also have video recording with powerpoints for most lectures (some profs refuse this, though), and we are generally provided with pretty detailed syllabi that cover most (if not all) of what we're expected to know.

Personally I never go to class, and I don't watch the videos or recordings. I also don't look at powerpoints if I can avoid it because studying from them bugs me. Works for me and makes me a much happier medical student.

 

[dedicate]

Been to every lecture this year but a handful. Most of our professors are pretty engaging, and the syllabus is just spotty enough that you can generally pick up a few extra correct ?s on the exam by coming. Plus I haven't bombed a test yet, so I'm kind of taking the "if it ain't broke..." approach. We're integrated curriculum with lecture only 8am-noon, and no online mp3/video, so that probably helps.

And I can't study as home. Between ESPN, my guitar, and the internet my apartment is an 800 sq ft vortex where focus and productivity go to die.

And I can't study as home. Between ESPN, my guitar, and the internet my apartment is an 800 sq ft vortex where focus and productivity go to die.

That's classic lol. Very true for myself as well.

 

[Jolie South]

I have found briefly that when I watch streamed lectures at home sped up to 2x and study immediately after I am more productive.

However, this requires that I get up early to study and pretty much never leave home. I would only be required to be in class 2 days a week for PBL and clinical skills. The problems with this are that I don't think that I'm disciplined enough to wake up early to make this approach successful and that I think I'd live a sad existence if I never ventured out of my home or had social time with my friends during/between lectures.

 

[njbmd]

Hi all,

Reading these forums, a number of people say they never go to class, or only attend the handful of mandatory classes. I've got some questions:

How do you know what you need to learn if you don't go to class?

I assume you need to have a fair amount of discipline to do this. Did you take the same attitude when doing your BS/BA? Did you skip most of your classes and just show up for exams?

Are all classes recorded in some way (audio/visual)? If so, do all schools do this?

Some people say that they compress a 1hr class into 30mins. Does this mean you just go through the slides at your own pace?

Lastly, where do you go when you have questions? Do you go to the teachers? Don't they take exception to your skipping class then asking for help in their free time?

Looking fwd to hearing the answers, because this is the one thing I just don't get on this forum.

Be very careful about changing anything that got you into medical school in the first place. Start out by attending class (if your school doesn't have mandatory attendance which means you have to go) and then skip the classes that are not worth your time away from study. At my school, psychiatry was a class that did not need attendance. One needed the note service and that was all.

Once you figure out what works for you, then use it. Don't try to copy something that works for another person. I can tell you that when students got into trouble, the first thing that the dean checks is class attendance. If you haven't been attending class, you may have problems convincing a committee to let you remediate if that becomes necessary.

I attended the classes that needed attending and stayed home (or in the library) for those that didn't. I used note service for the classes that I didn't attend. I didn't have time or the desire to watch a vid of the classes that I skipped. In the end, I did very well but that was me.My school didn't have mandatory attendance. Figure out what works for you and do it.

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

Be very careful about changing anything that got you into medical school in the first place. Start out by attending class (if your school doesn't have mandatory attendance which means you have to go) and then skip the classes that are not worth your time away from study. At my school, psychiatry was a class that did not need attendance. One needed the note service and that was all.

Once you figure out what works for you, then use it. Don't try to copy something that works for another person. I can tell you that when students got into trouble, the first thing that the dean checks is class attendance. If you haven't been attending class, you may have problems convincing a committee to let you remediate if that becomes necessary.

I attended the classes that needed attending and stayed home (or in the library) for those that didn't. I used note service for the classes that I didn't attend. I didn't have time or the desire to watch a vid of the classes that I skipped. In the end, I did very well but that was me.My school didn't have mandatory attendance. Figure out what works for you and do it.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[anon3]

I google searched it before. A couple studies show medical school lecture attendance and grades/step I/class rank aren't correlated. Of course you could always run into a professor that would make it his business to ensure lecture attendance correlates to the grades he gives.

 

[mq123]

Hi all,

Reading these forums, a number of people say they never go to class, or only attend the handful of mandatory classes. I've got some questions:

How do you know what you need to learn if you don't go to class?

I assume you need to have a fair amount of discipline to do this. Did you take the same attitude when doing your BS/BA? Did you skip most of your classes and just show up for exams?

Are all classes recorded in some way (audio/visual)? If so, do all schools do this?

Some people say that they compress a 1hr class into 30mins. Does this mean you just go through the slides at your own pace?

Lastly, where do you go when you have questions? Do you go to the teachers? Don't they take exception to your skipping class then asking for help in their free time?

Looking fwd to hearing the answers, because this is the one thing I just don't get on this forum.

Our lectures are not recorded, but we know what's on the test because it's all in the syllabus. I never skipped class in undergrad, and never skipped class for the first few months of med school. If I overslept, I would rush to school later and ask to 'borrow' a friend's notes so as not to 'miss anything. ' (I'm realizing now what gunner I was back then...)

Then the fatigue hit after returning from winter break (10 days only at that😱) and I went to class less and less. By the end of the semester, I was probably going an average of 6/20 hours of lectures a week, spending some time, very efficiently, at the library. I didn't miss out on anything much and did well above average on all exams.

Moral of the story: if a never-skipped-class-in-four-years-of-UG person like me can stop going to class, and find it to be productive, any one can. And most of MS1s coming in saying they won't (like I did) will do it too eventually... Med school can do that to you...

 

[MossPoh]

I found it funny how they make us do all those learning inventories at my school. They want us to find our best way to learn blah blah blah. Then they make attendance to lectures required. The good thing is that starting in the fall, it isn't required anymore.