Procrastinated like a ****, have one week to cover 40 lectures.

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NYCdude

NYCdude

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Doable? Started today and at the pace I'm going, I think I'll be able to make outlines of everything by Wednesday which gives me about 1-1.5 days to review.
 
Difficult but doable. Just accept the fact that you will have a very miserable week. Is this MS1 or MS2?
 
MS1, first exam ever. I will definitely take this as a learning experience. :O
 
It is very difficult but doable, especially if it is rote-memory type of stuff, and depending on the strength of your memory. I have done 30 lectures in a week, but I never did it again.
 
At this point, I'm just trying to pass the exam, anything on top of that is gravy.
 
That sucks but what choice do you have? Try and cover 5-6 lectures per day at a minimum. Like you said, it might be a good idea to finish a little early so you have a day to review (cram).

Please don't do this to yourself often. You won't make it
 
Psai said:
What were you even doing
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Took a week off because of some issues I was having (had to see a doctor). Then I messed around with like 8 different studying methods and finally settled on one about a week before the exam, so yeah.
 
:shrug:Lol. I'm learning 3 weeks of neuro over the weekend
 
NYCdude said:
Doable? Started today and at the pace I'm going, I think I'll be able to make outlines of everything by Wednesday which gives me about 1-1.5 days to review.
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Depends. If each lecture is 30-40 slides you'll be fine if they are 65-80 well... Yeah... Drink a lot of coffee brother
 
NYCdude said:
I am just curious, how on earth do you plan to do that (study plan)?
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So I did go to a few lectures and learned some things in the other mandatory venues (like memorize all the CNs/exits in anatomy lab, firecracker in other stuff). Then I just go over ppts at about 1 every 15 mins and probably do everything 4x pass before the exam.
 
NYCdude said:
Doable? Started today and at the pace I'm going, I think I'll be able to make outlines of everything by Wednesday which gives me about 1-1.5 days to review.
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Yup, been there done that. I was not the most diligent student MS1...honestly I was a slacker. I'm procrastinating right now in fact lol.

If you're just aiming to pass, I think it's quite doable. What class is it?
As a last minute crammer for many years, and well into med school. My suggestions:

1) Get your nose to the books (duh, I know you know this too but I wanted to state it regardless) it's gonna be a rough week but you have an awesome post exam evening to look forward to.

2) Study groups (NOT with people who will distract you, NOT with neurotic/stressed out people that will only stress you out, NOT with braniacs who will make you feel inadequate and even more behind). Meet with chill people who you know you can sit in a quiet room and study with. You guys don't have to work together. Just having a friend in that room cramming with me, both of us with headphones on helped.
A big plus to this! If a friend or classmate knows a lecture well, they can explain/teach the main points and important stuff to you over a couple minutes, rather than you reading every slide and minute details. You guys can fill each other's gaps and cover some info. faster. Plus morale support from a classmate is very helpful.

3) If the professor has mentioned what's high yield, or you know what's come up in past years pften, focus on those.

4) Be willing to cut corners if needed. We all want to be thorough and cover it all properly, but there's just not enough time sometimes and that's okay. Better to get through more material (even if you cut corners a bit), than to go in depth into a quarter of the material. You'll be taking hits, and praying some of this material sticks, but that's part of it. Your goal is to do the best that you can, even if that means just passing.

5) Have some sort of study plan in place. You probably won't keep up or stick with it and will alter it as you go, but have something.

6) Coffee, coffee, coffee and more coffee
 
zeppelinpage4 said:
Yup, been there done that. I was not the most diligent student MS1...honestly I was a slacker and liked it. I'm procrastinating right now in fact lol.

If you're just aiming to pass, I think it's quite doable. What class is it?
As a last minute crammer for many years, and well into med school. My suggestions:
1) Get your nose to the books (duh, I know you know this too but I wanted to state it regardless) it's gonna be a rough week but you have an awesome post exam evening to look forward to.
2) Study groups (NOT with people who will distract you, NOT with neurotic/stressed out people that will only stress you out, NOT with braniacs who will make you feel inadequate and even more behind). Meet with chill people who you know you can sit in a quiet room and study with. You guys don't have to work together. Just having a friend in that room cramming with me, both of us with headphones on helped.
A big plus to this! If a friend or classmate knows a lecture well, they can explain/teach the main points and important stuff to you over a couple minutes, rather than you reading every slide and minute details.
3) If the professor has mentioned what's high yield, or you know what's come up in past years, focus on those.
4) Be willing to cut corners if needed. We all want to be thorough and cover it all properly, but there's just not enough time sometimes and that's okay. Better to get through more material (even if you cut corners a bit), than to go in depth into a quarter of the material. You'll be taking hits, and praying some of this material sticks, but that's part of it. Your goal is to do the best that you can, even if that means just passing.
5) Coffee, coffee, coffee and more coffee
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Awesome, thanks! I am about to slam my face into the books right now.
 
W19 said:
Wow... The whole neuro was a 6-week course in my school... I could not imagine being behind one week in that class.
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It is at mine as well, we have a midterm and it honestly was repetitive throughout some lectures. In general, I don't like getting behind though 🙂
 
NYCdude said:
Doable? Started today and at the pace I'm going, I think I'll be able to make outlines of everything by Wednesday which gives me about 1-1.5 days to review.
Click to expand...

How does anyone even do this? I put in a good 10 hours a day plus firecracker and I think I'm pretty efficient, but just staying up with material. I can't imagine covering a 4 week block in one week. 😱
 
NontradCA said:
So I did go to a few lectures and learned some things in the other mandatory venues (like memorize all the CNs/exits in anatomy lab, firecracker in other stuff). Then I just go over ppts at about 1 every 15 mins and probably do everything 4x pass before the exam.
Click to expand...
Pro pace right there.
 
NontradCA said:
So I did go to a few lectures and learned some things in the other mandatory venues (like memorize all the CNs/exits in anatomy lab, firecracker in other stuff). Then I just go over ppts at about 1 every 15 mins and probably do everything 4x pass before the exam.
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If I had the ability to do this, I would be doing greater things than medical school.
 
Blue Blood said:
How does anyone even do this? I put in a good 10 hours a day plus firecracker and I think I'm pretty efficient, but just staying up with material. I can't imagine covering a 4 week block in one week. 😱
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40 lectures isn't a 4 week block... it could be more like 2 weeks
 
Entadus said:
40 lectures isn't a 4 week block... it could be more like 2 weeks
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It's still a boat load of information. My med school does a lot of 2 hour lectures so I guess that's where that assumption came from.
What class is this for OP?
 
Anicetus said:
If I had the ability to do this, I would be doing greater things than medical school.
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This keeps me grounded, as I admittedly lack self discipline. I think coming from the military, medicine was a natural progression because everything is spoon fed to us and it's a linear path where you know where you'll be 5-10 years down the road.
 
40 lectures?! That blows and your life sucks!
 
I have a friend who was able to procrastinate and then cram incredibly well. He would basically study the week before an exam (for a 9 week block) while sleeping maybe 3 or 4 hours a night. And somehow he always managed to do fairly well. I think everyone who knew him warned him that that kind of strategy wasn't sustainable. But, he kept doing it and made it through the first two years. And then he failed step 1.

Moral of the story is that time management skills are extremely important in medical school. And if first year is good for anything, it's good for teaching you how to study and how to manage your time efficiently.
 
You're likely screwed if you're going for honors, unless you have some rainman-like **** going on.

I never did this, but I think I could have done this and still passed comfortably but it would have sucked hard.

I would never do this if I could avoid it. I know you had doctor's appointments but I can only think of a few conditions that would truly preclude you from any studying at all for a week. Could you have not just done 1 or 2 lectures a day that week?

On the other hand, I did have one classmate who had a concussion and probably had a week where he truly couldn't study and I know when he came back he had to take frequent breaks (and was encouraged to do so by his doctor). I'm sure that sucked massively for him but it also happened shortly after an exam so he had a while to catch up. It was also early enough in the year that he probably had enough time to compensate even if that exam wasn't the best. I think he wound up doing fairly well.
 
It impresses me that people will come on to SDN and spend time asking people if they can overcome obstacles that they could have already attempted to overcome by not posting on SDN in the first place.

OP, get off your bum and study.
 
Shipping News said:
It impresses me that people will come on to SDN and spend time asking people if they can overcome obstacles that they could have already attempted to overcome by not posting on SDN in the first place.

OP, get off your bum and study.
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I will also say that this is not an obstacle you should be having in the preclinical years. I get that what's done is done but I have a hard time understanding why people do this to themselves.

If you truly had to take a week for medical reasons and it was close to the exam, most med schools will work with you on this as long as you talk with them about the conflict. I have a hard time believing that a course director or dean would not let you at least take a Monday test on Friday because of a documented and legitimately interruptive medical emergency.

Other than the medical part, just don't do this to yourself. It's a bad habit for clinicals and it is a bad habit for life. When you start third year, you will have periods on some rotations where you physically do not have time to study and when you finally get some time, you need to use it. I'm sure this happens much more in residency.
 
Thought I'd provide an update.

So I ended up doing pretty well (ranked just about average in the class) for the exam.

That being said, I would not recommend ever doing this at all for any reason. It was by far the most stressful thing I have ever done in my life lol. Also, I couldn't even get through all the material. I learned about 70% of it decently well and blazed through the rest of it for lack of time and didn't even bother looking at like 3 or 4 lectures.

So, to summarize:
1.) Cramming works if you're in a pinch.
2.) It is basically self induced torture and you're gonna want to stab yourself for putting yourself in that spot.
 
Glad it worked out for you, OP. Feeling lucky that I don't have to cover THAT much material this weekend for our test. :laugh:
 
Hey SunnyDoc!

Remember when we were chumming it up in the Pre-med forums. 😀
 
NYCdude said:
Thought I'd provide an update.

So I ended up doing pretty well (ranked just about average in the class) for the exam.

That being said, I would not recommend ever doing this at all for any reason. It was by far the most stressful thing I have ever done in my life lol. Also, I couldn't even get through all the material. I learned about 70% of it decently well and blazed through the rest of it for lack of time and didn't even bother looking at like 3 or 4 lectures.

So, to summarize:
1.) Cramming works if you're in a pinch.
2.) It is basically self induced torture and you're gonna want to stab yourself for putting yourself in that spot.
Click to expand...
It is amazing how having an AX over your head can make you absorb material.
 
W19 said:
Wow... The whole neuro was a 6-week course in my school... I could not imagine being behind one week in that class.
Click to expand...
Was a whole quarter at mine. Couldn't imagine it either!
 
NYCdude said:
Thought I'd provide an update.

So I ended up doing pretty well (ranked just about average in the class) for the exam.

That being said, I would not recommend ever doing this at all for any reason. It was by far the most stressful thing I have ever done in my life lol. Also, I couldn't even get through all the material. I learned about 70% of it decently well and blazed through the rest of it for lack of time and didn't even bother looking at like 3 or 4 lectures.

So, to summarize:
1.) Cramming works if you're in a pinch.
2.) It is basically self induced torture and you're gonna want to stab yourself for putting yourself in that spot.
Click to expand...

haha the best part is, even when I've been on top of the material, I still feel like I have to cram bc my retention rate isn't nearly high enough. I need to find ways to work in periodic reviews of all the material lol
 
DoctorLacrosse said:
haha the best part is, even when I've been on top of the material, I still feel like I have to cram bc my retention rate isn't nearly high enough. I need to find ways to work in periodic reviews of all the material lol
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Yeah, I don't know man. Like when I crammed all this stuff in, at least it's fresh in my head for at least the day of the exam, know what I mean?

I actually did a few lectures where I studied beforehand, went to class, and then looked at it afterwards, and then 2 weeks later it all looked foreign to me. And it's not like you can review everything all the time because they're constantly piling material on top of you.
 
NYCdude said:
Thought I'd provide an update.

So I ended up doing pretty well (ranked just about average in the class) for the exam.

That being said, I would not recommend ever doing this at all for any reason. It was by far the most stressful thing I have ever done in my life lol. Also, I couldn't even get through all the material. I learned about 70% of it decently well and blazed through the rest of it for lack of time and didn't even bother looking at like 3 or 4 lectures.

So, to summarize:
1.) Cramming works if you're in a pinch.
2.) It is basically self induced torture and you're gonna want to stab yourself for putting yourself in that spot.
Click to expand...

I couldn't imaging doing this to myself! I'd go insane. I didn't really study to much the two days before mine. After seeing something like 8xs in Anki and reading it from the course packet 3ish xs you get so sick of the information.

All I could imaging is this won't be good for retention. Still it's impressive that you could get it all in. Hope all goes well in the future!
 
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