Study efficiency tips for dental school?

[riba]

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Hello, I'm going to be beginning dental school this year and am currently taking my last prerequisite this semester... Ideally I would like to use this last course as a "practice run" so to speak for study skills. I achieve good results with my current study technique (go to lecture->write notes->create outlines of notes on white printer paper). However, this method can be time consuming and I'd like to experiment with some new styles to see if I can speed up my process a bit and get more bang for my buck timewise.

Any tips would be appreciated! Thank you 🙂

 

[Faux]

I think writing notes on white printed paper would be a bit time consuming. Its not unusual to fall behind like that, but thats just my opinion.

I had a 3.1 for the first semester and ranked 40/90 that time, so nothing insane. I never took more than 12-13 credits in college. Didn't go to class much and just watched lecture videos. If anything , I watched them too much and should have just focused more on power points and old materials.

Have an open mind and don't expect anything. I thought histo would be my easy A and biochemistry would be the death of me. Got an A in biochemistry and just scrapped by with a B in histo, getting a 68 on the first exam lol.

I did flash cards for everything but that just became a drag by second year and just started reviewing power points a few times. Just use your time effectively. Quantity doesn't always equal quality. Its a marathon, not a sprint. The material isn't difficult, its just a lot. Stay on top of it.

Whatever happens, keep your spirts up. Learn from your mistakes, don't beat yourself too much. I think the emotional weight I put on myself during the first semester made it extremely difficult for me. Just try and keep perspective about things. Dental school is more of an emotional battle than an academic battle. Then again, I had more "interesting" concerns outside of school during my time here, which made me not stress out as much as my peers about academic matters.

 

[Sweet_Tooth]

I think the best way is to go over a powerpoint once and take your time to really understand it. Go over stuff again real quick the next day if you need to really solidify your memory. When exam time comes around, go over the powerpoints again. I usually go over them 2-3 times total by the time I take an exam.

Do you find that this works for you? I'm also in my last semester of undergrad and that's how I've started studying for a lot of my courses, just looking over the powerpoints, highlighting/annotating certain parts and trying to verbalize the concepts/explain them outloud in my own words, I've found that that works for me, my question is, do you find that to also work for you during dental school in terms of time and in terms of memory?