Summer after first year

[Idon'tknow??]

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Does anyone have suggestions about board preparation during the summer after your first your.
Should I review first year material, prepare for second year material, or study for boards?

What materials would you recommend using to study for boards?

 

[arthur v]

If you're the least bit interested in a competitive specialty (ENT, ortho, derm, rads, urology, etc.), I would spend the summer doing research in that field. Doing research with the right people (those who crank out publications and don't mind putting you on a few of them) will not take up all your time, so you will still have afternoons and weekends to enjoy your summer.

Studying for courses or boards during the summer is very low yield (as well as a major downer - this is the last "free" summer you will ever have!). You shouldn't worry about boards until the second half of your sophomore year. You'll never regret the fun you have or the publications you work on. You WILL regret squandering your time inside, poring over largely irrelevant material only to find out Step 1 was no big deal and that you could have scored the same with only a couple of weeks of reviewing with First Aid.

 

[squeek]

I agree completely with the above. Don't waste time in your fabulous, LAST summer off with the boards. You'll discover in your second year that you'll learn almost everything you need to know (and 2nd year stuff is emphasized much more on the boards than 1st year). In addition, most students say that 4-5 weeks of studying right before the boards is all they can handle. Also, 2nd year courses do a lot of review of 1st year stuff--normal physiology, etc. So don't sweat it. The best thing to do is study really hard during the courses...if you do that, you're way ahead of the game.

For my summer between 1st and 2nd years, I managed to find a paid research job that wasn't too time consuming (3 days a week, and not full days) with clinical experience (2 days/wk), worked with department heads (read: recommendation letters from good sources!) and I got a paper out of it. That's going to be a lot more useful for me when residency apps come around than spending extra weeks studying for the boards. Besides, I had FUN. 🙂

Good luck!