Tips for going out of state

[Friendly MichaelMyers]

Hello. So I haven't been out of state for high school/undergrad. I might attend a med school out of state. I am wondering if anybody knows things that they did or their friends did that could ease my move-in to another state.

I am thinking about things like:

1) When should I worry about a car?
2) If I do have a car, should i use a car transporter (for farther schools)?
3) Can you get loans for renting a house?
4) If I travel in a plane, Is there a way to get a bunch of tickets or a pass (sorta like a train)?
5) Any other tips for going out of state?

Bonus: What makes USMLE step1 hard? Aren't questions fairly straightforward unlike MCAT (Yes, I looked at the questions)?

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[Tenk]

Hello. So I haven't been out of state for high school/undergrad. I might attend a med school out of state. I am wondering if anybody knows things that they did or their friends did that could ease my move-in to another state.

I am thinking about things like:

1) When should I worry about a car?
2) If I do have a car, should i use a car transporter (for farther schools)?
3) Can you get loans for renting a house?
4) If I travel in a plane, Is there a way to get a bunch of tickets or a pass (sorta like a train)?
5) Any other tips for going out of state?

Bonus: What makes USMLE step1 hard? Aren't questions fairly straightforward unlike MCAT (Yes, I looked at the questions)?

1) now unless you’re going to a big compact city like NY, SF
2) if you want? Road trips are fun.
3) they are included in living expenses
4) are you talking about for going back and forth? Start an airline credit card and start collecting miles.
5) relax

Bonus: sheer volume

 

[premeddestiny]

1) When should I worry about a car?
2) If I do have a car, should i use a car transporter (for farther schools)?
3) Can you get loans for renting a house?
4) If I travel in a plane, Is there a way to get a bunch of tickets or a pass (sorta like a train)?
5) Any other tips for going out of state?

1. Ask the medical school students / faculty at your medical school interviews / second look if you need to have a car. Generally, if you are traveling to different clinic sites (some med schools have clinic sites that you drive across the state to get to), you will need one, especially for 3rd year and 4th year.

2. For fun road trips and bringing your colleagues, yeah.

3. Rent and other living expenses are included in the Cost of Attendance, and you will get student loans for them.

4. Start an Airline Credit Card, put all of your living expenses on that card, and pay it off immediately with your student loans so you can rack up free miles.

5. Talk to current med students about the best places to get living arrangements; be selective with finding roommates; call your family every now and then.

 

[mrbreakfast]

Bonus: much of the MCAT tests problem-solving and deductive reasoning; despite taking it years ago I'm pretty confident I could smash the verbal (and probably the new section) tomorrow if I had to.

Step 1 is 98% book knowledge and there's no single "book" with the info you need. You get questions like "a construction worker comes to your clinic complaining of cough and flu-like symptoms and has some skin lesions on his shoulder. Which of these 10 treatments is appropriate?" If you can't both figure out the diagnosis and know the treatment from that, you're guessing with a 90% chance to get it wrong. The volume of knowledge from which you can be asked questions dwarfs that of the MCAT.