What changes did you make to your study habits?

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wheelin2vetmed

wheelin2vetmed

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So, as I finish my undergrad and this chapter of my life, I've come to the realization that I sort of figured undergrad out. I found a study system that works extremely well for me: the tools, the advanced preparation, the amount of time my brain needs to learn material, etc.

It works, but I know I ain't seen nothing yet compared to vet school.

Those of you who felt like I do about undergrad, how did things change once you started vet school? Specifically, what still worked, what didn't, and what advice do you have (other than the fact that the amount of material is going to be nuts)?
 
I just kept doing the same thing (and got worse, but still OK, grades). Probably not the best technique if you want awesome grades. 🙂 Like DVM said, it's not that material in vet school is difficult, it's that there's just piles and piles of it.
 
More coffee and alcohol. Less sleep.

Honestly, just be organized and try to keep up with things, and even then accept that there might be those times where you end up with a test in days/hours and you still have several (all of them?) lectures you haven't even read once yet since class. Or maybe that's just me :whistle:
 
I can't say that my study habits changed very much, rather the frequency with which I had to use them increased big time. If you're a good student (I wasn't 👎) that's used to tailoring your routine to whatever you find works, you'll be fine.

I was, like everyone else, super-duper apprehensive about the course load before I started school. But I've got to say, once I school started and the tests started rolling in, I found that I slipped into my routine very organically. You'll find what works for you, others will find what works for them. You really won't know until you're sitting there in the drivers seat.

Thank being said, it's all completely doable. Just keep doin' what you're doin' and you'll know the changes that need to be made.
 
I started studying earlier for tests/exams (in undergrad I didn't start studying until 1-2 days prior to a test/exam). And I made a study schedule for finals period, which surprisingly helped a lot.
 
Be prepared to change your studying methods throughout your first term/year. What worked in undergrad might not work in vet school. If you find that what used to work no longer does, give it up and try something else. Just be flexible. You won't have time to learn the material as well as you want to (or at least I don't) but that's ok. Just keep swimming, keep trying, and keep adapting.

Also, I use different methods for different classes. I learn physiology best with outlines and drawing pathways and color coding outlines of my outlines. Anatomy is better suited for flashcards/hands on learning in the lab. Histology is a mix of outlines and flashcards. It's different for everyone.
 
I had to drastically change my study methods in vet school. In undergrad, it worked well for me to type up a study guide, print it off and then draw, underline and highlight it. In vet school, the study guides just became too long and detailed for me to be able to remember enough of it to do well on the exams.

So now I just use my lecture notes as the guides (because I strongly prefer to have a hard copy reference) and then use Anki. I'm not using Anki to it's full potential though, instead just use it like other flashcard programs when I want, but it does a 293487209348x better job of sticking stuff in my brain than traditional programs with the timed repetition. I don't think I can say enough good things about it.
 
Second Anki. It's like the best thing ever. I would make flashcards as I learned the material of things to memorize. Would end up with anywhere from 300-600 cards per exam. I usually finished making them about 4 hrs before exam and crammed it all in by just focusing on the flashcards. The format of Anki is so perfect for this type of thing. Really efficient for rote memorization. I just kept putting the cards back in the pile until I got it, and pulled them out as I got them. Usually finished going through the cards 15-30 min before the exam, just enough time to pee and grab a coffee.
 
There's a 2013 thread where a ton of people talked about different techniques they used that was really good. I can't figure out how to link it on my phone. It's like "what is the best study method for vet school" or something like that, and I raved a ton about Anki in more detail then.

Minnerbelle said:
I pretty much do what sov does for 2 days before the exam and the morning of. I don't go to class or read or anything until at least that week before the exam (basically I won't even know what the exam is about). Then 1 week out, I go "crap maybe I should start looking at stuff," but don't get far because I end up prioritizing everything else in my life (research, clinical experience, vet visits, scheduling externships, scholarship apps, tv, SDN, etc...). Three days out I start panicking because I've only looked at 2 lecture hours worth of material (of 25-28 total), and decide to sit down to study. But there's still time left so instead of efficiently studying important points (for test minutia and what's really important for practice), I end up distracted by one or two sentences that don't make sense or contradict each other, and spend hours researching primary literature and crap on something that will NEVER matter. I also go to bed super early to gear up for the marathon that is going to happen in the next 48 hrs.

Two days before exam, I wake up hyperventilating that I still have 22+ lecture hours of stuff to see for the first time, learn, and memorize. Fml. So the cramming begins. I start making my flash cards. By T-30 hrs of exam, I am at 15 hrs of material left. Fml. But I want to sleep so I snooze for another 6 hrs. 24 hrs left, I emerge from my slumber as superwoman. I haul ass from like 8am til 1am and miraculously finish making my whole deck of flash cards (avg of 400 cards though it can be as high as 750). Literally, they are detailed enough that you will not get <95% if you studied just the cards. Then I shout hallelujah, and head for my bed and set my alarm for 4 am. I get the most bizarre dreams during these few hours as my brain tries to synthesize the info. I wake up with a strange sense of calm, shower, and head for school where I spend until exam time going through my flash cards. Usually I'm able to finish going through it once and jot down on a couple pieces of paper things that i MUST memorize (numbers and crap i dunno why they make you memorize, but they do). I spend like 15 min before the exam cramming those in. Then it's game time.

Then I'm spent for the day so I go home and nap for a ridiculously long time. I tell myself that I will be better next time and start studying the next day... But it never happens. I think I secretly like the endorphin rush that comes from knowing that the next 24 hrs will be the difference between flunking out of vet school and glory. My long term retention has been pretty good, so I don't worry too much that I'm just "cramming for the exam and not learning" as a lot of people will insinuate.

I can't wait to finish taking the navle and state boatds so that I can say in done taking exams for the rest of my life.
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Minnerbelle said:
I loooove my flashcard software, and use it pretty much exclusively to study for any exam. It's called Anki, and you can get a free desktop version (recommended). You can also access it via web through ankiweb, but the web interface is pretty crappy so I wouldn't do it. The software dude really wanted to make it accessible for people, so he doesn't charge anything for the web/desktop versions, and instead charges a pretty big but totally worth it IMO price for the phone app (~$30). It syncs easily between all 3. I know a lot of medical students swear by it too, so I don't think I'm an anomaly. If you do get the phone app though, make sure you are tech savvy or have a tech savvy SO, because it can be a huge pain in the butt to sync to your desktop version.

The great thing about it is that when you're studying the cards, it sticks the cards you've gotten wrong back into the stack and keeps preferentially giving it to you until you tell it you've got it down cold. Pictures, audio, you name it. I personally only use the cram mode, which makes you flush through all the cards in a deck at once, but if you're more disciplined than I am, you can review a subset of your cards daily. When you do that, it will preferentially make a deck of things you need to work on, as well as add in some new ones to the mix. The program is made to enhance learning. What I love about cram mode, is it keeps track of how much time you spend on your cards on average for that deck, so it projects how long it will take you to finish that deck. So when I only have 4 hrs to go through the deck before the exam, it's really easy for me to pace myself accordingly.

Best part of all, you can search all of your cards. So once you make your cards, if you forget something and need to look it up, you can search for a term, and any card that has that term on it will pop up. When studying with other people in the room, and someone asks a question, I can usually find the answer fastest by searching my cards. Great for that last minute before the exam freakout "What are all the diseases for this test that brachycephalics are prone to!?" Things like that aren't always easily searchable otherwise unless you specifically made a list of them.

Another feature I like is that you can make templates so that you can automatically make 2 cards by filling in very few words. So if you wanted to make a set of cards for pathognomonic lesions and the diseases they go with, you can set it so that all you need to do is insert a picture/name of that lesion, and the name of the disease. Then you'll get 1 card that asks "What is the pathognomonic lesion that occurs with ________ disease?" as well as another card that asks "What disease is this _________ lesion pathognomonic for?"

I literally make flashcard decks that include almost every single testable fact, and as seen in my post above, I can get it done even with procrastinating. Once I make my cards, I don't look at any other material. I've used it for well over 50 vet school exams.

I guess it won't help if you're not a flashcard kinda person, but if you are, I think this program is bomb-diggity!

Edit: That is very anti-feminist of me. It can be a tech savvy friend or random stranger. No need to rely on a SO.
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Minnerbelle said:
OHHHHHH And I forgotted. EVEN BETTER! You can label your cards within a deck. I tend to label them by lecture, and you can study just specific labels. So if you're iffy on one lecture, you can study just that. And it's really not that big a pain to label these cards. You put a label for the first card, and every subsequent card will have that label until you change it. If you make a mistake and absent-mindedly forget to change it, you can bulk change it later on the organization page that lists all your cards.

Can you tell, I love this app? It's seriously flashcards on steroids.
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To be serious, my studying methods changed with each year and each class. I would start with flash cards then never get to finish them. I find the writing down of information was what helped me with flash cards and I have a difficult time condensing information into small segments, I tend to copy things verbatim. So, clearly, that wasn't working for me.

I did a mix of reading out loud, outlines, web diagrams, and basically quizzing myself as I was reading material/making notes. I tend to be an auditory learner, so lectures, re-watching lectures, reading out loud and quizzing myself is what really worked for me. Though it really did depend on the class. Pharmacology, for example, I just had to buckle down and get those flash cards done, because you are only going to get all of the information in via repetition. Same with parasitology.

Physiology and anatomy, I had to apply it to clinical cases and then quiz myself. I'd often go, "ok if I remove cortisol, what happens? What does cortisol normally do? What is the 'opposite' of that? Is that what will happen, why? Why not?" etc, etc.... that really forced me to have to know how things work and what they do which then really quickly lead to understanding treatment and how treatment works.
 
I'd also make big posters like this:

10439344_10100885969142808_3051160409343058425_n.jpg


And hang them on the walls.
 
I'm going to give Anki a shot after hearing 2 of you recommend it.

I've used the premium version of Quizlet religiously, but Anki looks like it might be a bit more powerful.

My combination of study tools comes down to a pennabled Windows tablet, OneNote, some image modification in Photoshop, and Quizlet. Taking notes with a true stylus in OneNote has probably been the biggest organizational and productivity change in my academic life; the program is just incredibly powerful. First semester freshman year, I had paper, a bunch of books, pens, pencils, etc. Pages would get ripped out, I'd run out of lead, forget a book, have to print out lecture slides. Now, I just import the lecture slides into OneNote, and annotate right on top of it. Everything immediately syncs to all my devices, and I have 3.5 years worth of my undergraduate studies at my fingertips at all times. I can search for words or phrases globally and it will pull up the specific page whether it's my handwriting or from a printout. That's what I use to write down information.

For memorization, I do 2 things. Stuff seems to stick in my head better, especially if it involves diagrams and structures, if I draw it over and over again. So I take the diagrams, and using a little Photoshop magic, edit them to remove all pertinent arrows, words, and structures that may serve to give me hints (I really get a little too nerdy with this). I then make study pages in OneNote that has the blank diagram and the full diagram next to each other. Here's an example (note how I cleaned up the vessels to look like the wording never existed lol):

Notes.jpg


This allows me to sit at my desk and practice drawing over and over and over again. Before I'd have to print out pages or draw everything from scratch. Now I can just draw using a stylus, swipe over, check my work, then erase everything and do it again. Finally, I take all the information from my lectures and make Quizlet decks. For the most part (depending on which class is more challenging and requires more time) I finish all my decks for each test 1-2 weeks before the exam. I can then top up my knowledge and study from my smartphone, from my tablet, from my desktop, when I'm eating lunch, any time.

I think this system works well, but I doubt I'll have as much time to dedicate and prepare once I'm in vet school. It just seems like tons of information flies at you way too fast.

Thanks for the suggestion about Anki.
 
It sounds like you've already got a decent foundation to stand on.

I will second OneNote. That made my last two years of undergrad sooooo much easier. Not to mention how much better it was only having to carry a ~2lb laptop with me instead of a half dozen notebooks and accessories.
 
ketoone said:
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad with pen that I've been using with OneNote, and it's just been an awesome experience. It is incredible how well it works, and it's nice to have the best of both worlds: the convenience of digital storage and the benefits of writing notes out physically. This clunker's on its last legs, I think, but I hope to buy a new ThinkPad (does Lenovo even manufacture them anymore?) or Yoga if/when I go to vet school. I lurf my laptop.
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You've come to the right person when it comes to computers and current tech. I know too much. Shoot me a PM and I'll help you find your next machine. Yes, Lenovo is still pumping out ThinkPads, but they have some new products coming down the pipe and there are some really good alternatives as well. Totally depends on your needs and what you're looking for.

Let's just say I'm always buying and selling hardware. I've had 4 different machines this year alone. I have issues. I consider a field trip to BestBuy to look at new machines a fun way to spend a few hours.
 
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wheelin2vetmed said:
You've come to the right person when it comes to computers and current tech. I know too much. Shoot me a PM and I'll help you find your next machine. Yes, Lenovo is still pumping out ThinkPads, but they have some new products coming down the pipe and there are some really good alternatives as well. Totally depends on your needs and what you're looking for.

Let's just say I'm always buying and selling hardware. I've had 4 different machines this year alone. I have issues.
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Omg, I'm happy to finally know someone tech savvy... Technology and I are not friends. It took me 3+ years to really learn how to use all the features on my MacBook and even still I'm not sure if I'm even using it to its full potential or not! And I dabble in photography but have never been able to use photoshop or other editors well.
Is the Anki everyone is talking about the one for $25 on the App Store? Or is it a computer program?
 
If you wanted to give Anki a try, you can just as easily pop in the unlabeled diagram as a flashcard if you wanted it go in queue with everything else so that you don't need to go between multiple study tools. I did that a lot. Just took pictures and diagrams and put blank boxes on it quickly on the computer.

It's more a method of strategic repetition to get things to stick. So if you're going with it, the more stuff you have in one place, the better it's going to be.
 
hazelmoo said:
Omg, I'm happy to finally know someone tech savvy... Technology and I are not friends. It took me 3+ years to really learn how to use all the features on my MacBook and even still I'm not sure if I'm even using it to its full potential or not! And I dabble in photography but have never been able to use photoshop or other editors well.
Is the Anki everyone is talking about the one for $25 on the App Store? Or is it a computer program?
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You can download the desktop version of Anki for free here: http://ankisrs.net/
 
Minnerbelle said:
Yup and you can sync it to your phone for convenient studying with the app.
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You try Quizlet? What's different with Anki? I'm going to explore Anki to see if there's different features, but Quizlet is completely web based and doesn't require you to download anything. The free version is full-featured except for audio and pictures which cost $15/yr. Same sort of deal with the app from the iTunes/Google Play stores.
 
in undergrad i rewrote all my notes by hand to study. that died very very quickly in vet school. i ended up outlining notes via word document, but even that got to be completely excessive and out of control. i was not the best of studiers in vet school, i got lucky that i could still hold my own despite my slacker habits. i mean, why study when you can go scuba diving? meh.
 
Instead of 1-2 nights of studying before an exam, I do about 4 nights. Sometimes longer, sometimes less depending. I do my studying in blocks according to what tests are coming up that week. I use notecards rarely for pharm and immuno but otherwise not much.
 
I personally love the flashcard program StudyBlue. It sounds similar to what the others are describing. The thing I really like about it is that you can vote up or down if you know a card and it keeps track of percentages, how many times you have studied each, etc. After you feel you know a card well enough, you can hide it from the deck and it will only give you the ones you don't know. I would not have survived without it in undergrad.
 
wheelin2vetmed said:
You try Quizlet? What's different with Anki? I'm going to explore Anki to see if there's different features, but Quizlet is completely web based and doesn't require you to download anything. The free version is full-featured except for audio and pictures which cost $15/yr. Same sort of deal with the app from the iTunes/Google Play stores.
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Anki has an app but you can also just use it in the browser. I have a link to it in Safari saved as an icon on my iphone. Completely free! I don't use it for every class but it's a pretty bomb study tool
 
wheelin2vetmed said:
You try Quizlet? What's different with Anki? I'm going to explore Anki to see if there's different features, but Quizlet is completely web based and doesn't require you to download anything. The free version is full-featured except for audio and pictures which cost $15/yr. Same sort of deal with the app from the iTunes/Google Play stores.
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Nope never tried so I can't give you a comparison, but all I know is that Anki worked extremely well for me. It's the algorithm of repetition that it uses that made info sink into good memory that worked so well. Traditional online flashcards like studyblue didn't work for me because it was just a stack that didn't prioritize info that you weren't getting well. I know people who went through med school and loved Anki as well.

On quick search: (I bet SDN med/premed search of Anki will likely also yield some answers)

https://m.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/2eneal/ankiwhy_do_you_guys_like_this_so_much/

https://m.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/2xx8dx/anki_vs_quizlet/
 
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Quizlet has some artificial intelligence, but it seems like Anki's intelligence is more advanced.

What I like about Quizlet is that you can play games with your cards and you can generate tests. I also like the look of it a little better.

By the way, is there any way to make Anki's interface look nicer? In my experiments with different study techniques, I am finding that it helps my motivation when I enjoy the way a program looks.

@wheelin2vetmed I thought about trying the premium version of Quizlet, but it didn't seem like the extra features would help me. How have you been making use of them? *curious*
 
For my particular school's testing method, I found study guides and flashcards to be only slightly helpful so far. We have all of our subjects on one huge test. Having 60+ pages of study guides for one test (our profs do send out lecture objectives, that's how I make them) in size 8 font gets to be a little overwhelming. Flashcards are excellent for rapid fire, but I find that they stop working for me when I try to write out questions or put too complicated concepts on them. Regardless of the methods you choose, you need to stay on top of everything. To me, that's the most important part. I know of a few classmates who were starting their study guides a few days before the test. That may work for a few people, but I think you'd rather have those few days to use study guides you finished weeks ago.

I definitely want to echo the 'it's not necessarily harder, it's just a lot more' statement. Also, seek help if you don't understand a concept. Ask the professor before/during/after class, ask a friend who gets it, whatever.

In undergrad, my studying was scattered at best. I didn't really have a 'method.' It sounds like most of you guys do, so don't worry too much.
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
Regardless of the methods you choose, you need to stay on top of everything. To me, that's the most important part. I know of a few classmates who were starting their study guides a few days before the test. That may work for a few people, but I think you'd rather have those few days to use study guides you finished weeks ago.
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This is one of those things that really depends on the person. To each his own really. You do what you have to do to get by. Even better if you can thrive on your method. For some people, vet school is their entire life for the 4 years they're in it. Nothing wrong with that, cause I mean that is what you're there to do and that's what you're paying an arm and a leg for. You absolutely need to find some method to get you through the curriculum. You are there to become a veterinarian, and vet school provides you the skills and knowledge you are supposed to know through their curriculum after all.

But for others, vet school is just a means to an end, and the vet school curriculum isn't the end all be all for veterinary education. I found that there was a lot lacking in the vet school curriculum of things I wanted to know and skills I wanted to learn to become a competent vet. I wanted to minimize the time I needed to spend doing "vet school." I wanted to have as much clinical exposure as possible outside of the curriculum, I wanted to network, I wanted to be very involved in my research projects. I didn't want to spend weeks making study guides because that meant that I wouldn't have time to do the above. Every week, I was usually able to spend 1-2 whole days doing vet stuff outside of school, and at least a whole day with my SO totally away from it all. That was very important to me. I was still in the top quartile of my class, and had excellent reviews throughout my clinical rotations. In practice, I've never been in a situation where I couldn't remember stuff where I went "huh, if only I'd studied more throughout vet school, I might know this."

At the end of the day, as long as you can get through your **** and not fail, and hopefully become good doctor material, it doesn't matter how you go about it. Just like no one diet is good for all dogs and cats, no one study method or even a broad type of method works for everyone.
 
Rofl. I was usually watching the lectures for the first time the last couple days before a test, nevermind having study guides ready to study from. I don't have a great class rank by any means, but I've received pretty darn good feedback so far in clinics and feel like I'm on my way to being a solid practitioner. I would definitely have a better walkaround knowledge if I was a better student in the first years of vet school, but at this point... if I don't know something about a case, I try and look it up beforehand. If I'm asked something I still don't know, I don't futz around - I tell the clinician I don't know but that I will make sure to figure it out. I've had a total of one comment about this in all of clinics so far, and it was from my very first rotation where I literally knew jack ****. :laugh:
 
Trilt said:
Rofl. I was usually watching the lectures for the first time the last couple days before a test, nevermind having study guides ready to study from. I don't have a great class rank by any means, but I've received pretty darn good feedback so far in clinics and feel like I'm on my way to being a solid practitioner. I would definitely have a better walkaround knowledge if I was a better student in the first years of vet school, but at this point... if I don't know something about a case, I try and look it up beforehand. If I'm asked something I still don't know, I don't futz around - I tell the clinician I don't know but that I will make sure to figure it out. I've had a total of one comment about this in all of clinics so far, and it was from my very first rotation where I literally knew jack ****. :laugh:
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Not knowing an answer to a clinician's question on clinics scares me. I know it's very clinician dependent, but I've already seen 3-4 fourth years get eye rolls because they didn't know the answer to something.
 
Yeah, I never had study guides or notes or flash cards days before an exam. Heck, some exams I was quickly reading through material the night before. (I'm not suggesting that people do this, just that it is different for everyone).

There were times I cursed myself under my breath while frantically studying the night or two before an exam, but looking back on it, I wouldn't change it. I was cursing myself in that moment because of frustration and exam panic, which would happen no matter how many days I had been studying.

I am also getting really good reviews on clinics. I feel like the information is all there, it is just a matter of finding where my brain stored it and then figuring out how to apply it to a particular case. As clinics progress, the information is becoming more readily available and I am having to look up less because I just recall things. I admit when I don't know but I will find out and report back what I find. Have yet to have any be upset with that. You can't know everything right off but you should know how to find information.
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
Not knowing an answer to a clinician's question on clinics scares me. I know it's very clinician dependent, but I've already seen 3-4 fourth years get eye rolls because they didn't know the answer to something.
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YtkMwFT.jpg


One of the most beloved vets I've worked with tells clients she doesn't know things all of the time, because she doesn't. Doesn't stop her from successfully treating a lot of animals and having a long list of appointments requesting her specifically as the vet.
 
Yeah I've seen plenty of vets tell clients they will look something up. I've had doctors do the same with me! I don't think anybody can be expected to know every little thing, especially if it's not something you see a lot.
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
Not knowing an answer to a clinician's question on clinics scares me. I know it's very clinician dependent, but I've already seen 3-4 fourth years get eye rolls because they didn't know the answer to something.
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don't let it. Saying I don't know is a valuable skill. Sometimes, clinicians will even pimp students to get them to the point where they would have to admit it. Not admitting you don't know (or saying you'll go look it up) is a much bigger flaw.
 
Trilt said:
Rofl. I was usually watching the lectures for the first time the last couple days before a test, nevermind having study guides ready to study from. I don't have a great class rank by any means, but I've received pretty darn good feedback so far in clinics and feel like I'm on my way to being a solid practitioner. I would definitely have a better walkaround knowledge if I was a better student in the first years of vet school, but at this point... if I don't know something about a case, I try and look it up beforehand. If I'm asked something I still don't know, I don't futz around - I tell the clinician I don't know but that I will make sure to figure it out. I've had a total of one comment about this in all of clinics so far, and it was from my very first rotation where I literally knew jack ****. :laugh:
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This is me as well. My class rank is in the toilet but I am by all means not a bad student, especially in the last two lecture based years. I just sucked at first year. I ended up prioritizing things outside of school because I feel like I'd be completely miserable all the time and didn't want to completely hate vet school.

I usually wound up studying the night before or possibly 2 days before an exam. First and the first half of 2nd year I never had all my study guides done before the night of the exam. I too was often listening to 5+ hours of lecture for the first time before the exam. Heck there were times I never even covered a lecture and had my friends tell me the key points.

Now that I'm in clinics, I do sometimes wish I remembered a bit more because so many of my classmates seem to know everything, but I've only had one rotation comment on my lack of knowledge so far and I honestly had other stuff going on in life at that exact moment so I wasn't horribly bummed out about it.
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
Not knowing an answer to a clinician's question on clinics scares me. I know it's very clinician dependent, but I've already seen 3-4 fourth years get eye rolls because they didn't know the answer to something.
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I was just recently called unacceptable by someone for not knowing the answer. I just said okay and rolled with it . You're going to have to be ready to accept that you won't know everything and most clinicians realize that (this is kind of expected from this particular person and is not by any means the norm here) Any other time, I either try to figure out the answer, or I just say I don't know but I'll get back to you with the answer.
 
I was a s*** student. My GPA and class rank suck. However, I am doing great on clinics. My clinics GPA is really high, and I wouldn't trade a thing.

First year was really hard for me as well. I was a copier of notes studier and it just didn't work with the amount of material. I read over study guides (that were made by classmates or upperclassmen), wrote down things that didn't stick, read through ppts, and quizzed friends. For pharm, I felt that flashcards were helpful, and I liked flashcardmachine because they had a quiz mode where they showed you one flashcard and 4 answers. It helped me.

But I've always been a crammer. Despite my best intentions, that didn't change in vet school.
 
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