how do y'all manage your time?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>how do y'all manage your time? i.e. how much time per week do you spend on studying, research, extracurricular activities, socializing with friends,etc.?</p>

2

<p>During the academic year:</p>

<p>7 days therefore 168 hours...</p>

<p>55 hours sleeping
50 hours in class/studying/doing homework
10 hours research
4-5 hours ECs (a club sport)
4-5 hours working out on my own
10 hours eating
5 hours office hours (extremely important!)
The rest is spent socializing/partying.</p>

<p>That's the typical week. However, during exam weeks, the nuimber of studying goes up dramatically (and is taken away from the socializing/partying :( )</p>

<p>During finals week, I actually still spend the same time studying during the week, maybe even a little less. The reason is the fact that during normal exam weeks, I have to worry about the exams as well as classes and work for those classes whereas during finals I only have to worry about the exams themselves.</p>

3

<p>Hm. As an undergrad: I did not do any research during the school year, I had no EC's, I spent ten hours a week in class. I spent maybe three hours a week on homework and studied for about seven hours per class per semester. (That doesn't work very well for organic chemistry, by the way.)</p>

<p>Mostly I slept the rest of the time.</p>

<hr>

<p>Now, as a medical student, I spend 7 hours a day in class. If I spend another 2 hours a day studying, that'll put me in the bottom 5% of my class time-wise and probably in the bottom 20% of my class performance-wise.</p>

<p>Medical school is a whole other beast.</p>

4

<p>So are EC's basically worthless? You seem to be pretty knowledgeable about what's important for med school admissions, so I was somewhat surprised to see that you didn't have any.</p>

5

<p>EC's are very important. I did a ton during the summers. Even then, that's not a particularly good idea -- it's better to have them during the school year.</p>

6

<p>Oh ok. That actually makes a lot of sense- commit yourselves to activities when you have the time. Were any of your summer EC's connected to Duke in any way? Does having them be affiliated to the undergrad institution matter?</p>

7

<p>It's a bad idea, because you can't demonstrate continuous involvement if you only do it over the summer. It was one of the weaknesses of my application. Besides, I had plenty of time to do them during the school year. I just... didn't.</p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>Can't imagine so.</p>