What will college be like?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>hey, i just got accepted into the university of pennsylvania, and i am going to go pre-med. Ive wanted to be a doctor since childhood and im so happy that i just took the next step toward my goal! </p>

<p>however, i wonder if college will be any different. i know that premed is the hardest thing you can take, so much studying and dedication will be required. i can do that - that's what i've been doing all throughout my highschool years in order to keep my 4.0 gpa up.</p>

<p>however, i did not have much fun during highschool - while my peers partied and socialized, i was studying for various things. I've never done many of the things my peers have done (still a virgin, never had a girlfriend, etc). By no means am I a loner - i'm actually well-liked by my peers, and i probably could go out and get a girlfriend right now if i wanted but i just dont have the time (i actually turned a couple of girls away because i was so focused on getting into college and stuff, and didn't want to be distracted). </p>

<p>I feel like i just want to relax a little bit in college and maybe have more fun. will that be a possibility if i am taking premed courses? if i am constantly studying for the extremely difficult courses, doing all the extra-curriculars that med schools like, etc, then will i have enough time for anything else? </p>

<p>thanks a lot!</p>

2

<p>Relax! I'm pre med too, and so far I'm keeping up a 4.0 GPA and its not that hard as you make it sound. College is pretty fun, I really like learning so my friends say I'm kind of weird. Another than the great learning experience, you get to meet so much people in college. There are various organizations and clubs you can join. College is pretty chillin, but one thing I advise you to do is to make a schedule. That way you can study enough to get all A's and have plenty of time to chill with your friends. College is not as bad as it sounds. </p>

<p>PS, get a girlfriend and break your damn virginity already.</p>

<p>Good Luck with everything</p>

3

<p>It depends hugely on you. How efficient you are, etc. It depends a lot on what you eventually major in and where you go to school (Penn's a tough school). There's no sane way to answer this.</p>

4

<p>heyy - congrats on penn. i'd like to personally welcome you to a fantastic school :)
premed here is tough, to say the least. my first sem was rather crappy but seriously, it's too damn easy to have fun here. so i doubt you'll be stuck with nothing to do but study. schedule your time well and be efficient during the day/week. your nights/wknds will be the parts of college you'll actually remember. gluck! and holler if you've got any qs & whatnot.</p>

5

<p>1) pre-med is NOT the hardest thing you can study, it's challenging because of the competition that comes at the end when you have to apply to medical school. But the coursework itself is not as difficult, as say, some of the engineering disciplines.
2) A 4.0 is not a requirement to get into medical school.
3) College is about the easiest place ever to have a good time.
4) Despite #3, you sound like the type of person who will have to allow yourself to have fun. Lighten up...seriously.
5) Medical schools want you to be well-rounded. You have to be able to relate to other people, so finding time for hobbies and friends and such is important, because those are the types of things other people do.</p>

6

<p>How can you find time to do a lot of ECs during the year and still maintain a high GPA? I just finished my first semester in college and I had no time whatsoever for ECs. I haven't received all of my grades yet, but I am praying for a 4.0. I don't know how you guys do it, but I guess that I have high aspirations, not just for med school, but hopefully for an MD/PhD degree (although I don't think that I have a good shot compared to the smart ppl from ivys). I guess that I will do most of my ECs during my breaks from college.</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
How can you find time to do a lot of ECs during the year and still maintain a high GPA?

[/quote]
By:</p>

<p>1.) Not aiming for a 4.0.
2.) Working efficiently.
3.) By being able to handle our coursework without spending all day on it.</p>

8

<p>If it's taking you 6 hours or more per day to study in order to earn A's in your classes, then you really need to stop what you are doing and assess how you are studying. While studying longer is one way to get good grades, studying smarter is a way to be a success - not only in college, but also medical school and in life. </p>

<p>Remember, med schools want it all and will reject people who completely (or even just marginally) fail in a single important area. EC's, volunteering, and leadership experience (and at quite a few schools - research) are all part of the equation. If you can't figure out how to manage all those areas at the same time, then you might as well kiss med school goodbye. Besides, not being able to do multiple things (including social events) is a pretty miserable way to live your life.</p>

9

<p>Then how does one study less than that? Only one of my classes requires me to study that much and that is biology.</p>

10

<p>Again, study smarter. Part of success in college is being adaptable in your study methods to fit the professor's teaching style.</p>

<p>The best example I can give of poor study habits is a poster (who will remain nameless) who asked me through PM about studying for chem. This poster claimed to be spending multiple hours each day going through review problems in their chemistry text book, claimed to know how to do each problem very well, but was getting high D's and low C's on exams. I asked the poster how much of the exams were coming from the book. They said, their syllabus noted that 95% of the material would come from lecture. To that, I said "STOP DOING PROBLEMS OUT OF THE BOOK!". This poster, was obviously misallocating time but, because they had always studied through practice problems didn't see anything wrong with the way they were studying and couldn't figure out why they were getting bad grades. They absolutely were using the wrong method with the wrong material for that class, and as such were suffering. </p>

<p>The other issue is with prioritizing information. This is an absolute medical school necessity (although it may not always translate to the best grades). You have to focus on the big picture and the "can't miss" stuff. Most of your time should be spent on information that is the most important. This may not always be apparent, but simply asking yourself "out of this lecture what are the things I'd tell someone who wasn't there?" should help. </p>

<p>Finally, the most time-intensive "recommendations" I've ever seen for incoming college freshman suggest studying 4 hours a week for each hour of time spent in class (and I personally would never suggest more than 2 hours). So if you have a lecture that meets for 50 minutes 3x a week, you should never spend more than 12 hours a week on that class. If it's a class with lab, treat the lab as a separate class and only prepare for the lab during time that corresponds with the amount of time spent in lab. Of course, test weeks require you to increase the ante, but that should be the only exception to the max of 2 hours per class hour per week suggestion. If you can't get good grades with this amount of studying then you must readjust your methods.</p>

11

<p>Okay, thanks to you guys for all of the insightful replies! </p>

<p>I am currently holding down school, work everyday after school, plus lots of extra-curriculars, so I feel as if I would be able to do many things at one time. in 10th grade, I even did lots of research in addition to all of my other activities! i guess that this is a good sign that I might be able to make it during my college years. </p>

<p>i made a deal with myself saying that i'd study my ass off all week, but friday night through the weekend i would have fun no matter what. is that a good plan?</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
i made a deal with myself saying that i'd study my ass off all week, but friday night through the weekend i would have fun no matter what. is that a good plan?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Might be, might not. If you can handle everything well given that schedule, then it's a great idea. If you can't, then it's not.</p>

13

<p>I made a similar deal (though mine was thursday through saturday...ahh college!). Certainly there were occasions when I had to stay in on some weekend nights, but for the most part those were few and far between.</p>

<p>It worked extremely well and it seems like I had more fun in undergrad than most of my med school friends...</p>

14

<p>Don't jump the gun yet. Wait until you actually begin college before making bold statements because you can never be funny prepared for something until you experience it first-hand. It's good to be exposed to a demanding schedule and still have time for a lot of ECs, but college and high school are 2 very different things.</p>

15

<p>Btw bigredmed, I totally understand what you mean when you say that I shouldn't devote too much time to a sing class, but the problem is that none of my classes are curved, so whatever I get, I get. Before I start each class, a set curve is given and prof hardly ever deviate from it when they do our final grades. Also my bio prof, next term grades on a bell curve and ever question on his exam is "which of the following is the most incorrect" and every answer choice is correct. I am not complaining here, I am just explaining what my situation here is. As a result, I need to devote most of my time to that class just for the simple fact that that class is a med school pre-req and that teacher is the only one who teaches that class. Most of my friends who took that class were only able to attain B's and C+'s, which looks horrible on med school apps. So that is why I need to devote all of my time to that class.</p>

16

<p>Do what you need to do. However, I will say that it's probably okay to sacrifice a few GPA points (if you're getting a 4.0) in order to get some EC's in. In college, there is generally severely diminishing returns on your studying after you're at the B/B+ level, meaning you can study for 5 hours a week on a class and get a B+ but you may need to study 15 hours a week to get the A. In the end, I'd rather have a 3.7-3.9 GPA with 20 hours of EC's than a 4.0 GPA with 5 hours of EC's/wk.</p>

17

<p>Wait you 20 hrs of ECs per wk? That is amazing and crazy. That is like 4 hrs of ECs per day. I do have an EC, a lab position to which I will devote at least 5 hrs next semester, though i will try to devote more.</p>

18

<p>Research is research, clinical experience is clinical experience and EC's are EC's. By this I'm saying, research falls into a different category than EC's (at least in my book). You need to have some campus and community involvement as well, and hopefully some leadership positions as well. </p>

<p>20 hours seems like a lot, but maybe not here's how a week broke down for me while in undergrad:</p>

<p>Monday:
Fraternity formal dinner and chapter meeting - approx 3 hours (sometimes as short as 90 minutes, sometimes upwards of 5 hours.)</p>

<p>Tuesday: Hospital volunteering for 3 hours
Prepare for my meetings the next day - 1 hour</p>

<p>Wednesday: Arts & Sciences Student Advisory Board Meeting - 1 hour
Greek Ambassadors meeting - 1 hour</p>

<p>Thursday: Work lunch at job (waited tables) - 3 hours
Omicron Delta Kappa meeting - 1 hour</p>

<p>Friday: If HS senior campus visit day - 4 hours of various activities
Mentor elementary school student - 1 hour</p>

<p>Saturday night: work at job - 8 hours
Sunday: work at job - 6 hours</p>

<p>So 3 hours on hospital stuff, 12 hours on purely EC's and 17 hours at work. That of course assumes that I only took 1 hour to prepare for meetings a week, which, especially as a senior holding down the VP position in ASSAB and Prez in Greek Ambassadors, was definitely on the low side. There were also semesters when I was TA'ing for a leadership class, in which I was doing at least 8 hours of work for that class a week.</p>

<p>The biggest thing was just setting aside the time. When preparing to schedule classes for the next semester, I'd set up a spreadsheet and block out the times that I knew I'd be doing something. That way there was always time, and I didn't over-schedule one day when I had a lot of things going on during the week (usually Wednesdays and Fridays). I would move my work schedule around as needed, and things worked out.</p>

19

<p>I now understand what you mean. Well you have had a ton of ECs. For now this is only my freshman year, which is no excuse for not having ECs, but I am slowly trying to add more of them little by little so that I do not commit overkill. Next semester I am adding research because I like it. During the summer, I will do some shadowing. Then next yr I want to TA a class and possibly do research. I mean it also depends what classes one takes and stuff like that. Some days I felt that I did not have enough time to eat. Also, one's schedule also depends on how many credits they take. I am taking 14, but next yr will be tougher with orgo and bio lab. Who knows, I just hope that it will get easier, even though I doubt it.</p>

20

<p>is it better to do the smaller ECs during school and save the bigger ones (research, internships) for the summer?</p>