Surviving and thriving in first year

Hey, Congrats! You got accepted to medical school! Nice!

So now that you’re in - how do you succeed?

They say that learning in med school is “like drinking from a fire hose” - it can be overwhelming.

But don’t worry! There are four basic ways to make sure that you’re in control - you can work on your study skills, create healthy habits, manage your money, and avoid getting overloaded with your options.

Let’s start with study skills.

In short, how you study is just as important as what you study.

You might have made it through college by cramming the night before a test, but that’s not going to get you through med school successfully.

Unlike different subjects in undergrad, in med school the information builds upon itself - meaning that just because you finish a class, you can’t forget what you learned.

So there are some proven learning strategies that you should take advantage of - like interleaving, where you mix up the order of what you learn.

As well as spaced repetition, where you study material over different periods of time depending on how well you know that information.

Both of these strategies help you retain information and maximize the effectiveness of your study time.

It so happens that the Osmosis learning platform incorporates these strategies to make them an automatic part of how you study.

Now, in addition, some students love studying in groups initially, and then splitting off to work alone, whereas others like to do the opposite.

The key here is to figure out what works for each class, and be willing to experiment until you feel like you have an approach that works.

Alright, so next, you should make sure you develop healthy habits.

Days will get busy when you are in medical school, so it’s important to get plenty of sleep, exercise, and eat healthy food to keep you performing at your best.