To Drop or Not to Drop

For most of us it’s past the point of a clean get away. So, you have to make a decision to ride this rollercoaster marathon for four months, give or take, or have them write W on your permanent records. No pressure in the decision right? When it gets to this point, there’s no real joy in making a decision that could affect the rest of your life because there’s no definitive answer. The first thing that runs through our mind is, “Shit, I’m gonna get a W on my record, medical school admissions will basically think I’m a failure and couldn’t do it!” And if you have any investment of emotions in this, I’m sure your head comes up with even more elegant words and phrases. Or, “I failed my first exam in this class and it’s affecting all my other classes, I have this, this and that extracurricular, I don’t want a W, I have to stick it out, I have to study harder. I’m just gonna get no sleep for the next three months and lock myself in my room.”

While making your decision, remember everyone has different stories applying to medical school and with that admission’s committees have the tough job of deciphering through those and making a decision based on the whole package and not just the numbers.

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Logging Your Hours is like Showing Your Work in Math Class

Hey everyone, it’s been a few months since our last update; third round midterms, finals, the holidays, and the New Year. So, a belated good luck on finals, belated happy Holidays, and a belated Happy New Year. We hope you enjoyed your break or are enjoying your break after another semester on the belt. You have a tentative course schedule right now and you’re gearing up for another semester, if not at the front of your mind it might be doused in your subconscious.

So, before the break is over or before the semester becomes so hectic it’s not worth thinking about I wanted to bring your attention back to logging the hours you do for specific activities or regular day activities if you want to watch what you’re doing that closely. I was revising my CV for a possible research opportunity and as I was putting down the classics, you know, Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Learning to Fly, and Patching a Hole in the Ozone Layer in My Spare Time, I came across an idea I had thought of at least a year back; writing down the hours completed for each activity.

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The Interview: An Appeasing Thought for Nervousness

I was at the NAMME pre-health conference hosted by UCLA a few weekends ago. Is it just me or dot these conferences revitalize you? Since there weren’t many pre-healths there and there weren’t many schools, we all had a lot of time at the booths compared to the other conferences I’ve been too. No one else was at this table so I took the time to ask one of the admissions officers at an Illinois university about interviewing. I was just real with him, “I know I need to work on it and I’m going too but I’m not the greatest speaker when it comes to interviewing… It’s just that formal situation and…” He laughed like it was one of those questions he always gets and he said:

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Productivity: What do you care about in this world?

Mohammad and I were shooting some ideas back and forth for some posts to do and we came across productivity as something to talk about. It’s never too late and never too early to have a post about keeping your efficiency. So, I thought to myself, what’s the most important thing I can tell other premeds about being productive?

We all have our own ways of studying and our own efficiency, some can super concentrate and others need to spread it out. We also all have different priorities in our lives and they change by the year, by the month, and even by the day. Many would agree that family, partners, and children come first, and others come in sequentially.

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Lessons Learned From Steve Jobs

In Memoriam

Steve Jobs

1955-2011

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Using Psychology to Rock your Medical School Applications – Part I

Deciding what you want to portray

There was a recent series of articles on PsyBlog about the psychology of work recently. I decided to take some of their tips, along with some of my own experience and research; and apply it to medical school applications. In the next 4-5 posts I’ll discuss this concept. (For reference these are the main two articles I suggest you read from the series. [1,2]) I’ve mentioned the concept of medical school applications being a game, many times before. At the end of the day it’s a process, and those that can play it just right will win.  

I received an email a few days ago linking to an article by Scott Adams the creator of the Dilbert comic series; in this he said something that I found very interesting. “My philosophy is that losers have goals and winners have systems.” I want you guys to hold on to that quote, as I’ll return to it towards the end of this series.

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What kind of learner are you?

Do you color-code all your notes? Do you record lectures to listen to as you fall asleep? Do you re-write everything the professor says, then never look at your notes again? 

Figuring out your learning style is probably one of the most important things to do if you're a student (be it high school, undergrad, or med school). Especially in fast-paced, high-stakes situations (cough MEDSCHOOL cough), you don't have much time to experiment with different styles, or take a lot of time to internalize and regurgitate information.

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