10 Things To Get Before Your First Semester Of Medical School

10 things to get before your first semester of medical school

I’m almost done with my first semester of medical school!

Thank all the stars.

In celebration that I have 2 weeks left, I’ve come up with a list of the things I should have had the moment I started to make my life easier. These are nothing more than suggestions to anyone who will be starting soon. Remember, it’s a personal experience, and everyone’s will be different, and it’s what you make of it. I just like sharing.

And if you’ve got something to add, please do!

1. Netter’s Anatomy Flash Cards

If you even have the thought that you might want them, just get the stupid cards. These suckers have saved me anytime I have been stuck somewhere and I need to study. You can grab them between breaks, read them on the couch, make games out of them. Anatomy really doesn’t vary in terms of material and everyone takes anatomy.

2. A bunch of those 70 cent notebooks

But Sass, you say, I want the nice notebooks! And you get those lovely book bound notebooks with the heavy paper (if it so pleases you). BUT you’re going to need scratch paper, And yes you can use regular ruled paper or computer paper. BUT if you aren’t a fan of “holy crap I wrote something important on that paper” situations or if you’re a compulsive hoarder (we all become hoarders in med school) it’s just so much easier to have these cheap-os.

3. Some kind of calender

I don’t care how you do it, but do something. Use Google Calender, get a planner, put sticky notes everywhere, get a whiteboard calender DO SOMETHING. You may not realize it yet, but medical school says “hey we need every inch of brain power and long term memory you have” so believe me when I say, you will forget so many things if you don’t put it somewhere.

4. A good pillow

Despite how it might seem, sleep is a necessity, not a luxury. So why make yourself have a harder time getting to sleep? Quick answer, don’t. Do what you can to make it easy for you get whatever amount of sleep you’re getting (every second counts). A great pillow is the simplest solution, though comfy bed sheets or a fluffy comforter can help too.

5. Reliable internet

First of all, the majority of medical education now functions via the computer, you need internet. Secondly, I know we are living off “future money”, but current you will be a much happier person if your internet doesn’t constantly cut out. Even if you study at school all the time and are never home are you gonna lie and say you don’t lose your mind watching netflix (or any variation) because the video won’t buffer? If nothing else, invest in this.

6. An arsenal of writing utensils

You will need good pens that make you happy (you need happy). You will also need pens you know you will not miss you never see them again. You will need board markers because whiteboard learning is a gift. You will need highlighters because neon yellow is the calling card for need to know. You will need pencils because we live in a world of mistakes.

7. Vitamin D

*Disclaimer I am not a doctor, this is just a suggestion, ask a medical professional to know if you should take any supplements* Do you wanna know a vitamin most people are deficient in? Vitamin D. Do you know where we get Vitamin D from? The sun. Do you want to know how often first year medical students go outside? If you guessed “only when they remember” then you are correct. Some of us are lucky enough to be outside. The rest of us need a bit of help.

8. Snacks

Not just any snack. A good, reliable, filling and hopefully healthy snack. Med students come in three varieties when it comes to eating. Eats like a normal human, eats out a lot, and forgets to eat. I fall into the last category because I just don’t have food with me. So find a snack that makes you fall into the first category .

9. A phone that works and can access wifi

At the minimum, you need this. You need a way to stay in contact with the people who matter to you, to be notified when you’re in the library and their about to be a quiz, when you’re still new to this hole med school thing and you get your first text from a new friend. You’ll want to pull up grades on the fly, or see that they changed a class in your email. You just can’t avoid it, you need a phone that gets you connected.

10. Confidence in yourself

Let me tell you something about medical school. It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done so far. It’s endless hours of learning words you didn’t even know existed, things you may never see again, and pictures you can’t even grasp. It’s a world full frustration and of feeling like you aren’t good enough, or as good as everyone else. But you are. You made it this far and you can do this. So if there is one thing you do get, let it be this. Let yourself believe you can do it, and that you have the ability to be successful.

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Advice

Don’t Let Calculus D(e)rive You Mad

I was always one of those people who thought some people were naturally good at math and if I wasn’t one of those people then there was nothing I could do about it. I thought I wasn’t “a math person” and would use that description as an excuse. Is math one of my weaker subjects? Sure but that’s mostly because I let years of bad habits get in the way of my current work. This caught up to me in my first semester of calculus (calc I) at university, where calculus was my worst class. Here’s the thing: if you’re not “a math person” make yourself one. In my second semester of calculus (calc II) I improved my mark by an entire letter grade (something I never thought possible). How? Through hard work and by understanding that I would have to work harder than some people because of my past study habits.

Know your pre-calculus well! You will struggle so much if you forget the basics. My prof said not having a good grasp of the basics is the number one reason why students will struggle with calculus. Invest time before/at the beginning of the semester to really review the stuff you learned in high school. (Khan Academy is the best way to review, in my opinion. They have challenge questions you can do for each section. Try a couple of questions for each section. If you can’t answer the question easily, watch the accompanying videos for that section first. Do this for sections you forget or know you struggle with.) Be confident in your basic mental math too, especially under pressure. I wasn’t allowed a calculator on any of my midterms or finals for calc and you don’t want to waste time on easy math that you should know lightning fast anyway.

Attend every lecture, especially if you’re even slightly confused. If you’re behind, try not to get even more behind by skipping class (obviously use your own judgement, but don’t skip unless it’s totally necessary). Don’t sit near the back of the class if you know you won’t pay attention.

Don’t just sit there and copy down notes. Be attentive in class and follow along with examples the best you can. If you get lost at a certain step in a problem put a star beside it. After class, study and attempt the problem on your own. If you still don’t understand, go to a TA or prof for help. They will be able to provide better help if they can see exactly where you got lost.

Keep your notes simple. I would use either blue or black pen for the majority of my notes and use one other colour to emphasize parts of my notes (indicate where I got lost, circle important follows, highlight which section of the textbook the class was at, etc.) Keep your notes neat and leave a gap, if you fall behind during a lecture (just remember to get the notes from someone else later). I also recommend using a grid paper notebook, for when you need to draw graphs.

Get a mini notebook! I bought a tiny notebook for cheap and filled it with a (very) condensed version of my notes, throughout the semester. I wrote down common derivatives and integrals, shapes of common graphs, important theorems and formulas, etc. This is especially helpful for calc II, because you’ll have all the necessities from calc I handy.

Advice for using Maple for math labs (if this applies to you): Pay attention to tutorials and ask questions. Complete as many assignment questions as you can in the lab/when a TA is present. If you have any other assignment questions to finish up make sure you work on them at least a few days before they’re due, so you have time to ask for help if you need it. Also, Maple can be a stupid program. You could be missing just one number, letter, or symbol and it won’t work. Or you could have it exactly right and it still won’t work (retyping your input in a new worksheet usually helps). To remedy these issues, I would work on assignments with friends and compare what our worksheets looked like. Oh and TAs love if you give your variables funny names or change the colours of your graph, because they’re all nerds (and so are you, so embrace it).

Do as many practice problems as you can. Calculus is a class where you learn by doing. Do questions till you understand the concept. If problems are recommended, treat them as if they’re actually due (otherwise you’ll just tell yourself you didn’t have enough time to do any practice problems). My number one mistake was not doing enough practice problems and just assuming I knew how to answer the problem (if you can’t answer the entire question from start to finish, then you don’t actually understand the concept).

Please don’t fall behind. Stay on top of things and prioritize what needs to be done (i.e. treat practice problems from the chapter you just learned on equal footing with the lab report you have due – if you treat it as a priority, you will get it done). But, if you do fall really behind, don’t wait until it’s too late to ask for help. Just remember, there’s always something you can do (even if you feel like you don’t know anything and there’s not enough time for any practice problems before your midterm). Identify what you need to learn before you can do anything else (i.e. work on understanding basic integration before you try to do something more complicated like trigonometric substitution) and fit in as many practice questions as you can.

Don’t give up! If you don’t understand a concept right away you just have to keep trying! For practice problems, try to find an answer without looking at your notes. If you can’t figure it out from there, look in your lecture notes and textbook for any relevant formulas, examples, or similar questions. Try to answer the problem again. If you get it, be sure to fully complete another practice problem without any outside references. If you can’t figure out an answer then you should seek help from another person!

Don’t forget everything you learned at the beginning of the semester – review, review, review! Check out this explanation on the curve of forgetting. If you continually review what you learned, for only short periods of time, you will remember so much more and save yourself time in the end!

Utilize the resources available to you. I have a list of online resources at the end of this post, but don’t overlook what’s right in front of you. Go to your prof’s office hours, ask a TA for help, and take advantage of any tutoring or study groups. My uni has a math and science centre where upper year students are always available to help other students with practice problems. If you join a course union, they sometimes offer free tutoring.

Study in a productive environment. This varies by person but personally I need a quiet environment, with ideally no noise or only instrumental music, bright/natural lighting, and nothing to distract me (I hide my phone and only have one pen or pencil out). If you like to listen to music when you study, math is one of those subjects where you can listen to music with words.

Improve your test-taking skills. (1) On an exam, understanding a concept is no use if it takes you forever answer the question. Do lots of practice problems till you immediately know how to answer any kind of question. Speed can be key on exams. (2) My strategy is to flip through the exam booklet as I get it. I answer the questions I can do easily, first, and leave the really difficult ones till the end. (3) Show all of your work! Don’t lose marks because you didn’t show all of your work. (4) Expect your exams to be challenging and prepare accordingly. Overlearn the material. Prepare specifically for the exam by completing past exams/practice exams in an environment that mimics the test-taking environment.

Get every mark you can, because the little marks make a big difference. If you don’t know how to answer a question on an exam, write down any formula or theorem that could relevant. If you try to figure out a solution and know that it’s most likely incorrect, but don’t have enough time/knowledge to find the correct answer, just leave your work there (don’t erase it). There’s always a chance you could be on the right track or nice markers will give you a point or two for trying. Something is always better than nothing.

Focus on the applications of calculus (it’ll make the semester a whole lot more interesting)! A physics major won’t necessarily use calculus the same way a bio or chem major might, but that doesn’t mean some calculus isn’t useful for all of those majors to know. I’ve always planned to major in biology and looking ahead at classes I will need calculus for biostatistics and genetics classes. Never tell yourself something isn’t useful because then you’ll never treat it like it’s useful. Also, my prof taught a whole lecture about how calculus could be used to account for all the variables that could affect population if a zombie apocalypse ever happened, so obviously calculus has at least one really important use :)

Resources

A bit of advice: These are called resources for a reason. It’s okay once in a while to use some of the resources to find a full solution for a practice problem, but don’t abuse it. It is so so easy to just look up the answer but you’re only hurting yourself in the end.

Desmos (Online graphing calculator - I’ve made it through so far without actually buying a graphing calculator)

Khan Academy (Step by step videos and practice questions! You can go your own speed with the videos! My top recommendation!!!)

Paul’s Online Math Notes (If your prof doesn’t provide you with decent lecture notes, these ones are great!)

Symbolab (They have a calculator for derivatives, integrals, series, etc. and I like the way they split up the steps to solve.)

Slader (find your textbook on here and they’ll give you all the solutions to questions!)

Textbooks: I used the Single Variable Calculus: Early Transcendentals (8th edition, by James Stewart) and it was awesome. The way it was set up and all the examples really helped me (I just wish I had used it more)

This post by @quantumheels is seriously fantastic (and she has lots of good advice for other topics too, one of my favourite blogs)

My Other Posts:

AP lit tips, high school biology, how to ace intro psych, organization tips, physics doesn’t have to suck: how to enjoy and do well in your required physics classes, recommended reads, reminders for myself, using your time wisely on public transport, what i learned from university (first year), what i learned from high school

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reference math

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swirlspill-study

2 years ago

14/03/19 - Some more technology notes and diagrams. A slow but productive day today!

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Inspiration

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swirlspill-study

7 years ago

100 days of productivity || day 2

In the progress of making notes for my Psychological Statistics exam. I don’t get this shit 😭😭

#studyblr #originalpost #studyspo #psychblr #100daysofproductivity

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Inspiration

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swirlspill-study

2 months ago

Hey guys, so I’m nearing the end of my senior year, and it’s been great so far! I accomplished my academic tasks efficiently and didn’t burn myself out, and I think the main contributor to my success as a student is my organization system. This system has been refined throughout my high school years, but I think now I’ve finally found the most effective methods.

Please remember that this isn’t the only organization system you can adopt; this is just the one that works the best for me, and I hope that by sharing it with you, you’ll gain a new perspective on how to stay organized as a high school student.

The first thing I wanna talk about is my notebook system, which I briefly mentioned in my Guide to Note-Taking.

My notebook system comprises three types of notebooks: the Everything Notebook, the subject notebook, and the revision notebook.

The Everything Notebook

The first stage is in-class notes. I only bring one notebook to school every day. I call it my Everything Notebook, and this is where I write down all of the notes I take in class. This way, I don’t have to lug around six notebooks where I’m only going to use a few pages in each of them that day.

Subject Notebooks

At the end of the day, I would revise my notes and compare them to the syllabus so I know where we are in the learning process. I would then transfer my class notes from my Everything Notebook to my different subject notebooks. This is stage two. I also start to jazz up my notes because I use the notes in my subject notebooks to study for tests.

In addition to my class notes, I include material from my teachers’ notes that they might not have elaborated on, as well as points in the syllabus (I’m currently taking A2) that were only glazed over briefly, or not at all, in some cases. (Note: this does not mean they completely skip a chapter or topic; it’s more like they missed a few bullet points that should be in my notes but aren’t. An example would be if we’re learning about phenol reactions and the teacher forgot to mention the use of FeCl3 as a test for phenol.)

Revision Notebooks

Stage three comes a little later, when exam week is just around the corner. Essentially, I rewrite and improve my notes from my five different subject notebooks into a single revision notebook or binder. (Recently, I’ve opted for a revision notebook because they’re lighter and easier to carry around.)

Because my teachers don’t always teach in the order of the syllabus, the first thing I do is organize my notes according to the syllabus. I would then fill in any other missing gaps in the material that hadn’t been filled in stage two.

When compiling material for my revision notebook, I use as many sources as possible: my own notes, my teachers’ notes, youtube videos, online sites, and my favorite, the mark scheme! I add in some answers from past papers (explanations only, so no calculations) mainly to secure marks. It’s safer to memorize definitions straight from the mark scheme than from the textbook or from handouts. I also do this to ease my memorization, especially for topics that require lengthy explanations. It’s a lot easier to remember the 6 points I need to explain the principles of NMRI than to remember everything in the four-page handout my teacher gave me.

Folders and binders are essential to organizing your papers. Some people keep a single accordion folder for all their papers, but for me it’s just too heavy to carry around all the time. The same goes for subject folders that are brought to school every day.

Instead, my binder/folder system comprises my Everything Folder and my subject binders.

The Everything Folder

The folder I carry with me to school every day is this A4 folder I got from Tokyu Hands. It has 5 pockets, one for each day of the week, so all the papers I receive on Monday will go behind the first divider, and so on.

Some people also keep blank papers in their folders; I don’t because my school has its own lined paper and graphing pads that I keep under my desk that I use if a teacher asks us to do an assignment on those papers. If I do work at home, I prefer to just use a plain A4 paper or a legal pad.

Subject Binders

At the end of the week, I’ll sort my papers into my subject binders. Sometimes I’ll keep some papers in the folder if I think I’ll be needing it the next week. This usually only applies to worksheets because all my teachers’ notes are available on Google Classroom, so I can access them even if I don’t physically have them.

Each of these binders have sections inside them:

Physics: 1 for handouts, notes, and tests, 1 for Paper 4 (Theory), 1 for Paper 5 (Practical Planning). I included extra tabs to mark the different topics in the handouts section.

Chemistry: same as Physics.

Economics: 1 for Paper 3 (MCQ), 1 for Paper 4 (Case Study and Essay). A lot of my Economics material is online, though.

English: 1 for Paper 3 (Text and Discourse analysis), and 2 for Paper 4 (Language Topics, which includes 1 for Child Language Acquisition, 1 for World Englishes). Past papers, handouts, and notes all go under their respective topics.

Mathematics: I just keep everything together because I never revise math and just constantly do past papers.

This makes it easier for me to revise each subject because I can just take one binder with me instead of a messy folder with everything just shoved in there.

I keep a magazine file for each of my A-Level subjects (English and Mathematics are combined). All my textbooks, revision guides, and subject notebooks are kept here, so if I need to revise one subject, that’s the magazine file I’ll take out.

These magazine files prevent any small things (like my book of flashcards) from being shoved to the back of my bookshelf, or materials from different subjects from getting mixed up.

In my senior year, I mostly plan using this app called Edo Agenda. It syncs across all my devices for free and has all the features I need: a to do list to organize tasks, monthly and weekly calendars to organize events, a journal to organize notes and memos.

I used to bullet journal regularly, but it takes too much time during weekdays, so now I just bullet journal for the therapeutic effects it gives me, and I use an app for organizing tasks and events. Sometimes at the end of each week, I’ll transfer my tasks to my bullet journal and then decorate the page, but again, this is just for its therapy.

Organizing your school supplies is just as important as organizing your papers and notes. With a more organized backpack and pencil case, you won’t waste time looking for your things at the bottom of an abyss.

Pencil Case

I don’t find it necessary to bring so much stationery to school unless I plan on making notes at school (usually during revision week).

Backpack

Because we’re already in the revision term, I don’t really carry a lot of things in my everyday backpack, just the following:

Pencil case

Everything Notebook

Everything Folder

Revision notebook

Kindle

Phone

Wallet

Earphones

Calculator

Speaker

Drinking bottle

A pouch with things like a hairbrush, pads, and lip balm

And that’s all for now! I hope this post will help you organize your school life (if you haven’t already) or at least provide some useful insights on some ways to stay organized as a high school student.

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reference organization

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