It’s been almost a year since I’ve posted and on hell of a ride [emphasis on hell]. Most of this past year has been a blur so I’ll keep it relatively short and simple and focus on high yield points (typical med school mentality at this point)
I went back to the rock at the end of June 2014 for term 3. Term 3 is pretty straight forward. Behavioral Sciences was a lot of psych, mental illness type things with a few drug names although that wasn’t actually heavily tested if I remember correctly. Saving that for pharm in term 5. Anyway, in terms of what I’d recommend for how to spend term 3…I personally did a lot of term 4 studying to try to front load it but that didn’t work out too well as I’ll go into in a bit. Based on my experiences, I’d recommend LIGHTLY looking at term 4 material, and going by a 3:1 ratio of term 4 : term 3 studying. About an hour of studying for term 3 for every 3 hours of term 4. You can do this every day or every week, doesn’t matter, as long as you’re familiarizing yourself with term 4 stuff so it doesn’t shock you when you get to it. In many ways it’ll overwhelm you like term 1 did but in a different way. You should also use term 3 to refresh your brain if the break wasn’t long enough, go out, explore the island etc. Once term 4 hits, you’ll feel guilty for doing anything other than studying.
This brings me to term 4. I took term 4 in the Fall of 2014 and had to repeat Pathology Spring of 2015. While going through Path for the second time, I noticed almost everything I went through term 4 was changed and so any advice I have is outdated but people who did well in term 4 of the latest term (Spring 2015) followed these tips. You’ll be taking Micro, CPD, and Path. All 3 classes are surprisingly time consuming but credit hour wise, they vastly differ. CPD and micro will take up most of your time but are worth the least. Path is the monster you should be focused on.
CPD has changed a lot. No one really knows what to expect, just hang on for the ride. Listen to what they say is testable. Trust that what they say is true and you should be fine. There will be a lot of “refer to Swartz”.
Micro, again has changed quite a bit since I took it last year. Memorize anything and everything they tell you in the lecture slides. There’s just a lot of information but the concepts themselves aren’t totally tricky.
Path is a beast. It’s totally doable and manageable if you manage your time appropriately. Taking a full courseload with path is rough so find a buddy and group study to keep yourself on pace for the 3 courses. I would recommend finding someone who learns on your pace (or faster) to help you move along otherwise you’ll fall progressively more and more behind. Make your lab time useful. Most people prep for labs but don’t actually pay attention in lab. If you want to do well in path, focus on the lecture notes. There are a million resources for term 4. Pick 1 and annotate all the lecture notes on or vice versa. Do not try to get every resource into your head because you will die, maybe even literally. It’s a lot of information. If you learn your lecture notes, learn the lab slides (be able to identify without labels), and be able to teach someone path (where your study partner comes into play), then you will do fine. Of course this applies for most courses but especially for path. I also don’t recommend more than pairs. Once you set yourself into a larger group study, you tend to go slower and are retaining less. I’ve tried it both ways and I recommend one full time study partner and maybe a larger group on weekends to go over slides etc. Most people, DES included, will tell you to use Pathoma as a resource. I used Pathoma the first time along with term 3 pre-reading and still did not do well. Pathoma is excellent to use to familiarize yourself with terms and organize your notes but don’t use it as a study tool. Lecture notes will get you the A or solid B at the very least. It’s excellent for term 5 apparently but I’ll see about that. In short, I’ve gone through this class twice, what I would recommend is to do Pathoma term 3 (try to go through all the pre midterm content or at the very least stay 1-2 weeks ahead of term 4 lectures once the term starts) and focus on lecture notes and lab slides. Do not spend more than 30 minutes prepping each lab slide but try to learn as you’re doing them. Refer only to lecture notes when making your slides, don’t look random stuff up on wiki or anything else. Just lectures and maybe Robbins if the lecture slides aren’t good enough. Same thing applies to concept maps. Do not spend more then 30 minutes doing those. They’re not important at all when it comes to your grade so don’t waste valuable study time making things barely worth anything.
With regards to taking Path twice, I don’t have any regrets about how I went through it the first time. Of course it sucked to have not been able to pass a course but it was probably for the best. I know path really well now and it’ll help me when studying for Step 1 and for term 5. I learned a surprising amount of information the second time also with the reduced courseload compared to a full one the first time I am really glad I didn’t decel in term 1 like they recommended because that made appealing the dismissal much more in my favor. For any term 1s or 2s reading this, always try to hope for the best and anticipate the worst. Term 4 is def the hardest so try your best to get through year 1 without having to decel cause you may or may not need it as an option in term 4. About 5% of students term to term end up failing path. It’s been consistent between the last 3 terms +/- 2%. It’s a tough course but if you trust the system and trust what they say you need to know, then you should be fine. Don’t try to overstudy term 4. Ain’t nobody got time for that….literally.
Last piece of advice. Refer to that sleep lecture in neuro. Sleep during term 4. Sleep before exams. Naps are your best friend but try to get at least 6 hours cause there’s a lot of thinking involved this term and you don’t want to burn out after midterms. It’s a marathon between being on the island for 6 months with term 3 and the sheer amount of info.
Term 4 is rough, there’s not a lot of great advice other than study really smart (not hard) and try to find a system that works for you. Definitely group study and stick together. You will likely know someone who will not make it through path with you so try to help each other out along the way. We’re on the same team here. Good luck.
Hopefully term 5 is going to be better.
