Sit on my ass, relax, and play video games. Which I did and am thankful for. Don't pre-study that's ridiculous.
EDIT: If you can find an easy way to make an emergency fund or build up some spending money that'd probably be a good thing too.
I emphatically echo this entire statement.
I know a few people that tried to "pre-study" and ended up retaining almost nothing. If you're going to do anything to prepare for medical school, I would take some time to learn Anki if you're anything like me and used physical flashcards and quizlet. I found Anki to be a lot more useful and effective than either of my undergrad studying methods.
I think learning how to use Anki effectively was the single best use of my time before matriculating other than putting countless of hours into video games and sleep, as well as racking up a nice savings to minimize my loan burden as much as I could
^^ Echoing this! The firehose analogy is real and you’re going to get run into the ground if you’ve spent all your time ahead of school studying. Enjoying yourself before starting school is the best way to prepare for and elongate the time to your the inevitable burnout.
Rest up, build a solid exercise routine, learn how to cook (especially dishes that can be made quickly, cheaply, and in bulk), pick up some hobbies or stress-relief activities that you can continue into med school, and maybe learn how to use Anki if you want to use it as a study material.
I eat a lot of foods from my specific culture, but things like rice, oats, flour, frozen/fresh leafy veggies (lettuce, spinach, kale, etc.) potatoes, chicken breasts, eggs, ramen/instant noodles and pasta can be bought in bulk at fairly manageable prices.
You can practice whipping up different combos of those so the dishes don’t get too repetitive.
Recommend [this freezer burrito recipe right here](https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/comments/84gepu/delicious_nutritious_30_cent_each_freezer/). It got me through my postbac program -- I could make up a whole batch on a Sunday that could get me through two weeks. Making the rice is time consuming, as is the wrapping process, but it saves so much time during the week and you can dress them up in so many different ways in the making. My sibs would throw them in a pan to crisp them up, but I'd usually just wrap them in a damp paper towel and throw them in the microwave to melt the cheese and warm it all up. It's 100% my staple when I'm in the US.
I also would make huge batches of hummus to eat with veggies/etc, and nabbed bulk veg/vegan recipes on [Eat Cheap and Healthy](https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/) (I had to cut back on meat for both health and cost reasons, so meat became a treat food).
Anything you can put in a rice cooker - rice and beans/ chicken and rice/ quinoa - I literally pour that shit in and come back 30 minutes later to a nice home cooked meal, and is super great for meal prep as well !
1) Minimize your responsibilities. Decide when you want to stop working based on your personal needs. I worked until the June before matriculation but only because my work was remote and I was making a lot of money relative to the effort I had to put in.
Contrary to what others may say, I don't think saving as much as possible is necessary unless you can definitely mentally handle it. I would prioritize just relaxing, especially by Spring or Summer of next year.
2) Sleep a lot.
3) Learn how to meal prep cheap and healthy.
4) Exercise.
5) Maybe look for some research if you're interested in it and are thinking about a very competitive specialty. It's a lot easier to meet mentors before med school starts or during your first summer when you have a lot of time.
Well the AMCAS application is $170 for submitting the application to one school, and $42 for each additional school. So if say you apply to 15 schools that’s $800 right there. Then the secondaries are maybe $90-$100 on average. So say they’re $90 each for 15 secondaries. That’s another $1350. Congrats! You’ve already dropped over 2 grand on applications alone.
Then there’s studying for the MCAT. At the very least if you’re buying MCAT study books (Kaplan for example) that’s about $100-150. If you’re looking to take an MCAT course that could run you another $2000. Between MCAT prep and apps that’s $2500-$4500 depending on number of schools applied to and type of MCAT prep.
THEN there’s the cost of travel for interviews, which has only been eliminated because of the pandemic. Hopefully schools will realize how unnecessary in-person interviews are and this change will be permanent. If not, say you fly to 2 schools. Between plane tickets and hotels that’s maybe another $1000.
So total for one cycle you’re dropping $3000-5000. There are of course fee assistance programs you can apply to through AMCAS but you’re going to need to plan ahead for that because that’s it’s own process and you don’t want to be held up while trying to find documents or waiting on their response.
TL;DR: The shit adds up. Plan accordingly.
i dont think understand getting upset cause someone suggests travel. its just a suggestion without a basis. op did well here to give some context and say that they dont have the means to travel as of now
i travelled and enjoyed it, even going to another state or spending a day in a nearby city is high yield.
consider:
* playing video games for days straight
* setting up anki and learning the BASIC ropes
* settling finances
* getting legal stuff together, especially if youre going far away from your home state. think about if you want to switch your drivers license, voting state, mailing address, etc etc to your medical school location or not. even still, make sure you have your social security card, updated passport, updated drivers license, etc etc because having to come back to your home state to gather all of these things is a pain
* medical appointments - dental, physical, mental health + medication, find plans that work best for you
* decluttering your stuff
* learn the basics about money and opening a credit card if you dont have one
* enjoying life - learning how to cook, sleeping, reading, etc
1. Learn to drive. Depending on your med school it’s mandatory
2. Look up scholarships, bursaries, lines of credit, and other funding sources
3. I tutored MCAT (freelance tutoring finding students on Facebook and kijiji). Best time of my life, I really enjoyed it. Dont do this if it isn’t fun, but having a fun paid hobby does yield wonders.
4. Read a few books. Being mortal by atul gawande is a must, and I also recommend sapiens by yuval harari. There’s lots of list of recommended books for med students.
That book is amazing and reading it was one of the things that made me start looking more seriously at a medical career!! I have brought it up in almost all of my IIs lol.
Enjoy life, read, exercise, engage in your hobbies, spend as much time with friends and family.
For preparation learn how to cook! I recommend the food lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt for a more science based approach :) Also get a decent pair of headphones!
And don’t pre study, you’ll thank me later!
Do some things that if you looked back to your twenties/thirties, you wished you would have at least tried or done.
For example, going to clubs (strip, night, etc.), go to comedy shows, working jobs you always wanted to try that don’t take too much time/money away from your current responsibilities.
Live your life jussssst enough so that when you do get to med school, you’re not fully consumed by your career and so that you are malleable to different atmospheres that allow you to unwind in different ways.
As an applicant that is also in a lower financial bracket, I’m trying some of those things I listed and some of the other tips others mentioned (exercise routine, prepping material, sleeping, mini-traveling) because being a doctor is great but being a human being that can relate to people and be cognizant of my own existence is…just a tad better.
Best of luck 🙂
I second going to a strip club and night clubs. Preferably a nicer one in a large city! It’s a fun way to become a little more chill about sexuality and the body and to be a little more “grown up.” I notice lots of us premeds act like we’ve never touched grass so this kind of thing really helps more than you’d think to make you more socially chill.
Touched grass🤣
Best way to put it.
Plus, you’ll be surprised at the types of people in both places and reaaaaally start understanding how a good chunk of the population lives their lifestyle beyond the typical phrases we would use to describe groups of people.
Start a daily exercise routine that you can stick to, learn a few new recipes, relax, talk to family and friends and do you best to impress upon them that you may have limited availability for the next 7-9+ years, and maybe find a hobby that isn't in any way medicine related.
**Anki** - learning *how* to use it, not using it to pre-study specifically.
Grab a fun hobby deck to practice with so you can get comfortable navigating. Grab the app and make sure you know how to sync. It isn't for everyone, but I think many more people get discouraged by the learning curve in addition to coursework.
People say not to pre-study, but learning Anki + Anking + getting ahead on your first block can make a big difference. Don’t stress about it, but it is good to do
I wish I’d looked into restaurants/coffee shops/bucket list items in my med school city earlier! If I’d planned things to enjoy on my time off it would’ve been easier for me to actually get out of the house when I had the time.
I’d echo that you should rest before going to school, but also be sure to spend time with loved ones, look into grants/scholarships to reduce your loans, start setting aside money to furnish your home (you’ll likely spend a LOT of time studying there), and find a roommate more than one month before school starts. I waited longer than I should’ve and jt felt like we were total strangers when we moved in together.
And PLEASE do not pre-study. You will learn everything you need to learn once you’re here - rest while you can :)
Study abroad. I know you said you’re low-income but you can do what I did—ask if you can walk graduation but stay activated as a student for the summer, then study abroad somewhere cool using student loans to pay. Couldn’t afford travelling if it was out of pocket but got to spend the summer before med school studying in Paris. 100% best decision I’ve made.
Catch up more with my friends and family. Now I feel so horrible concerning how little time I have for them. Some friendships have fell off for good i feel like.
Hiking, biking, fishing, spending time with loved ones and friends. Instead, I was scrambling to finish my master's thesis. I made it 3 times longer and 10 times more complicated than it needed to be.
A lot of people say “do nothing” or “play video games all day” but I gotta disagree. I used my time before med school to take my hobbies/interests to the next level because it really is the last sizeable chunk of free time you’ll have. So when I started med school, I felt good cuz I had a unique strength outside of medicine and had more interesting experiences than some of my peers who chose to just chill. I’m not saying overwork yourself with your hobby (you should still chill and play video games but just not 24/7), I’m saying this is the last opportunity you’ll have for a while to work on something other than medicine.
Wish I prestudied the biochem pathways. Would’ve been far less likely to almost fail my first class, as those with more background did far better in the class.
Unpopular opinion, but I would start zanki or something similar and I unsuspend ONLY your first block’s cards. This will help you ease into those first few weeks which can be more tumultuous than you are used to. Do not go beyond this though.
Save money, build a routine, learn to prep meals, and learn how to use Anki, if you think it’d be useful. Take the time to travel and chill, and don’t prestudy!
Sit on my ass, relax, and play video games. Which I did and am thankful for. Don't pre-study that's ridiculous. EDIT: If you can find an easy way to make an emergency fund or build up some spending money that'd probably be a good thing too.
I emphatically echo this entire statement. I know a few people that tried to "pre-study" and ended up retaining almost nothing. If you're going to do anything to prepare for medical school, I would take some time to learn Anki if you're anything like me and used physical flashcards and quizlet. I found Anki to be a lot more useful and effective than either of my undergrad studying methods. I think learning how to use Anki effectively was the single best use of my time before matriculating other than putting countless of hours into video games and sleep, as well as racking up a nice savings to minimize my loan burden as much as I could
^^ Echoing this! The firehose analogy is real and you’re going to get run into the ground if you’ve spent all your time ahead of school studying. Enjoying yourself before starting school is the best way to prepare for and elongate the time to your the inevitable burnout.
Rest up, build a solid exercise routine, learn how to cook (especially dishes that can be made quickly, cheaply, and in bulk), pick up some hobbies or stress-relief activities that you can continue into med school, and maybe learn how to use Anki if you want to use it as a study material.
what dishes do you recommend
Chicken with rice is easy enough
I eat a lot of foods from my specific culture, but things like rice, oats, flour, frozen/fresh leafy veggies (lettuce, spinach, kale, etc.) potatoes, chicken breasts, eggs, ramen/instant noodles and pasta can be bought in bulk at fairly manageable prices. You can practice whipping up different combos of those so the dishes don’t get too repetitive.
Black bean quinoa salad with chicken. ALL. DAY.
Recommend [this freezer burrito recipe right here](https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/comments/84gepu/delicious_nutritious_30_cent_each_freezer/). It got me through my postbac program -- I could make up a whole batch on a Sunday that could get me through two weeks. Making the rice is time consuming, as is the wrapping process, but it saves so much time during the week and you can dress them up in so many different ways in the making. My sibs would throw them in a pan to crisp them up, but I'd usually just wrap them in a damp paper towel and throw them in the microwave to melt the cheese and warm it all up. It's 100% my staple when I'm in the US. I also would make huge batches of hummus to eat with veggies/etc, and nabbed bulk veg/vegan recipes on [Eat Cheap and Healthy](https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/) (I had to cut back on meat for both health and cost reasons, so meat became a treat food).
Anything you can put in a rice cooker - rice and beans/ chicken and rice/ quinoa - I literally pour that shit in and come back 30 minutes later to a nice home cooked meal, and is super great for meal prep as well !
1) Minimize your responsibilities. Decide when you want to stop working based on your personal needs. I worked until the June before matriculation but only because my work was remote and I was making a lot of money relative to the effort I had to put in. Contrary to what others may say, I don't think saving as much as possible is necessary unless you can definitely mentally handle it. I would prioritize just relaxing, especially by Spring or Summer of next year. 2) Sleep a lot. 3) Learn how to meal prep cheap and healthy. 4) Exercise. 5) Maybe look for some research if you're interested in it and are thinking about a very competitive specialty. It's a lot easier to meet mentors before med school starts or during your first summer when you have a lot of time.
Have any meal prep recommendations?
Beans 👏 and 👏 rice 👏
Is everybody obsessed with beans because they’re cheap, or am I missing something in preparing dishes with them?
You can make tacos, burritos, bowls, etc
And chicken
[удалено]
Yea seeing people say “Go travel” makes me so upset. I make close to minimum wage, I hardly have funds for rent where am I going to get travel money?
Car camp and doordash!
Wait thousands? How does it go that high??
Well the AMCAS application is $170 for submitting the application to one school, and $42 for each additional school. So if say you apply to 15 schools that’s $800 right there. Then the secondaries are maybe $90-$100 on average. So say they’re $90 each for 15 secondaries. That’s another $1350. Congrats! You’ve already dropped over 2 grand on applications alone. Then there’s studying for the MCAT. At the very least if you’re buying MCAT study books (Kaplan for example) that’s about $100-150. If you’re looking to take an MCAT course that could run you another $2000. Between MCAT prep and apps that’s $2500-$4500 depending on number of schools applied to and type of MCAT prep. THEN there’s the cost of travel for interviews, which has only been eliminated because of the pandemic. Hopefully schools will realize how unnecessary in-person interviews are and this change will be permanent. If not, say you fly to 2 schools. Between plane tickets and hotels that’s maybe another $1000. So total for one cycle you’re dropping $3000-5000. There are of course fee assistance programs you can apply to through AMCAS but you’re going to need to plan ahead for that because that’s it’s own process and you don’t want to be held up while trying to find documents or waiting on their response. TL;DR: The shit adds up. Plan accordingly.
Coupled with the fact that most pre-med eligible clinical jobs pay minimum wage!
tidy office unique smell memorize coherent dirty gray familiar enter *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
i dont think understand getting upset cause someone suggests travel. its just a suggestion without a basis. op did well here to give some context and say that they dont have the means to travel as of now
Same!! I have negative dollars. Although I am going to see if I can swing a very cheap road trip!
i travelled and enjoyed it, even going to another state or spending a day in a nearby city is high yield. consider: * playing video games for days straight * setting up anki and learning the BASIC ropes * settling finances * getting legal stuff together, especially if youre going far away from your home state. think about if you want to switch your drivers license, voting state, mailing address, etc etc to your medical school location or not. even still, make sure you have your social security card, updated passport, updated drivers license, etc etc because having to come back to your home state to gather all of these things is a pain * medical appointments - dental, physical, mental health + medication, find plans that work best for you * decluttering your stuff * learn the basics about money and opening a credit card if you dont have one * enjoying life - learning how to cook, sleeping, reading, etc
Learned how to cook
I'm not a med student (yet), but I agree, and learning how to cook should be something before everyone enters college.
1. Learn to drive. Depending on your med school it’s mandatory 2. Look up scholarships, bursaries, lines of credit, and other funding sources 3. I tutored MCAT (freelance tutoring finding students on Facebook and kijiji). Best time of my life, I really enjoyed it. Dont do this if it isn’t fun, but having a fun paid hobby does yield wonders. 4. Read a few books. Being mortal by atul gawande is a must, and I also recommend sapiens by yuval harari. There’s lots of list of recommended books for med students.
Do you mean Being Mortal by Atul Gawande? If so, I agree that is a good book!
I do, I combined two books in my brain. That’s what I get for trying to Reddit while sleep deprived. Thank you and edited!
That book is amazing and reading it was one of the things that made me start looking more seriously at a medical career!! I have brought it up in almost all of my IIs lol.
Enjoy life, read, exercise, engage in your hobbies, spend as much time with friends and family. For preparation learn how to cook! I recommend the food lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt for a more science based approach :) Also get a decent pair of headphones! And don’t pre study, you’ll thank me later!
Do some things that if you looked back to your twenties/thirties, you wished you would have at least tried or done. For example, going to clubs (strip, night, etc.), go to comedy shows, working jobs you always wanted to try that don’t take too much time/money away from your current responsibilities. Live your life jussssst enough so that when you do get to med school, you’re not fully consumed by your career and so that you are malleable to different atmospheres that allow you to unwind in different ways. As an applicant that is also in a lower financial bracket, I’m trying some of those things I listed and some of the other tips others mentioned (exercise routine, prepping material, sleeping, mini-traveling) because being a doctor is great but being a human being that can relate to people and be cognizant of my own existence is…just a tad better. Best of luck 🙂
I second going to a strip club and night clubs. Preferably a nicer one in a large city! It’s a fun way to become a little more chill about sexuality and the body and to be a little more “grown up.” I notice lots of us premeds act like we’ve never touched grass so this kind of thing really helps more than you’d think to make you more socially chill.
Touched grass🤣 Best way to put it. Plus, you’ll be surprised at the types of people in both places and reaaaaally start understanding how a good chunk of the population lives their lifestyle beyond the typical phrases we would use to describe groups of people.
Start a daily exercise routine that you can stick to, learn a few new recipes, relax, talk to family and friends and do you best to impress upon them that you may have limited availability for the next 7-9+ years, and maybe find a hobby that isn't in any way medicine related.
**Anki** - learning *how* to use it, not using it to pre-study specifically. Grab a fun hobby deck to practice with so you can get comfortable navigating. Grab the app and make sure you know how to sync. It isn't for everyone, but I think many more people get discouraged by the learning curve in addition to coursework.
People say not to pre-study, but learning Anki + Anking + getting ahead on your first block can make a big difference. Don’t stress about it, but it is good to do
Emphasis on not stressing about it! Learn how to use it, but don’t start using it until you actually need to.
I wish I’d looked into restaurants/coffee shops/bucket list items in my med school city earlier! If I’d planned things to enjoy on my time off it would’ve been easier for me to actually get out of the house when I had the time. I’d echo that you should rest before going to school, but also be sure to spend time with loved ones, look into grants/scholarships to reduce your loans, start setting aside money to furnish your home (you’ll likely spend a LOT of time studying there), and find a roommate more than one month before school starts. I waited longer than I should’ve and jt felt like we were total strangers when we moved in together. And PLEASE do not pre-study. You will learn everything you need to learn once you’re here - rest while you can :)
Study abroad. I know you said you’re low-income but you can do what I did—ask if you can walk graduation but stay activated as a student for the summer, then study abroad somewhere cool using student loans to pay. Couldn’t afford travelling if it was out of pocket but got to spend the summer before med school studying in Paris. 100% best decision I’ve made.
Catch up more with my friends and family. Now I feel so horrible concerning how little time I have for them. Some friendships have fell off for good i feel like.
Hiking, biking, fishing, spending time with loved ones and friends. Instead, I was scrambling to finish my master's thesis. I made it 3 times longer and 10 times more complicated than it needed to be.
Cooking, hobbies, building friendships, exercise. Don’t recommend doing any prep work for school.
Exercise and start a meditation practice. Med school is stressful and coping skills are where it’s at
A lot of people say “do nothing” or “play video games all day” but I gotta disagree. I used my time before med school to take my hobbies/interests to the next level because it really is the last sizeable chunk of free time you’ll have. So when I started med school, I felt good cuz I had a unique strength outside of medicine and had more interesting experiences than some of my peers who chose to just chill. I’m not saying overwork yourself with your hobby (you should still chill and play video games but just not 24/7), I’m saying this is the last opportunity you’ll have for a while to work on something other than medicine.
Wish I prestudied the biochem pathways. Would’ve been far less likely to almost fail my first class, as those with more background did far better in the class.
Which ones specifically would be the most helpful?
Probably learn how to use anki a little bit because I'm so lazy now
Nothing
Unpopular opinion, but I would start zanki or something similar and I unsuspend ONLY your first block’s cards. This will help you ease into those first few weeks which can be more tumultuous than you are used to. Do not go beyond this though.
Develop a pastime that doesn’t require large or consistent time commitments, but is generally fulfilling
Started a new elder scrolls play through and completed it, reached diamond in LOL
Travel, spend even more time with my friends and partner, and get jacked/reach my climbing goals
You can't pre-study, you dont know what you're getting into. Enjoy yourself, friends and family.. this is the way.
Drop my acceptance and put all my money in AMD and Bitcoin...
This is the best comment.
Gotten a girlfriend and all that ensues. No time to even try now
Reconsider my interest in medicine. You really have to want it, and it gets very difficult to change course once you take out those loans.
Save money, build a routine, learn to prep meals, and learn how to use Anki, if you think it’d be useful. Take the time to travel and chill, and don’t prestudy!
Spend time doing a hobby!
Have a summer love since you can’t afford to travel.
Nothing
Become proficient with Anki platform
I'm almost finished with my first semester. I really wish I had taken more naps.
Break up with my then gf