Random thoughts

 I thought I'd go into the emotional side of things in regards to how I felt last term a bit more. When I received by exam score that I shared on here I was completely devastated. The ONLY time previously in my life that I had ever seen a number so low next to my name was organic chemistry. Needless to say it was such a huge blow even though between the 3rd and 4th exams I had increased my grade by 11%. I realized late in the game that buzzwords were NOT a thing anymore and to instead look for descriptions of things that may not be exactly what is in the notes. Thankfully the 2nd exam was better and I subsequently scored higher than the passing minimums for the last 2 exams. I still fell a few points too short when all was said and done. I spent the break pondering if I should just leave medical school. I'd be lying if the thoughts if I said the thoughts didn't cross my mind. 

The next day after I arrived, my dad met up with me and was so encouraging. He was like you made it this far it's okay it will be better next time. He shared stories with me of things he's had to overcome in the Army and it was cute tbh. I say that to say everyone struggles with something at one point in another. It's what you do after that moment that matters. 

I began to redirect my thoughts and think about the fact that in previous terms if I failed an exam it was within 1 point of passing or less. I reminded myself that I can do this once I figured out why I was struggling. It all came down to one thing--my studying wasn't enough integration prior to that point. The first year was more in line with my Masters so I thought I was doing fine. In hindsight, I wish I would have considered doing mindmaps from the beginning. Instead I was forcing myself to try to use anki which if you aren't familiar with, is a flashcard tool. The 3 times I used it were when I had previously failed exams. I would think that it was the deck I was using or user error and still try to use it which wasn't a good idea for me. I used to whiteboard a lot and the problem with that for me is that it's very time consuming and when I was done it was like I couldn't recall. Focus less on making pretty notes in the initial stages. 

The mind maps that I use do not take super long to make bc it's on a computer software called Freemind. I will be going over how to make one in the coming days as well as show you an example of something in lecture that I turn into these. Another thing that I do is that I constantly ask myself how else can they say this as I'm studying. For pictures that they provide, look up other images on google. It helps you to see things from any angle they can spin it. I also ask myself why a lot too. Why are they mentioning this fact? What does this have to do with anything? Piece together what happens if something goes wrong with how it is supposed to go.

Lastly the thing that is really the absolute game changer is questions. Do some outside questions from a question bank like pretest or RX. It helps to see as many ways as you can of how things can be asked. Try writing your own questions to reinforce content. How can they bridge together these concepts from before and now? Those are some of the things that I do.