With
the blink of an eye, an entire semester of Pharmacology has passed by. Looking
back, the girl that entered the program and the girl that is sitting here
typing this blog are two slightly different people. The beginning of the
program was a little nerve-wreaking for me. There was a lot of information that
we had to learn and very little time to learn it all because we were getting
tested on it about every 3 weeks. I was never good at studying as an
undergraduate student, but I was still able to get good grades with my last-minute
study methods. However, in this graduate program, you simply cannot study the
material a couple of days before the exam and expect to do well because of the
large amount of drug names, mechanisms of action, side effects, and information
that you need to know. So I had to learn how to study correctly this time. It
took some trial and error, but in the end I was able to figure out how to
digest large amounts of information in a short amount of time and commit it to
memory. For me, the key is repetition. If I start studying early and can go
over the material a couple of times before the exam, and not just once as I did
in undergraduate, I retain the information better and can think about it more
critically. An added bonus is that I can go into the exam feeling confident and
get a full night’s rest as oppose to going in on 3 hours of sleep and feeling
the information leaking out of my brain with every passing second. Of course it
helps to have a game plan, study a little every day, and focused on what the
professor will be testing you on (hint: learning objectives). I am very pleased
to have this figured out now as I prepare to study for one of the most
important exams of my pre-med career, the MCAT. But I’m not as nervous about it
as I would’ve been 6 and a half months ago. Now I have a game plan, a strong
study method, and the tools I need to knock it out of the ball park. Round 2, let's go!
January Community Service Hours: 6 hours
Total Semester Community Service Hours: 6 hours
January Community Service Hours: 6 hours
Total Semester Community Service Hours: 6 hours
