Insider’s Guide to Things You Wish You Knew Before Starting Medical School
As a pre-med student, you may already be anticipating getting accepted into a medical school of your choice, having undergone intensive medical school consulting, taking advice from the best-med school admissions consulting services, just to make your long-term dream come true finally.
However, an insider’s view on how the best-med schools in the world function could give you an insight into the daily expectations and how to navigate through med school. It may solidify your dream of becoming a doctor or get you to repel the thought of leading the lifestyle. You decide!
Some Things You Wish You Knew Before Starting Medical School
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There’s plenty of memorization
The one thing that even the most experienced, top-level doctors would tell you in hindsight is the discomfort of having to memorize plenty. The word plenty is an understatement, to be honest. The rote memorization techniques will drain your sleep and be quite challenging for the first two years of medical school. Although best medical admission consultants can help guide you to become the best candidate that most medical school admissions councils expect, they certainly will not prepare you to undertake the massive task of rote memorization. Ultimately, by year three, you may move onto more challenging tasks that are intellectually charged; the initial phase can be very trying.
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The Curriculum One Learns Can Vary from School to School
Even though the Liaison Committee on Medical Education has detailed guidelines on the curriculum covered in medical school, the curriculum does vary from one school to the other. The varied style of teaching, lectures, and classrooms can easily change the curriculum to fit the school’s style. Sometimes the curricula don’t fit particularly well for certain students and end up affecting their daily life. So, being aware of the curriculum of each school you apply to can help in the admissions process and help you adapt easily to the curriculum requirements of the specific school you get admission to.
- Medical schools are rather cooperative than competitive.
Pre-meds tend to experience an atmosphere of a highly competitive state during their undergrad season of life. On the other hand, after getting into a medical school and undergoing the brunt of toughness shown by medical admission consultants, they aren’t prepared to see that medical schools aren’t competitive and are very cooperative. There is less drama than seen on medical drama shows.
- It’s ok to not know which field of medicine you want to major at
As silly and ridiculous as it sounds, it’s entirely ok to have no idea which field of medicine you would like to major in. In fact, through the journey of the course, you may also feel the need to start over in another specialization to the one you had your mindset on previously. Specialties do change, and trying to keep holding out the pressure of being in a specialty you previously picked can be strenuous for your career overall. Learn to relax and go with the flow. As cliché as it sounds, the saying, “let the specialty choose you rather than you choose the specialty,” is true.
These are a few of the things that you may not only already know prior to your first year at a medical school of your choice. It is only right to be prepared well in advance for what is anticipated.
