The Evolution of 勉強
Last week, we received an invitation to a web lecture and offer for an ebook from a couple of Ross alums on how to make our study habits maximally effective and garner 4.0 averages. My average is not currently 4.0 so I was quite interested to hear/read their strategies. You can learn more about them here. After reading their ebook, I really started thinking about how I could use my time more effectively and whether or not I could manage straight As this semester. Here’s one week from my revised schedule:
One of the things they advise at medicalschoolreport.com is forgoing lecture attendance for non-mandatory sessions and instead, watching lectures on mediasite at double speed. I’ve attended lecture faithfully since the very beginning; the idea of not going at all seems odd to me, even though I know several people who don’t go to lecture and still do fine. However, I also know dozens of people who, along with me, attend lecture every day and have all As.
Let’s say attending class costs 4 more hours than mediasiting at double speed. If I attend class from 8:00 am to 5:00 and get in an additional 4 hours of study in the evenings (for a total of 12 hours of academic activity per day as opposed to 8, the average recommended by the alums), the only thing I lose is leisure time. Isn’t it basically the same sort of plan? Or is it a recipe for burnout?
There are pros and cons for both methods so I’m not sure what to do. Perhaps I’ll experiment with mediasiting next week and compare how much work I get done with how much work I usually get done and see which method works better for me.
A few of my classmates have recently started playing Medical School, a free online game at Kongregate. Though I can’t vouch for its trueness to the actual experience, I’ve actually learned about a couple of conditions from the game, so it’s really pretty cool.
