How Bad is Orgo/Bio Together?

wildbuck
Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:17:54 +0000

I think it’s important to appreciate that there are different ways to approach studying and that various methods can lead to success for different people. Everyone learns material in their own way, and the idea that there is one smart way to study has not been true in my experience. There are definitely ways to be efficient, but outright shortcuts are harder to come by. I never studied quite that much when I was in undergrad, but I know that others did and performed very well (probably better than me) on exams.

Also, I disagree with the assertion that med school is exponentially more difficult than undergrad. Most medical schools operate on some type of pass/fail system and do not grade upon a curve, as is the case at NU. This removes a great deal of the stress that was present during college and it greatly simplifies your study routine. Once you’ve taken a few med school exams, it’s much easier to predict what types of things will appear on exams and in what context. Our exams (and I believe at most med schools, but I could be wrong) are also multiple choice, which means memorization is more important in most cases than conceptualizing material and applying it in free-response/critical thinking type questions. In contrast, in a course like orgo, you may have a single exam comprised of three or four free response questions that use the material covered in lecture as a jumping off point. For me, that was always a much more difficult exam to pass. There is a lot of material to know in med school, but there was also a lot to know for many of my college exams. If you do well at Northwestern in the premedical curriculum, you’ll likely be fine in med school. It’s a bit condescending to say otherwise, particularly if you haven’t experienced the pre-med program yourself. There’s definitely a lot to be learned from friends/relatives who have gone through it, but that doesn’t equate to succeeding in it yourself.

I also agree that taking courses outside the sciences is a great idea. Those courses tend to be much easier to do well in and they often provide much better/more engaged instructors than you’ll encounter in the introductory science courses. My favorite courses at Northwestern were all outside the sciences (granted, I’m not really a huge science person to begin with).