<p>My daughter is a sophomore premed. She has been working very hard this semester. Her grades so far for the semester have been very good and she seems to be very focused on the premed track. However, I sense that she may be getting a little burn out since she has been spending almost all of her free time in the library studying this semester (this is quite a change from her freshman year). When I talked to her lately, she has been talking about being lonely and I sense the sadness in her voice when she talked about having to give up her social life to stay on track with her grades. She sounds like she is still very committed to the premed track, but I am quite concerned about our conversation lately. I am wondering if this is normal for premed kids. For those of you formal premeds, and parents of premed/medical students, can you share some of your perspectives? What can I do to help her? Any advice will be very much appreciated.</p>
<p>To a degree, sure, any pre-professional track requires a lot of time. It takes work to get straight As, be at the top of your class, get a top 10% MCAT score, and so on. However, giving up your social life isn’t really the norm. Some do it, but most who don’t maintain some sort of social life and find time for other activities and interests probably won’t be accepted into medical school anyway. This is for a number of reasons: 1) medical schools are looking for students who can handle rigourous coursework AND maintain healthy, balanced lives simultaneously (this is proven, in part, by one’s other activities while in school); 2) medical schools expect students to have clinical, research, volunteer, and other activities and experiences while in college; and 3) students who do not get out much socially tend to not develop as much socially while in college and may have great difficulty interacting with others during interview days (which could easily get someone knocked off the “desirable” list of interviewees).</p>
<p>As for helping her, I’d encourage her to keep up the studies but figure out what’s going on with her time mgmt. If she goes to class and pays attn to what profs want her to know, I see little reason she should be studying more than, at most, twice the amount of time she is in class (i.e., 2 hrs/wk in addition to class time for each unit she is taking). The time saved can be poured into her social life. Not keeping relationships up during college will quickly burn her out. Social support is a critical element of college but also one that is often taken for granted.</p>
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<p>To OP’s credit, it is really sometimes scary to see some of your peers put in so much time in study. DS had several classes in which a very high percentage of students pour in tons of time into a single subject. One of his premed peers (who got into Columbia MS in the end) seems to never stop studying. The same can be said for another student two years senior to DS. She got into BCM. Hmm…both of them happen to be female. Coincident?</p>
<p>Before DS got into college, one of his doctors gave him this advice: When you arrive at your campus, you will notice many other students seem to study more than you ever do. Ignore them. As long as you think you have studied enough, just stop studying and do some other things. – DS did say that some students seem to study more efficient than others though. </p>
<p>After he had been a junior or a senior, he seemed to develop a somewhat strange strategy:
He thinks he could study more efficiently if he did not start to study too early. (But he did not cram at the last minute though.) He said as long as he knows he only has so many days to study, he will tend to study more efficiently because he knows he has no time to waste. But he will study early if the test is next Monday and he happens to have some other out-of-town commitment during the weekend.</p>
<p>My apologies, I don’t think I made myself clear. It is not that my daughter is doing nothing than studying. She does research in a lab three times a week. She also shadow a doctor every Tuesday afternoon, go to rounds with him, see patients with him, etc. She is also in a sorority and engaged in a campus EC that she loves. However, she is a very social person, and she feels that other than these activities, she finds herself studying in the library and really doesn’t have time to just hang out with her friends or go to the mall like a lot of her friends (non pre-med) are doing. She feels that she is somehow losing some of that friendship and that makes her feel alone. Is this perhaps normal for premed to feel like this - that the trade-off that you have to make to make the grades? Or is it just a normal transition from freshman to sophomore now that the freshman excitement has passed?</p>
<p>My D. is senior and has been accepted to few Med. Schools. She has worked very very hard, she has all As so far. My D. has very wide range of interests and is very social. She is participating in tons of various EC’s during school year also, since they are very hard to come by in our city at home. She is not lonely. She is also in sorority, I believe that it helps her a lot. She also loves her music composition minor, she gets a lot of relaxation from music classes and having fun composing music on very cool software. She made sure that junior and senior year are lighter since junior year she was preparing for MCAT and this year she is going to Med. School interviews (still). She loves senior year, less classes with one being filler class. What has worked for her is having variety of activities / learning experiences and being outgoing.
Your D. sound a lot like my D. Sorry, no shopping trips either only under necessity. My D. does not miss them though. And normal “hanging out with friends” most times means studying together. I am not sure I understand what is the problem here. Your D. looks like regular pre-med to me. Best wishes.</p>
<p>What your D may be experiencing may also be part of the “sophomore slump”. </p>
<p>Like your D,my D2 is an extremely social person. Always has been; always will be. D2 discovered during her sophomore year that a number of her freshman friends started to drift away. In part because D2 was insanely busy (sorority, volunteering, research, teaching 2 sections of math, taking 23 credits/semester with a demanding double major), but also because she realized that their goals and interests really didn’t overlap with hers all that much. They had much more free time than she did and were always whining at her that she was “no fun” anymore and that she was “always” ditching them to study. (It wasn’t true, but they did expect her to drop everything when they decided at the spur of the moment to do something–even when she already had prior commitments.) D2’s sophomore year was a very difficult one for her. It was also a transitional year and a year of change. D2 questioned her life goals, her future and whether the means of achieving those were worth losing her friends over.</p>
<p>In the end, D2 decided she needed to find more friends who shared more of her values and were as goal-oriented as she was. She has retained a few of her freshman friends, but has found a whole other group of people to hang with–ones who understand the need for her to put in hours (at the library, at the lab, at the hospital, at the sorority, at her teaching jobs) and to be together with her when they have mutual free time. One of the things she does now is arrange lunch or dinner “dates” with friends on a daily basis. She does via facebook and text. She’s also found that her social circle has shrunk some. (And even more now that she has a serious BF…who soaks up a good deal of her free time.) But she has also learned to manage her time better. (She used to overstudy because she was very anxious about her ability to get all As. I recently had to “talk her down” from taking a class P/F because she was getting a B…) and has learned to say no when people ask her to help them if she’s already pretty busy.</p>
<p>The trips to mall. D2 still does them occasionally, but they were never a big part of her life to begin with. (She and her friends tend to do alot of their shopping via the internet. In groups–go figure that one!)</p>
<p>apumic, I absolutely loved your post. I think you captured it perfectly. I have nothing to add. And that , my friends, is a rare event indeed. ;)</p>
<p>Among the medical, and to a lesser extent the overall pre-medical, community there is a remarkable prevalence of certain traits of obsessive compulsive personality disorder. In a field like medicine being a tad anal can be advantageous. However, one of the most common behaviors exhibited that fall under OCPD-like traits is the ability to withhold gratification. The philosophy that “I just need to be miserable for a few years so that I can be happy later” is flawed in that it continues on and on. The pre-med just needs to work hard to be a medical student, the medical student needs to work hard to be a resident, the resident needs to work hard to be an attending, and the junior attending needs to work hard to advance his or her career. So, you’ll be old and achy by the time you really can start living your life. I strongly suggest that you squeeze as much happiness out of every experience and phase of your life as you can because there is no making it up later. While long, it does not need to be lonely or miserable.</p>
<p>^This is very sad, depressing and scary, I hope it is not so common.</p>
<p>I really like the idea for this thread, and I actually think the human side of healthcare is very interesting (biased as I am, anthro minor here). I actually heard from an attending at my university that a research study showed that the attendings were actually the loneliest, most depressed people in a hospital, not the nurses or the residents!</p>
<p>I will chime in here and say that I sometimes felt sad and lonely during undergrad as well. I go to a pretty competitive school, and a lot of times people are busy studying, volunteering, doing research, or participating in student government. This is great and all, but I feel that there aren’t enough times where people can just relax and spend a few hours doing absolutely nothing, just chilling and chatting, like what I was used to in HS. So, how “strict” and regimented everything is can be sort of depressing, I find it annoying to have to make plans in order to hang out, instead of just having social experiences spontaneously. Being a professional can suck sometimes, so you have to make an active effort to keep in touch with your friends and family. Also, there are a lot of “gunners” out there who keep their career priorities above everything else, but IMO there are points when one should say “screw this” and spend 5 hours in a row watching TV, playing video games, or driving a few states over with friends to have some fun. That’s what I try to do, and it has worked out OK.</p>
<p>Oh I’m quite familiar with that feeling. My sophomore year was very tough (I’m a big bad senior now, just hearing back from some great schools about interview invites). </p>
<p>I coped with it by making friends with the kids in my classes, especially honors classes because those were the kids I seemed to have lots of classes with. Your daughter certainly is not alone in this, many of my pre-med friends think their social lives have taken a hit as a result of their commitment to academics.</p>
<p>So for me, it worked really well to just become friends with all of those kiddos in my classes. Big quiz coming up? Invite a few people over, order a pizza, and study together. Have a break after class? Grab coffee with the kid who sits next to you. You and your new friends are concerned you might not get that A you hope for? Go as a pair to your prof to talk about it. Etc. After a few weeks/a semester of doing stuff like this, I found that we started hanging out outside our “study parties.” Now they’re 3 of my best friends!</p>
<p>Another benefit of this was that now I’m even better at working in small groups and collaborating with my peers, which seems to be the name of the game for some med schools out there.</p>
<p>Best of luck to her!</p>
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<p>^^^^ Funny thing is when a dean of BCM came over to my school, all he talked about was “deferred gratitude”. He told us to study hard now, so we can party hard later---- he actually used the words “deferred gratitude” and study hard now so we can party hard later 6 times in his 1 hour presentation. He also said that this is the attitude of most BCM kids, which I thought was a little shocking. Hopefully, med. students aren’t all like this.</p>
<p>Thanks for everyone’s response. I appreciate it. Kristin, Lollybo, and WayOutWestMom, I especially appreciate you sharing your (your child’s) experience. I feel better now knowing that my daughter’s feeling/experience is not unique.</p>
<p>Ah yes, not unique at all. But in this case, that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>One of my pieces of advice to younger premeds is this: do what you have to do to stay happy, because if you’re unhappy then you’ll get burnt out and not like what you’re doing anyway. I think that can take on many different identities: I have friends that play frisbee, go to work, play with pets, clean their houses, go out for a drive, watch movies, etc when they just need a break. Doing those things is AWESOME and in no way should you quit doing them.</p>
<p>Another thing that’s important is to not feel guilty when you do something not school related. I have lots of friends who literally feel like if they’re not studying most of the time, or working on other academic stuff, then they’re just going to fall behind and fail. That’s not going to happen! I think it’s easy for them to feel like they’re slacking if they’re not doing school, and thus feel guilty if they’re doing something for themselves. In my opinion, what they need to realize is that their well-being is worthwhile, and that acting in their own self-interest (by doing something fun/relaxing instead of continuously stressing about school) is not the same as being lazy and selfish. There’s no reason to be a martyr about school.</p>
<p>Here’s what I do:</p>
<p>-Build my schedule so that I have random 1-hour breaks throughout most days. Instead of using that time to do work or review, I get a cup of coffee and read my hometown’s newspaper which is available at my university. It costs me exactly $0.96 to get a cuppa joe (unless I want to splurge on the Starbucks, then it’s a little more) and a paper. </p>
<p>-No matter what, Saturday mornings are mine (with the rare exception of other obligations). In the fall, that means football. I will not miss a home football game for anything besides a torrential downpour (have missed approximately 3 total in 4 years). I don’t care what’s due on Monday. I know I need time to hang out with friends and family and just relax so that I’m fun to be around come next week. When there’s not football, I sleep late. 10:30 or 11 at the earliest. Then I watch Food Network in my PJs and make a huge breakfast with my roommate and her boyfriend. Homework can wait, I need some me time.</p>
<p>-Put off all my major chores until Sunday afternoon. That way I’m not stressed about getting stuff done (laundry, grocery shopping, most errands, stuff like that) during the week because I know I will get to do it on Sunday.</p>
<p>-Take at least 30-45 minutes every afternoon just to myself. I usually spend that time catching up on Facebookland and watching some random show. </p>
<p>-On most nights, homework stops at 12 and I do whatever I want until I go to bed around 1, which often amounts to cruising random websites and catching up on the news or hanging out with roommate or neighbor.</p>
<p>I still have PLENTY of time for school, a part time job, research, shadowing, and volunteering. My resume is full of high-quality experiences in each of those areas. I’m confident that by managing my time well and making myself and my well-being a priority, it’s given me the ability to be as successful as possible. </p>
<p>Maybe your daughter could give some of those a try? Sure have worked well for me!</p>
<p>Edited to add: Wayoutwestmom, your D2 could be my twin. That was my sophomore/some of junior year to a T. And my new buddies? They totally rock my world. Glad she saw the light too :)</p>
<p>It seems from posts above that if one was used to watching TV, shopping, video games,…etc. then they miss it. Maybe because my D. was not doing above while growing up, she does not miss it. In particular, she never had time for TV. She discovered while living with other girls in college that they watch TV much more plainly out of habit that she has never developed. And she does have her own TV in her own room. Whenever D. had time, she was spending it with her numerous friends. Her extremely busy K-12 life has helped her to adjust to college life faster. She was used to meeting new people in different settings and unfamiliar surroundings thru her numerous EC’s and huge commitment to her sport. </p>
<p>I would say, that sophomore year, being middle of the road, probably was the least exciting. So, just be patient, it will pass, your D. will be fine, as it looks like she is determined to stick to her goals. Just listened to her when she calls, spend as much time as she needs.</p>
<p>DS rarely watches TV also. This probably has something to do with the fact that we ourselves rarely watch TV, and for a long time, out TV was a “small screen” one. Our TV is still a CRT tube one. We do watch Netflix movies there from time to time though.</p>
<p>mmmcdowe’s mentioning of obsessive compulsive personality disorder is interesting. Someone DS knows said that he would go to the most uncomfortable room in his house, so that he can study better because he is not confortable there and can stay awake longer. Go figure.</p>
<p>Another of his friends would eat breakfast and study there at the same time. A problem is that, his breakfast can last from 8:00 am till maybe 1:00 pm if he happens to not have a class during that time. He did this regularly in one semester at least. He is a humanity and then chemistry major. I heard he did better than most premeds on orgo, even though he is not a premed. (DS beat him on overall GPAs though. Does it mean DS may have obsessive compulsive personality disorder ? :))</p>
<p>DD is in a satellite campus, first year med school, there are 20 of them there. Her cohort is very serious about studying, I would say DD is the one who studies the least number of hours, or at the very least the most efficiently. She has an LD and had to master proper techniques for her years ago, she feels that many of her classmates are just now hitting that wall where they cannot turbo power through and they are afraid to stop too soon.</p>
<p>DD knows she will absorb the info better if she gets exercise and has some sort of social interactions. She is that kind of kid who does better in lab than in lecture so she has to study her way. The first couple of big exams were a bit nerve wracking when she would put down her books and go for a run when “everyone” else just kept powering through. She has been very successful so far and is encouraging others to also relax a bit.</p>
<p>In her mind she has to enjoy the process not just be about deferred gratification, she wants to be happy each day within realistic expectations. Each phase of education you are studying more than before and look back on that prior commitment wondering why you thought it was hard;) </p>
<p>My DD is extremely social, a total extrovert, and needs friends and activities to keep busy. In undergrad she was in competitive sports and went Greek and studied, luckily many of her sorority sisters were also serious about their education so there was not negative peer pressure. It is a tough life lesson to figure out how to balance it all, but does it ever end? </p>
<p>Encourage her to learn about herself and be true to her priorities and be involved in things that interest her in undergrad, med school, and life.</p>
<p>^In regard to study habits, when going gets tough, D. likes to go over material in her head while walking from class to class at her very pretty college campus. Yes, Orgo was one that she did a lot of this before huge exams.</p>