Hey everyone! As you may know, I’m now a second year med student in France. The first year of French (and Swiss, hey @anatomyandcappuccini) is known to be super selective and hard, like only 10%-15% pass the exams.
I had to develop a new set of habits and methods to be able to pass this year and thanks to that, I got to be the 61st student out of 2700 (only 370 passed this year). So here I am to give you the best tips I can get you from this experience!
Have an anchor, by that I mean, keep in mind this moment, this feeling you’ll have once you succeed. That helped me sooo much when I was struggling or whenever I needed a little shot of motivation. For example, mine was the moment I would get in the hospital for the first time wearing my white coat. When this moment finally came this August, you have no idea how much I thanked my past self for working so hard and not giving up.
Don’t keep a closed mind - One method may have worked in high school / last year but it may not work now. You need to adapt according to you, that specific subject, etc…For the first months of my first year, I only worked alone and made tons of revising notes that turned out useless since all details had to be known, but I was stuck into thinking I couldn’t change it since I had done this in high school and it helped me at the time. But this method only resulted in me feeling badly lonely and wasting so much time. I then learnt from my mistakes and I kept on changing study spots (library, my own desk, free classrooms…) and studied with my friends more often. My revision notes were more useful and practical as I stopped trying to put my whole subject on it. For that, you need time to get to know yourself.
Go over your mistakes - This one is sooo important. If you failed, it’s okay, who hasn’t? And I know it’s tempting to just throw your paper across the room. But, once you’ve recovered from it, you need to see why and where you failed. This will help you see what you need to put a stress on next time you revise the subject and your brain will memorise it more rapidly, so that you won’t be wrong if the same question comes around.
Be your own best friend - Would you ever tell your best friend that they totally suck at something because they failed one thing? Would you ever tell your friend “yes you can go to sleep/ eat / to the bathroom, but only when you’re done with this chapter”? No, never. So why do this to yourself? Your body knows you so if you’re hungry, eat, if you’re exhausted, go to sleep, if you want to pee, just go. It’ll take just a few minutes/hours and you’ll feel better afterwards. Also, don’t bring yourself down after one mistake, give yourself a break from the vicious circle, you’re human and making efforts to be better, it’s okay to have some failures along the way. So be kind to yourself :)
Have your own pace of sleep - Okay so, I’ve seen aaaaall over Tumblr advices telling to you to go to bed at 8pm and wake up at 4am. So let’s be realistic darlings, a very few people do this. Seven to eight hours of sleep are the average best for the majority, but some need more or less. And it depends on you, so once again you need to get to know yourself. I know that in the evening, my attention span is close to a fish’s so I knew it wasn’t the time to get into a hard subject. Instead, I took quizzes online about the classes of the day to get that memory started, I revised repetitive chapters like organic chemistry… Knowing that, I knew I had to go to bed by 10 or 11 pm and would wake up at 6am because I loved revising things before my 8am classes. But it’s not the same for everyone. A friend of mine used to sleep during 2am-10am because he was super effective late at night and only had class in the afternoon. Another one loved working early in the morning and slept from 8pm to 4am. Depends on you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plan your free time - Last but not least, free time can sometimes make you feel guilty or like “oh no I’m getting behind I should get to back to work”. But let’s face it, you’re human, not some fancy robot, you need and deserve your free time. So plan a whole day or an afternoon (or whatever time you need) in your schedule. Like that, you know what you can and can’t do during your studying time. It’ll motivate you to know that you have some fun plans scheduled just for you (Time with family and friends, a good bath, reading a good book or just watching Netflix) and you’ll be less stressed. Not only will the activity release tension and stress from your body but you won’t have gotten behind on your schedule since this was planned
I give these tips to my students (as I am now a tutor) and hope they are useful and relevant for you! Let me know if these worked for you!
Good luck to all of you for this new year!
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