 Elijah hello hey Boris hey guys I'm Boris I'm a physician assistant this is I'm Elijah I'm a PAS one student it's got done with my first semester of PA school um I was categorized as like a low GP applicant and I think Boris was too very low GPA applicant so lower I think well I don't know that's kind of hard to decide cuz like initially my college GPA was 2.9 2.98 and then after post back it obviously went way up but yeah college GPA was 2.98 what was yours I think right out of UCLA it was a 2.1 and then after my after my post back of my master's it was like a 2.3 SGPA so I barely moved yeah dude so 2.1 oh yeah 2.3 science science 2.3 science maybe like a 2.5 overall okay oh so that's after you did some work yeah that's like after a couple of I think 60 to 80 units of my master's okay I mean that so masters and bachelors don't get combined in Casper so straight up just undergrad 2.1 QM 2.3 science 2.3 science 2.5 QM or 2.5 QM oh yeah I probably went up after the master's yeah got it got it got it okay so 2.5 QM 2.3 science and then 2.98 QM I don't know what my science was can't be much higher too now what is your GPA in PA school um well I I got straight A's minus let's go I know let's go PA that's 1.5 4.0 GPA right yeah yep yep I mean a couple A minuses here and there but in my heart I missed it by like 1% so I'm counting it it was literally less than 1% I and I was so close to like the grade being rounded up but it's okay but not not 4.0 what is it like a 3.9 or something or 3.8 3.8 something like that okay that's about what I did up on because you don't really get graded second year so it's all your first year that gets you your GPA in PA school and what I was I was gonna try to share my screen because I actually pulled up my transcript just so people know we're not lying about this stuff we're legit all right nobody's lying here there I am I like flat A's so yeah you actually did way better than I did or maybe not way better because I didn't really get any minuses I'm not even sure if I if we had pluses and minuses because I had like if it's an A it's an A if it's a B it's a B so that's me that's my name we're legit we're not lying to you guys there's my fall semester solid what is what was this 3.8 then second semester couple of B's in there 3.5 which made me cry and then straight A's semester 4.0 so that ended up being like what is it 3.77 you know close to 3.8 total awarded master of science August 2021 okay so we're not lying to you guys we actually did go through this stuff I would show mine but I think my my school's still processing my transcript yeah yours is still fresh from a 2.9 college GPA to a 3.8 PA school GPA right over here from a 2.5 college GPA to a little bit higher than that in PA school I think like 3.8 I'm on the 3.8 I think 3.8 a little bit higher than I know 3.9 whatever and you're gonna pull it off because you're gonna get straight A's next semester I don't know how sustainable that is but I'll try I mean you understand the grind now at this point it's just like you're just swimming in it now you understand what you're doing and it's awesome because next semester are more like like medically and clinically relevant classes which I think I'll be more interested in than like biochem that's true too that's true too you're not doing the foundations anymore it's like actually what you're gonna be doing in real life yep I'm excited for I've been looking forward to next semester I I'm gonna be honest I did not I did not look at the school's curriculum prior to starting school so I didn't even realize I had a retake it out of me and micro again it was crazy it's weird that you guys do that I've noticed some schools go back to basics and they do like biochem and micro and stuff again my program didn't my program I think is shorter than yours yeah and it just went straight to clinical medicine I think most schools are like your program where they skip the pre-rex right because you've already done them but I don't know what my school like really like has a strong emphasis on the foundations and I guess they wanted to teach us on the graduate level learning so I was okay with it but I was kind of like thrown off by it I kind of surprised because I expected that I wouldn't need biochem anymore and I just took that right before starting I don't know like on one hand I'm a little jealous of that because that's more of like what med school does oh and I do the basics and like they teach the basics their way and then they apply that into medicine whereas for us like everyone learned the basics in their own little way and then we were just thrown into the chaos of learning medicine and applying it so like we got done quicker 24 months versus what are you guys like 28 months oh a little bit longer than that like 33 I think wow yeah wait what is that eight months less school but at the same time I'm kind of jealous you guys probably have a more well-rounded education but I definitely feel I love my program and I love the foundations that we've established but I see like my other friends that I've done in this year as well and they're already into their like medical modules learning the medicine and I'm over here like oh break your plexus to that was in that was just an anatomy and physiology yeah yeah yeah so I just finished that final this past semester it was tough this semester it was super tough yeah which leads us into our main topic of the day so this was I don't know the the low GPA to PA school portion which is kind of what our channel focuses on but now it's gonna be our me and Elijah's very very different philosophy for studying and this kind of came about this one girl's mom actually about people found me on Instagram no she found me on YouTube and she's like wow this guy knows what he's talking about so she messaged me I'm saying my daughter just took a leave of absence from PA school because you know she had very poor grades and was basically about to flunk out and she's like can you help her I was like yeah I could help her and so I actually asked Elijah like so what is your study method how could she have done better and then he like sent me this long ass text about how he studied and I was like wow that's totally not at all what I was gonna tell her like I had totally different advice and so I told her both whatever works for her but Elijah's the way Elijah studies is so different from what I found to work for me and you know here we are both you know success stories so just quickly I wanted Elijah to kind of give you an overview of how he studied the semester and how he found success yeah so first couple weeks we were thrown right into it I had a medical terminology exam the first day I believe I did really well in that but it's nothing like like the actual like exams like that was kind of like a warm-up exam so I would do what any other student would do go to class you know take notes initially I would like write out all the notes I would literally rewrite the whole lecture which I now that I look back on it was pretty redundant um just word for word word for word you literally just transcribed everything word for word not even condensing yeah like I um like because I used to be as fast I was able to like I felt like I was able to retain it and type it at the same time but in reality uh with how fast everything came that wasn't sustainable for more than I said two weeks so I was already like panicking because I was like oh god I'm behind lectures already I have to study for this exam and but they're still throwing us so much information for these classes and I was like I was really in the thick of it and then once we had our first couple exams I didn't do horrible but the amount of studying I was doing I put everything on the backward and my wife literally handled everything at home so I could look like study like eight hours plus a day I think in the beginning because I I told myself I was gonna overload in the beginning uh and then dial it back but I ended up getting like mid-bees low-bees on my first couple tests which was the minimum pass I think the minimum pass in the b right oh you guys are allowed to see yeah and I forget about him we weren't allowed anything lower than an 80 oh wow yeah 79 at the point it's failing you know so if you get below a 70 below an 80 you have to make it up with some sort of a remediation thing so you guys were allowed to see yeah okay that that takes a lot of pressure off but I don't think anyone actually got a C I did it yeah because I stopped the class average in the low and highs and no one got below a C on any of the classes or sorry below a B below a B so I think the lowest was like an 80 for one of our harder classes yeah wait could we explore that real quick so yeah I think like college might do that undergrad uh but like I only remember this from PA school because like when you get your grades they like populate online and like blackboard or whatever your school uses and like everybody is freaking out refreshing refreshing refreshing refreshing until they pop like until they like uh come out and you always look at the high grade the average and like the low and well first off you want to see if you passed what you got and then like once you passed or even if you didn't you want to know okay where am I like if you didn't do well you're like did someone get worse than me yes yes I'm not the worst or like man how good did the high do okay I'm only like a couple percent away from the high that's sweet or am I average am I below average above average okay I'm like above average even by like 0.1 percent okay I feel good so you're like constantly constantly comparing yourself which is so toxic but it's also like what these a plus players that are in these grad schools are always like and if you're not like that you're going to fail because like that's what motivates you yeah just to like tie that back into like my study habits I am one of my closest friends that I developed a really close friendship with now his name is Patrick yeah not non-traditional he also had a low GPA uh we're trying to just stick together um he was getting A's like right off the bat and and I was like talking to him I was like hey man like I'm doing all the study I'm rewriting all the notes like I got a B it's not what I wanted I want A's because I know like the amount of time I put in like that's what I feel like I deserve but then he told me that uh he kind of told me like switch it up a little bit because the way he did it was to read he rereads everything as much as he can so he'll go through like let's say like there's four lectures for the next exam he'll read through it through it all um like pretty like intently like with the uh with intense alert um then just read not copying not taking notes no straight up reading yeah I think what he tries to do and is what uh and what I tried to do following his method was basically try to get like a photographic memory of what was on the slide and then the more times you go over it like we'd go over lectures like twice or three times around um or I would have my lecture notes here and then someone's quizlet on the side so I'm like kind of looking at it in two different aspects so I feel like the more I look at things the better ingrained it gets into my memory because I'll also like let's say I'm looking at like the brachial plexus right like here's a slide in front of me um I'll probably uh try to condense it into like something like in a way I'll understand it like I'll draw it in a way like I'll understand it our professor like provided a lot of good diagrams and then I would just like close my eyes and then try to like okay this is where my skill in containers was on that diagram this is where this this and this this were so that at least on the exam I can draw it out um so that's just one example but the biggest takeaway that I took from Patrick was that the more you go over material the more it's going to get ingrained into your memory and it started working for me I was getting I think like average like low a's on all my exams after that um there was one exam I think I only missed like two questions I got like a 96-97% so that was awesome wait so what changed was instead of writing things out and transcribing literally everything you just started reading your notes but like yeah yeah not not just reading I don't want to mislead people I'm not just reading like going word for word word for word word for word I'm like whatever will help me ingrain it into memory as I'm reading like I'm actively reading it I'm thinking okay so this is where this is on that slide or okay so this is how like this pathway goes here then this pathway goes there like I really look at each slide intently and try to really understand what's going on so it's not just reading it's really understanding the material and then my second go around like my second go through of these lectures we'll just be like reinforcing those ideas hmm I guess it's just hard for me to practically put into words what you're doing so you're not just straight up like reading word for word mindlessly you're all like all cylinders firing all hands on deck like looking at a single thing written on the slide and the pictures and like really trying to like incorporate into your memory yeah reading hard like it's hard to put into words yeah but you're you're not quizzing yourself or are you are you quizzing yourself while you're reading yeah so um if it's something especially that I don't understand I'll be like okay I need to know this this like G protein pathway so I know that it that once this falls where like yeah yeah yeah this goes here and then this goes there here like up for example um I have a cake here right let's say this is a slide okay you see all the words here right I see yeah sweet Sam yeah okay yeah I got it okay so I would look at this enough times where in my mind when I'm taking the test I could be like okay the answer for this specific question is on the bottom right hand portion of this slide oh yeah so like really intense like almost like photographic memory at that point as well like on top of the reinforcing of ideas so are you a very visual person I didn't think so until Patrick told me to try those methods out yeah like my photo memory was really horrible like yeah but then I like I guess I just trained that part of my brain and that's what worked for me during exams like I would remember things on slides that a lot of my classmates like wouldn't remember and I'm just like oh yeah that's on uh this slide on this bottom left hand portion of that picture hmm really weird I didn't know it was like that you like developed a photographic memory yes I definitely did not have that in undergrad that's not how we studied and under yes uncovered it it's like talent is not created it's uncovered you've already had it you just weren't forced to use it I kind of wonder so I don't know if that's good advice to the general public because like not everybody has that gift I sure as heck don't um I just have to keep reinforcing drills and like get it into my head in different ways uh but I wonder if more people have that than they think they do because you didn't have it until you realize you did no I I didn't you know I I never used anything like that for undergrad or even my masters yeah interesting I just wonder like how that develops like I wonder if you're just a very very visual person and you didn't know it or if it's like survival mode your brain is just like evolving to like meet the demands that you're giving it because it's never had them before and like it knows it needs this to survive or otherwise you fail and then you don't make money and then you starve and then you die so I don't actually I was so like anxious and nervous and I was like this isn't sustainable like I'm spending so many hours rewriting these notes I'm just gonna try what Patrick told me and if it works it doesn't uh but it I don't know God it worked I told him I was like dude like I studied the way you told me and I I'm doing it and then that's what I did like throughout the semester I just did that and then I my photographic memory just got really better um I found myself studying a lot less like I was I was studying every day yes but I wasn't like typing notes that which takes forever yeah and getting all that carpal tunnel yeah yeah I remember I kind of had a not the same realization because I'm not nearly as visual as you but a similar realization in post back because like the first probably like a few weeks I was trying to just like transcribe like book chapters not word for word but definitely like taking very detailed notes on everything and I would fill up these like thick notebooks and within like weeks my hand was like excruciatingly painful and I couldn't even write anymore and so like it was the best thing to do it was like that like mind muscle connection where you're like looking and you're writing and like you're just all hands on deck like in your brain like actively learning it but that just physically wasn't sustainable because I was like getting carpal tunnel and then I started typing it and like that kind of helped but like it wasn't as efficient as what you're describing so I don't know I mean if you're out there and you're just like transcribing stuff and you just don't have time or something isn't working try what Elijah's doing just literally just look at your notes but like very very thoroughly my question I guess would be some of these slide decks have 200 slides oh yeah um how do you do that how do you like actively read every slide for 200 slides times like five slide decks like how do you have time for that man I I thought I'm studying all day all day I am God you should you should see the way like I wish I had like a camera point of me to look like to like see who I like because I'm well like what I'm studying I think I'm like like this I'm like super like dialed in like engaged like like almost like rocking back and forth like a like a crack I'm getting so antsy I'm just like oh god like I've been focusing like so hard for like six hours and I'm just like I'm so tired but I gotta keep going yeah you're right I think some of my like like some lectures are like a hundred slides each and it's really impossible to learn all of it so the best I could do is at least get through the material so then I see it once sometimes I don't have my time to do my second go around right to reinforce that photo memory so my first time around I'll I'll just do my best to at least see everything once if I can see everything once then when I take the test I can eliminate enough to where I know that's not an answer like oh that's not even part of that slide like I can immediately eliminate that so I think it was a lot of studying and just realizing what's relevant and what isn't relevant because I feel like that's what helped me eliminate during the test I just sold the opposite of my advice so I know we're all different it works there's many ways to skin a cat and Elijah you know killed it this semester got a great GPA I feel like you just saw my transcript I think I wouldn't say I killed it but I did quite well um and certainly learned enough to practice you know I'm practicing quite happily now for two years uh so like there's a lot of ways to go about it whatever works for you but Elijah said he wants to see everything once get a little bit of everything and then he can eliminate what's not necessary I say focus on the big topics and know them very very very well and don't worry about the little ones until you've really gotten the big ones because that's most of what you're going to get tested on so I don't know man Pico works for you try it for one or two exams Elijah's way if it's working for you just don't do anything else I think no I think what you said is completely right to the big the big concepts I so what you want to do when you go to class is focus on what the lecture what your professors actually think because those are technically the big topics that Boris is talking about because they're going to want to they're going to focus on specifically those things like I remember uh one of my my my anatomy professor would focus so much on one thing and I'm just like okay there's gotta be a reason she's doing this so when I go home I definitely spend more time on those slides that she took more time in during class because those are the more important topics that I pretty sure she'll vote questions from yeah so what Boris would you said is exactly it it's true too like that I did focus on big concepts as well yeah like the age old question is what's going to be on the exam exactly that's going to be on the exam the professor is going to be like it's all important everything no everything I hate that and I love that because I saw you posted something on Instagram where you're like when when it's all important or whatever I saw that that's some true it's because Patrick Patrick set that meme to me because he doesn't highlight anything but I he's seen my slides I'm notorious for not only highlighting everything but like making a bunch of marks so the way I personally feel like I read something is I'm highlighting it as I'm reading which sounds neurotic as hell I understand that but um it helps me reinforce that I'm not just like mindless reading I'm actually reading each word for what it means and then I'll also have like a blue line underneath that highlighted word that means I've gone over in a second like every single thing you read or just what you think is important yeah like important like buzzwords basically yeah I did the same thing you did literally this and like sometimes when it's like a very dense slide you find yourself highlighting like 90 of it and you're like well what I didn't even do anything but I just like highlighted the whole thing um but you did because that's one repetition you read it thoroughly and now you know this much is important so that's one repetition so add another repetition and maybe condense it further maybe don't but just another repetition is reading it again exactly and like however many repetitions you need it's probably less than you think and then you got it here I'll actually pull up a slide right now let's see it's gonna be all yellow how do I share screen just click on share console oh only the host can share um I could probably make you a host okay uh give me two seconds this is like bringing back ptsd from pa school because they're like oh I make you a host so you can look at them I don't know I just remember them saying that all the time there we go yeah I'm making you a host okay you're a host do you remember that like how certain students are like a TA or something would try to share something and the professor is like oh I need to make you a host ha ha uh-huh while you're sitting here just like like okay okay I don't want to be here all right let's see brought back that moment just let me know if you can see my screen Boris I can see your screen which means everybody can see your screen okay so here's one of my slides so that's all yellow all here can you see my my cursor yeah yeah all yellow um the blue line means that I went over twice like write things down here like okay that's uh heat that's um what's this uh swelling no that's swelling that's pain or is redness redness yeah see like I'll do that for like a check mark is like okay yeah I read that I read that read that oh yeah that uh that iPad thing where you can do it with the pencil too yeah yeah here I'll I'll do it right now oh I like that all right super ugly handwriting but yes that's cool I kind of wish I did that because I just had like an old cheap laptop and I couldn't do any of this um let's see that's really helpful I feel like seeing that I I do have to recommend people use like a big iPad like an iPad pro where it's big enough to where you can see it like an apple pencil because that would have been so helpful to people to do you know it's I love it I um I was considering getting the laptop combo with the iPad but honestly this this worked perfectly for me uh I didn't need anything more than this yeah so I see that a lot in like the pre-pa groups it's like what supplies should I get should I get a windows should I get a macbook should I get a whatever and Elijah just showed how convenient it is studying using a apple iPad the apple pencil and what's that program pencil notability what is it notary notability notability where you can like import your powerpoint slides and you can mark them up and highlight them with the pencil like all by hand you can do cool little tricks with your apple pencil like Elijah's doing I even have like my name engraved in it or engraved onto it oh that's so official it's kind of blurry but yeah but then it also it's like a a fidget spinner too so that's pretty convenient I would mess with it so much I feel bad for the people sitting behind me because I'm just like doing that thing all day no they're all doing it too probably probably like tapping their foot oh man I'm still not curious you're not being able to sit still during lecture it's horrible literally it's it's so funny how everyone has the same personality who gets into medicine mm like we everyone who makes it anyway has like the same personality or some people like bury their personality and then they go into like weird niche like fields of medicine where like normal or like certain people can be but like everyone who like does well in school and ends up in like a normal medicine field has the same personality we're like super high strong very add hands that's when we have to we like rebel by like spinning a pencil or tapping her foot or something like we switch gears so easily people get pissed off and can't keep up with us it's like it's the same personality we meet me and the two other guys in my room we sit next to each other and we have this weird like tick like during exams when we're really like focusing hard we like shake our legs I don't know if you see people do that like they kind of like um I don't want to show my legs I'm wearing shorts but it's like a weird like tapping thing that you do with your leg it's super weird like is it going sideways no like like up and down like yeah you're like tapping your foot you're like shaking your leg yes yes yeah yeah we all do that shit I'm doing it right now like if I wouldn't shake my laptop and the camera would get all wonky like this I'd probably be doing it too but anyway okay back on topic so anyway so Elijah's study method first off supplies was Apple iPad Apple pencil notability import the PowerPoint slides and then you know highlight them with the pencil and then mark things up just draw things and I'm pretty jealous of that it sounds like it was really a good setup for you yeah oh you didn't have anything like that or I I didn't want to spend that much money on Apple devices so I had like an old cheap Lenovo that kept freezing and I would just like type my notes um but I feel like it would have been way more efficient to do what you're doing yeah if I got into school a lot sooner after my undergrad I would have used my older gaming laptop but listen it was already solid date I needed something like newer yeah yeah I mean I think we're gonna clip that out of the video on its own because people are always asking what supplies should I have yeah and it sounds like that combo is very very helpful and most of my class easily like 70% of my class use the same combo oh yeah I think everyone in my class had it but I also think it's because I program requires it it requires it because people have found so much success with it oh yeah that's awesome yeah with notability just sounds like the way to go for uh for learning vast amounts of material quickly I guess I did do something similar in undergrad where I used to print out all the slides because we didn't have all this like ipad stuff yet so I'll print it out and I would write on the slides but but I would just like it it's such a story they're pieces of paper like having it all in the ipad is is beautiful yeah that's yeah that sounds like the best setup in fact it's such a good setup that like Rutgers PA program officially requires it officially requires you to have an ipad and an apple pencil and notability that's like the winning combination I love it I mean I I can see why I can see why they do it man I mean because like you see that on the pre-pa groups right everybody's asking what you know what supplies should I get mm-hmm I mean you can't get a more distinct answer than a very prestigious p8 program literally requiring this setup I'm going to say it for a ninth time ipad apple pencil notability go get a straight a it's just like Elijah hey a minuses a couple a minuses I know yeah uh what do they call that one like a a youtube video doesn't have let's promise clickbait clickbait he didn't guess right he got an a minus clickbait okay um wouldn't you mr. complainer like like to also get almost straight a's and a minuses in pa program oh man I do better go do better and then you can yell at us yes you know I think anybody who would be extremely jealous of the position Elijah's in right now you know I you know what it was a lot of uh semester was a lot of um I think self-proving to myself I feel like I somewhat proved it to myself uh before PA school because I did a lot I was working full time doing my masters full time retaking prereqs along with those masters like on the side uh I was getting married that year I was applying to PA school and I was still getting shadow that's like a lot of stuff right but yeah I got I did really well in my masters but I feel like I didn't really prove myself until PA school started because on top of everything I've ever done in my life I'd say this is the hardest thing I've ever done um and for me to get even an a minus even though that's not the great I wanted um I felt like I proved a lot to myself very good okay just for reference Boris Boris has been telling me it's good he's been texting me like it's fine it's fine but I was like it's really good it is but the just knowing how close I was I was less than a percent of weight on literally all of those classes and I absolutely killed those finals and I think I was only like on each and every single final I was probably like two or three questions from in flat eight in all of those classes so yes you're like a high a minus you're not like a 89.9 or a 90.1 you're like a 92.9 like oh yeah like one two three questions away one extra quiz question I could have gotten right one extra question I couldn't uh could have gotten right on our lab practicals like things like that and it's just it's hard to not go back in the semester and be like oh man I could have like gotten these points but at the same time I knew every single day I was giving it 100 so if this is what you know what came to be then who am I to complain because you know it's hard it's tough it's it's the toughest thing I mean it is frustrating we're like one little tiny extra bit could have gotten you you know a different ladder grade uh which is very annoying I had one of those situations actually this particular one I wait host disabled screen oh you're the host now so I can't share my screen fine it's whatever it's we only have two minutes left in the recording anyway um so don't worry about it but yeah I had so we didn't have minuses and pluses we were either b or an a so if you're like 0.1 away you're not like between a b plus and a b might be in a a minus or a b whatever you're an a or a b the end well that b that you saw in physical diagnosis my first semester I think that was some bs I remember because I remember being very mad about it because I think they graded something on a curve or whatever and like some mistakes so a bunch of people got screwed and I remember being like really pissed like I could have had straight a's here and now I have this glaring b which is upsetting and it was like an 89.9 percent it was like oh I I was so pissed and it was some culture too it wasn't even like even something I missed it was like graded on a curve I don't remember like I could have done better obviously you know I could have got the a in some other way but I just remember being really pissed really really mad because whatever but either way like it doesn't really matter but I had this conversation with a professor about like how mad I was and how like this is going to screw up my gpa and what if I want to do a fellowship and she's like bro it does not matter I promise it doesn't matter you know you're gonna if you want a fellowship go you're gonna be able to get into a fellowship if you want a job they're not going to ask you what your gpa is even though it is on my resume because it was good it's like no one cares it's not undergrad you're already in it just doesn't matter anymore is that true that they even for jobs they don't ask you at all no no one cares I put it on there just because it's good and you're gonna put it on there because it's good but no one cares are you licensed do we like you the end no one cares what gpa you got in pa school medical school is different I think because you have to like rank in your class yeah you know that's yeah medical school is just non-stop stress about everything pa school if you're in you pass you're basically good you know fellowship it might matter a little bit but I don't know I'm in a fellowship right now I'm finishing it up no one cared oh wow did we want to move on to the next uh zoom call that was like perfect timing you want to move on to the next zoom call actually no that actually that does bring up a good topic fellowships after pa school right I don't know if it's something you're considering