 Alright guys, welcome back to this channel. In today's video I'm talking to one of my most loyal YouTube subscribers and specifically talking about questions of how to study especially for some that's so early into their medical journey. But I know some of those tips will help you out so stay tuned. Let's get into it. Alright guys, welcome to another episode of the TMJ show. Today we have Abed Abihad. How are you doing boss? I'm doing great. Yeah. Cool. So tell me how we can help you. What's going on? Man, I've been kind of struggling in undergrad lately and my grades are a decent average and I don't know. I'm a freshman right now currently and I'm going to a community college currently so I'm kind of getting it adjusted to school and university so kind of need some advice and I don't know. Okay so struggling in your kind of first year of school. How do you do better especially when you're in community college? Is that fair? Yeah because from high school I kind of struggled a lot and then I had to go to college for that shift you know because I didn't want to go to university and like you know I mean fail you know what I mean. Sure. So what are your what are you finding to be the hardest part about studying? Oh man getting finding the most retention because I'm trying to study and sometimes I don't remember anything. When I do practice questions I kind of struggle with them and especially taking tests I don't do so good you know. Okay. So how are you currently focusing on retention? What's your what's your method? All right my method right now is kind of well I've been reviewing the PowerPoint slides every day and I just go over them with the notes he kind of does with it too and that's why and then I kind of do practice questions and you give them a study guide too. So what's your what's your current breakdown of how much time you're spending doing PowerPoints and the notes and doing practice questions? Yeah so PowerPoints I take like two or three hours to review them with my notes from personally I'm a really slow reader so it takes me a while to kind of understand and kind of get adjust the questions like to understand the PowerPoints. Sure and like practice questions I for me I'm a slow reader so it takes a while to me but I try to kind of get the idea just of it to do it quickly as possible like you said kind of like now you said give yourself 10 or 20 seconds it's kind of answer that which was really helpful because I would kind of understand what I'm what lecture points I'm making mistakes on so I'll go back to that as soon as possible sure. So it looks like you're kind of reading the PowerPoint slides and then using whatever notes you took during class and hoping that that kind of serves as your long-term retention then you're testing yourself is that fair? Yeah yeah basically so how effective and this is a good trick to test yourself if you're actually like finding utility out of a method how effective like let's say you're going to review your PowerPoints for x amount of hours and then ask you questions on it two to three hours later how much do you think you would retain? I'll be honest with you man probably like 50-40% real cool yeah so for something that you reviewed that day to only remember half means that that time could probably be spent you know elsewhere doing a different a different style and it may it may just be a combination where you jump into those practice questions quicker if that gives you the biggest bang for your buck you know so the same approach where you're like well I'm going to spend two hours and then I'm going to get the most benefit after doing practice questions but really that two hours really didn't give me much value maybe I need to shift to where I spend last points reviewing the PowerPoint and just get into the quizzing because if I get into the quizzing I know exactly what I know and don't know and then I can quickly self-correct myself so that's your beauty you don't need to spend more hours studying you just need to change how you use those hours yeah because I struggled time management too yeah so I mean a good way to flip it on it's a shoulder right is that your ultimate goal is to prepare for the exam and that means your ultimate goal is that there's going to be 100 plus things that you need to know for the test so as you get closer to test day that list should get smaller and smaller right reading the PowerPoint doesn't necessarily make that list go smaller it just reminds you of what's on that list but again you want to make that list as small as possible you know if the PowerPoints aren't working for you then like I said you know as you're going to test day what class are you taking right now right now do you are seeking bio okay so let's use bio as an example you know you're going to a bio exam you have 150 topics that you learned over multiple lectures that you need to learn right so the PowerPoint again only reminds you of what's on that list when you do practice questions you're like oh shoot out of this 150 like this I get right even after like only listening to it in class ones these topics I keep missing so that's where I need to review so if you start with a back-end mindset of saying like here's what I need to know if I knew everything on this list then I'm golden for the exam if I knew it for long-term retention like if I could explain it a week later to somebody else who's not in this class that's your ultimate test if you just pretend somebody is in front of you that doesn't know you know essentially anything about that topic in bio and feel like you can comfortably explain it that's the ultimate level you want to get to right so the way we go is we start with that list and saying okay like what do I need to know you test yourself and remind you basically assess of like how well do you know various things on that list you know maybe you really know physiology on a certain topic but you don't on a different organ system right that's just an example when you look at that list now you're like okay now when I need to review instead of spending that two times two hours reading the PowerPoint in general I'm going to focus more specifically on those topics that give me trouble I'm going to read it that specific topic and then I'm going to see can I explain it can I write it down from memory in a way where I could teach it to somebody else right because if you can do that then ideally that long-term retention lasts several days to weeks and then going into test day eventually what you'll find over time is as soon as you go here's my list I took some practice exams I sucked at this now I'm going to focus on these and now when I do my two hours of review I'm focused specifically on these topics and if I can teach it to somebody else I'm going to knock it off as something I've mastered over time that list is going to get smaller and smaller of things that are going to trip you up for the exam day and that's how you build long-term retention so most people and you're going to falling in this boat is you're starting with all the information they're giving you being the PowerPoints and then you're wondering why you're not able to remember the information but they're only testing you on a certain amount of it right so for you to get the biggest bang for your buck and go from the C to the B to the A's is you have to be aware of everything that's testable meaning create a list look at your outlines on your PowerPoints your syllabus whatever of what they actually care about and then ask yourself going to test day these are all the things I need to master and sort them into the way we're like this is the thing that's going to trip me up the most because I've already missed practice questions on it I don't really understand it when they talked about it in class those are things you need to review first so instead of just going I'm going to pull up lecture one and review all the slides for lecture one saying here the topics are going to trip me up I'm going to focus on the first 10 on this list right because if I feel more comfortable there then I'll jump up to the next one it's so much easier doing that yeah I mean if you think about it right like you're studying for the test for you right like the same test is given to you and your classmate but everyone thinks that they need to study the same way but you may miss a totally different question than your peers so why not study in a way that's designed for you to focus on the things that are going to trip you up yeah right so somebody could say something and instantaneously like that makes perfect sense I'm going to remember that forever somebody else will listen to that holy crap like that made no sense at all right so that's the whole difference is that we after even after two different forms of retention of how quickly you pick something up we still focus on every bit of information as if they're equally important but they're not equally important for you yeah I mean yes that's true because personally I just review all the PowerPoint slides yeah I mean it's not wrong to do it to get an idea of what's going to be on the test but like I said if you study for two hours and you realize this PowerPoint review method didn't really give me much value then you may be able to speed it up into an hour and saying let me just identify everything that needs to be known on this PowerPoint created on a list and instead now use that extra hour that I saved to go ahead and start testing myself because then when I test myself I can now create a I can now look at this list and say okay I really don't understand these topics so now when it gets closer to test day I can focus on those first yeah that's so much easier I didn't think about that yeah alright guys hopefully you guys are enjoying this conversation with Abed and specifically some of the techniques that we talked about how he can flip his study schedule around huh just like him hopefully you guys are having some aha moments of how you can use this in your own life if you are finding this interview helpful then go ahead and help this video in this episode out by hitting that thumbs up button down below did you have any other questions yeah I had a quick question so this is a general broad so what do you think about people taking a pre most pre-rex at a community college sure aren't you like taking it kind of yeah so you're not going to be the first person who gets into medical school because they did community college you're not going to be the last one right so the the the kind of the back and forth of doing pre-med or rex at a community college it's kind of a toss up you know ideally you can do some of them at a university so like you know if you're you know ideally if you had a community college for two years and there may still be classes that are left in your pre-med requirement things like ok or higher level physics etc that you can still take out of for your university when you eventually transfer and that just helps you avoid two things one you know it honestly doesn't really matter as long as you do well on those pre-med classes that's that's what matters right but but you may have somebody who's like well is the quality or the caliber of this class is equal at a community college versus a four-year university you can dip that in the butt if you can ultimately do well on one of those higher in pre-med courses okem being a great example physics being a great example i mean it just depends on like what your track is and how many you're planning on doing but you i i wouldn't slow down what pre-med classes you're taking now just so you can take them out of four-year university the plan is to do well as best as you can at a community college whatever classes are left do well at a four-year university and even the classes that are not pre-med requirements do well at a four-year university is that what you can show at med school like i know how to study you know my grades suffered here and i've done and improved i've learned but even when i went to a harder like more four-year typical kind of curriculum i was still able to do well so they won't be able to question whether or not you're like suitable for a med school education yeah yeah that's true yes so don't use being at a community college as like a an obstacle you have to go overcome it's an opportunity for you to get better at studying and then when you get to that four-year university you want to be able to use those same strategies to say okay i can still study you know material isn't necessarily hard or easier tests maybe depending on where you go um but as long as your retention is good for what you learn you can take that to wherever you go to school yeah our retention is that good it's okay i mean that's why you work at it right so the beauty of being this early into like wanting to be a physician and want to be on the medical journey is like you know your first year really should be like how the hell do i study and you may learn a hundred and different one ways that don't work for you that's perfect um but as you start to take a quiz every time you do well or you do poorly saying why did i go poorly don't just say my retention is bad but saying like how did i actually try to retain this and did it actually work ultimately do i actually remember it and if not then you need to change that form of retention that you're trying or if it worked really well you're like oh maybe my test strategies didn't work like i made too many guesses i'd try to change how you know it's answering these questions that's a different thing that you need to work on for every test should be a way for you to fix how you study so that way next test you go in but okay this is not going to be a problem anymore yeah it makes sense you know yeah hopefully that helps man i mean you're very early on so i wouldn't stress yourself out about you know things that always go on your way that's that's how it's always going to be so yeah because like whenever i read the power policemen i'm trying like a new strategy kind of because i can't really figure out what type of learner i'm on too because personally i mean and i struggle a lot high school i barely study in high school like i was one of those kids you know yeah i mean everyone has like their own own style of like and their own path right so yeah some of us did really well and then college really like woke us up some people did really well in college and then they called me on these and they said i can't i don't know how to study i'm at school and like that's completely normal um but in terms of like finding what type of learner you are if you're finding that quizzing yourself is helping you know i would do that more um and then whether you decide to learn long term through drawing things out watching videos on that topic listening to somebody talk about it reading something tends to not be the case for most people there are obviously a few people that can read something and saying like this is the best way to learn for me um but most people yeah most people don't so i would not make that your first opportunity so create a list of things you need to know and then ask yourself like how are you going to knock that list off because you get to test it is going to be watching a bunch of youtube videos on that topic is going to now i wouldn't re-watch your lectures but um essentially like what high yield methods you want to use do you want to quiz yourself do you want to draw it out yourself do you want to practice teaching somebody those are all different forms of learners that we have and multiple versions of those may still apply to you um but as long as your focus is how much how can i spend the most amount of time doing that then test day becomes a lot easier yeah i think it's a great approach i didn't i mean i did it the other way that's i mean most people do so it's not uh it's it's not uh surprising but i mean as you do more and more exams like i have over my like some out of years now in school you realize that that's not it's not time efficient or is it effective yeah i had one last question i sure go for it uh so how do you advise building your like cv like resume during covid especially covid like shadowing you know yeah people are allowing it you know kind of sure um that's a good question so you know covid's not going to be here forever um so if you're struggling getting shadowing i would not necessarily change your approach i would just change your frequency of who you ask and and questions over time and you know like create a database like if you're reaching out to people and they're saying you know not because of covid right now that doesn't mean they'll say no in the future so just create like an excel sheet of all the people you've emailed keep emails find more emails and send those out and then as things get a little bit more lax in terms of you know restrictions and things of that sort you can reach out to those people in the future you're early on at the moment that no one's going to ask you how many a shadowing hours excuse me that you did during your first year of school how many shadowing hours did you do your second year don't really care about hours the most important part is like do you actually know if this is for you right so if it takes until your end of your sophomore year for you to get some experience in a clinic or an or then that's fine but other options you have is that you know from what i've seen through social media through youtube is that there are you know channels aside from mine that do things like e-shadowings i'll link down the pre-med headquarters or the med school headquarters excuse me channel is just fantastic they do interviews like those two explain particularly for people who are applying to medical school they do e-shadowings i'm not sure if it's free or paid i believe it's free but i'll link it down below so they'll have physicians join on zoom call and then you can just watch in but again the goal of shadowing is not to put it on your cv we do it just because we want to like tell that application board that we know we want to do this but the the goal of shadowing is for you to know that you want to do this because then it shows up on your personal statement it shows up on other experiences you choose so i would just i mean even if it's of it's weird as like doing those e-shadowings and just like getting on a zoom call and watching somebody on their daily life or you know whether it may be watching youtube videos on the life of x you know whatever specialty you may think you may be remotely interested in watch those and i'll give you an idea of who you want to reach out to but in the background don't stop reaching out because eventually people's regulations from covid and things of that sort will go down and they're going to reintroduce students following them in their clinics in the hospital and so you just want to be able to constantly follow up yeah i mean that's a good idea i'm gonna start doing that with that excel method right now and it's pretty noble yeah so uh be i'm in uh i wish you the best of luck i always appreciate all the loves in the comments um but i'll link uh i'll link your social media step down below um yeah we wish you the best of luck okay yeah you too how's the resident the residency going for you huh residency is good um halfway halfway there are years left until i'm done so um it's good what was that keep going all right and that's that's we'll see we'll see but uh we'll keep trucking along just like you are all right thank you man of course good talking to you talk to you but hope you guys enjoyed this interview on a bunch of topics that we talked about all about how to flip your study method on its head to make it more effective and personal to you that's really what we're all about here at them to journey but also things about how to make yourself stand apart on your pre-med journey especially when things aren't going your way or if you feel like you're already kind of behind the eight ball and things like committee college or in the situation like he is in cove it like we all are but hopefully you guys found this episode helpful if you did go ahead and again drop your comments and questions down below and also all the things that we talked about on this episode including the med school headquarters youtube channel instagram i'll link those down below show those guys some love because they're doing some pretty amazing if you listen to this episode and you're pretty early into your medical journey somewhere on your pre-med journey and check out the pre-med journey that we have on amazon you can check it out for 99 cents it's a full blueprint to essentially everything i did and would want to do if i was in your shoes climb medical school but with that being said guys thank you so much for always being a part of my journey hopefully i've been a little help to you guys on yours now if you did enjoy this video then check out this video in a full tutorial on how to use onky like a pro as well as this video to talk about how to improve your grades with one simple step hopefully you guys enjoy these videos and i'll see you guys in the next one peace