Good Study Habits as a Prospective Medical Student

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This post will consider good study habits as an aspiring medical student. I’ll give you some of my thoughts informed by having gone through undergraduate education and medical school. I didn’t have good study habits for a long time. I wish I had developed them sooner.

Prioritize the Development of Good Study Habits

Good study habits are rare. Few people have consistently good study habits. For the prospective medical student developing good study habits should become one of your main priorities. Developing and employing these good habits can make your college experience much better, improve your chance of success for medical school applications, and then make your experience in medical school and residency much better as well.

Some students come to college with good study habits. These are rare individuals. Good for them. The rest of us had or have poor study habits. Poor study habits waste time and do not prepare individuals for long-term learning. Instead, poor study habits increase stress and frustration. Therefore, developing and employing good study habits change your life for the better – especially if you start in college and carry over to medical school where you will likely be expected to learn more than ever before and more important information than ever before.

The Prevalence of Bad Study Habits

First, why do so many people have poor study habits? As a society we go to school from a young age and are expected nowadays to complete an undergraduate education.

Poor study habits are likely formed from people either being taught the wrong things about studying, or some people simply never had to develop good studying habits to get through any point of the expected levels of education (that is, through undergraduate education). In college, even smart people will generally need to study a good amount to get through classes with good grades. They won’t necessarily need to study well, just a lot. However, prolonged study with bad habits only ingrains those poor habits into us. Once one gets into upper-level undergraduate courses and certainly once in medical school one will be increasingly frustrated and pushed for time when employing bad studying habits.

Basically, the most effective study habits are not intuitive and we tend to be taught poor study habits. Although good study habits are not intuitive and we likely have not been taught them to this point, we can improve our study habits immediately.

What are Good and Bad Study Habits?

So, what are good studying habits? What are poor studying habits? Where can I learn all this information?

The book, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, applies research in learning in story form. It focuses on differentiating good and bad study habits. It explores research into better study habits. Reading it inspired me to improve my study habits and I have found great success with these improved habits.

Another great resource I recommend is Learning How to Learn on Coursera. This course delves into some learning theory and also discusses some practical ways to improve learning by modifying our behaviors and environments.

What are Good Study Habits?

Good study habits include spaced repetition, interleaving of topics, and self-assessment. That is, we need to revisit information periodically to build and maintain our knowledge, and we also need to avoid study in solely discrete categories. By periodically visiting information we maintain and strengthen our bank of knowledge and decrease the frequency we need to visit the information in the future. Interleaving topics helps us utilize information in new ways and can give us new insights into the information we already know. Self-assessment helps us better understand if we have an illusion of competence or if we really have mastery of material. Flash cards and quizzes are our friends here.

What are Bad Study Habits?

Bad study habits include re-reading, highlighting, poor usage of time, and allowing distractions. Reading can be an effective tool in initial learning. If followed with spaced retrieval (such as flash cards) and self-assessment (such as quizzes) then we are likely to learn the information or find faults in our current knowledge, which helps us focus on our deficits. Instead, if we just keep re-reading information we can become comfortable and assume we are ready to employ the information when we simply aren’t. Poor usage of time can range form focusing on low-yield material to to utilizing poor resources. Allowing distractions means that work gets interrupted and the learning process gets hampered.

Final Thoughts

Most of us have gone through extensive education without developing good study habits. By the time we get to upper-level undergraduate courses we may be spending long times studying, but are frustrated with our studies. By the time we get into medical school it is all worse.

Good study habits are quick and easy to learn and can be employed immediately with such tools as Anki flash cards and question banks. Get into good study habits now – the earlier the better—to save yourself time and frustration. Gain more positive experiences with studying, know you are using your time wisely, and prepare for your future. Bad study habits frustrate us and impede our learning. Avoid those bad study habits.

I will be writing more articles more in-depth about those good study habits and resources to facilitate good study habits for medical school. I also will be writing more articles to explore bad study habits and why to avoid them.

Also, if you are interested in medical school, check out my post “Should I Go to Medical School? Under Two Conditions” (https://permanentstudentdoctor.com/should-i-go-to-medical-school/) to help you determine if you should go to medical school.

Links to Resources

Note, at this time I have no affiliate partnerships and do not make money from any referrals. I simply found the following resources to be quite informative for my own educational journey.

Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Make-It-Stick-Peter-C-Brown-audiobook/dp/B00M1Z2THY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23A7SX2DUVFCE&keywords=make+it+stick+the+science+of+successful+learning&qid=1702129184&sprefix=make+it+stick%2Caps%2C241&sr=8-1

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects on Coursera https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Leave a comment on anything you would like me to discuss regarding the medical education journey, my own experience, or anything you would like me to cover.