Study Styles

Anki is love, Anki is life. Anki is a flashcard software with an internal algorithm that determines how often you see a certain flashcard over time, depending on how easy or difficult the card is for the user. You can download pre-made decks, or you can make your own flashcards to fill in any relevant knowledge gaps. For our pre-clinical curriculum, I’ve found it to be my main resource for studying and memory recall. A bit after school started, I downloaded the AnKing deck, a massive, well-organized, and publicly available deck, and I’ve been unsuspending cards by tags that correspond to the content from the day’s lecture. I often modify my cards with in-class lecture diagrams and slides, and I supplement my Anki studying with relevant third-party-resource videos, like those from Boards and Beyond or Pathoma. Anki is my main studying tool and helps me review material for a few hours a day in a consistent, long-term manner. And, for me, there’s no better way to end a hard day of pounding my spacebar 500 times than reading the pop-up notification, “Congratulations! You have finished this deck for now.”

I prefer to go to class because I focus better in class than I do listening to lectures at 2x speed after the fact. Do not get me wrong, I will still re-listen to lectures at 2x, but I will focus on the parts that confused me during class. Going to class allows you to ask and answer questions in real time. I also think it gives you a better idea of what was emphasized by the professor. For me, it was a good habit to get into that ensures that I see all class material at least once, and it helped me develop a consistent routine. However, I will say, even if you do go to class, you do not always have to pass on other opportunities for the sake of always being in class. Keystone does a good job of delineating what lectures involve more class participation in our schedules. If I see a class that is strictly lecture and is not required that is interfering with a volunteer opportunity that I am passionate about, I am much more comfortable skipping a class than I was in undergrad.

Going to class???? Excuse me????????? Could not be me, bro.
Real talk, not going to class is a viable option at WashU but requires more discipline than you might think. Skipping class in the morning means I need to motivate myself to study the lectures on my own later. While it does take some will power to do work without the structure of a class environment, skipping class means you can study how you want (watch lectures at warp speed, read the slides, supplement with third-party resources, etc.) and at a time that is most convenient for you. This is especially helpful for someone who is not a morning person and who typically does not retain information during early morning classes. I’ve also found that as time goes on, more people discover what works for them which often involves not going to class. Basically, figure out how you want to study and go for it!

I feel attacked by the title of this section so I’m going to call these old school study methods. While I do tend to attend around 90% of lectures in person and on Zoom, I find that I don’t retain information through passive learning — just listening or watching video. So, I download the lecture slides and take notes on the PDF files while the lecturer is speaking. But of course, that only works enough for me to say, “this seems vaguely familiar.” In order to fully understand and retain the information that I’ve learned, I must write detailed and tedious notes (pages upon pages) based on the lecture slides and/or assigned readings. I comfort myself with the thought that at least I’m hip enough to use an iPad and a bootleg Apple pen — I’m no caveman. I’m not sure if I can endorse specific products here so I’ll just say SingleNote is a pretty good free option and while you have to pay for an expanded version of FineNotes, it’s a decent investment. If this sounds like a time-consuming, arthritis-inducing, leaves-you-on-the-verge-of-tears kind of process — well…it is. Bet you thought there’d be a reversal there. I wouldn’t call this a sustainable study method, but it works for me and the results speak for themselves — I’m still here … or am I?