Surviving Freshman year: how does it change?

[littlepinkpunk]

I am in my second semester at my university, and the "weeding out" process of the premed program is going to drive me crazy. It is my dream to go to medical school, but this really is a heavy load.

I've always been a hard worker - graduated with honors, but i'm having a tough time dealing with my core classes. Midterms are next week, and i have alot to do before then.

In highschool, i had a passion for biology and anatomy classes, and i did very well in them, but i will admit that i did a fair share of BSing my way through many coarses...and i feel like i'm resorting back to that, even for classes like biology! (what can i say? the lab Kills me!)

 

((("BS" being doing well enough to pass the class with a good/decent grade, but maybe not fully understanding the material other than being able to pass a test)))

 

From anyone who is or has been in my position, is it really important that i Not BS my way through these classes? or are these just part of the 'weeding out' process? It is important that i make it through these classes with good grades, but i don't understand how important it is to my future to fully understand/memorize the material.

 

this is alot harder to put in words than i thought it would be, and i hope you understand what i'm asking. Thank you for your help!!

[renaissancewoman101]

It is important NOT to BS you way through those classes because a lot of your upper level chem and bio classes will be based on those lower level classes. If you learn the stuff well in your lower classes, it will help you with your upper level classes.

 

When I went to college I started off trying to get a biomedical engineering major. Like you, I did pretty well in high school in math and sciences (taking honors and AP classes). But classes in college are nothing like high school classes. For one thing, they delve more in depth into the subject. I did ok in biology but had a hell of a time with chemistry. I hunkered down and tried my hardest to study, memorize, etc., and I was able to pull off grades that just squeaked by. In my second year of college, I had to take advanced Calculus and Organic Chem. Organic Chem was what decided me that I didnt want to major in biomed. BTW, organic chem is really the "weeder class" that determines whether you continue in the sciences or not. On my first day of organic chem, the professor comes in and starts off the class by telling us that the class is a weeder class and that by the end of the semester more than half of us would be gone.

[Hope75]

It is important that you not BS you way through school. Your academic integrity is on the line here, and if you are serious about medical school, believe me when I say there is no BS'ing your way to get there. It's very competitive and you are going to need to stamina and the grades to get there. You will need to know this material and understand it fully if you will be able to continue, these types of classes (A& P Chem, BIO,) are the building blocks for medicine and if you don't understand chemestry and biology and microbio and how that all works, you will not be able to follow into the more complex classes where they talk about how things go wrong and why we see the signs we do when they do.

 

You CAN do it, but it is going to take ALOT of hard work and studying.

 

I'm in nursing school, and we learn just a fraction of what doctors learn in medical school, but our program is extremely intense and likened to boot camp in the long clinical hours and the hundreds of pages of reading each week and the projects and studying... long class hours....

 

If this is what you want, you've got to pull your all into it and give it everything you've got.

 

Think of it this way: would YOU want to be treated by a doctor who BS'd his way through medical school?