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coordination compounds may or may not be one of my favourite chapters in inorganic chemistry. I absolutely Love writing compounds and naming them, finding out their hybridization, magnetic moment. Chemistry is such a beautiful subject.

I wanna crochet but I should do general chemistry first -_-

Hello! I'm new! You may have posted this somewhere already, but - if it's not too much to ask - may I inquire what degrees you pursued and what your medical jobs have been?

I ask not for vetting purposes, but rather directional purposes for mySELF. I dragged myself up out of a mental breakdown and started scrolling to snap myself out of it and saw your post like a beacon in the darkness.

You kind of hit a few buttons for me, and - though I might not be cut out to reach where you've reached - it is a DIRECTION.

Oh boy, I'm a bad role model because I went out and got a graduate degree that cost me 25 grand and increased my earning potential in the field from "minimum wage" to "just above minimum wage but it's a salary so you have to work more hours." Once I settled on medicine, which took me a long time, it took me an even longer time to finish pre-reqs for applying to med school (I had to take O-Chem as a night class at a community college, which was fun but oh my god that was a lot of work; volunteer at a local hospital on weekends; and keep working my day jobs, plural, at the same time). The MCAT sucked--I scored OK but that score did not change despite spending a bunch of dedicated time on studying. I didn't have money for private tutoring or prep classes. I would have done that if I had. It took two application cycles to get accepted; getting rejected from 15 schools the first time around after each application costs about 100 bucks felt like a nightmare. I wanted to appeal the rejections, but of course, you can't. So I put more effort in, did some mock interviews, interviewed much better the second year, and got in.

Once you're into med school, at least in the US, you are now a cash cow. You will not be expelled unless they can't polish that turd at least enough for a terrible toxic residency. The med schools spend a lot of money on you in hopes that you will become a rich alumna/alumnus who donates.

Once you're in residency, it is extra hard to get fired, because now you're actively making them money with your cheap labor funded in large part by the federal government and your very long hours. You have to REALLY work at it to get fired from residency. If someone is, I assure you, they did something bad. Not "protested racism" bad, as that catfishing doctor Eugene Gu who pretended to be a Black woman on Twitter to harass a much more popular MedTuber (Dr. Glaucomflecken) claimed, but being overtly incompetent and unwilling to do work bad. We had multiple residents who were VERY vocal during the Black Lives Matter protests and faced no repercussions. Some even joined a strike when the hospital employees went on strike, and although they only joined it for a few hours, that was a much more touchy subject with the brass than their anti-racism efforts.

Basically, if you're interested in medicine, I recommend reading Med School Confidential. It's a solid introduction to both the system and what to expect, and what to do in order to make the best of it.

everything i studied this week

anatomy lab: (central) nervous system anatomy, eye anatomy, sheep brain anatomy

human and animal reproduction:twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (research paper)

mcat: reviewed practice exam, bio/biochem content review, chem/phys content review

mcat registration is only open for certain months (4 days out of the months?) so plan the registration times! you can see them on the AAMC website. i’m from CA but i had to travel out of state to take the exam 😭😭

i definitely agree you should take the mcat after you finish your physic/ chem series! there’s also ochem, biochem, bio, psych, and soc in the test

since i’m applying this upcoming cycle, i took it in january. depending on my score, i’ll retake in april/ may. taking it in may will mean i send in my scores blindly.

they open up registration from january - june/ july-september. if you want more chances to take the test, you can definitely start earlier! there’s a 3 limit cap per year, and a 7 limit cap in general

here are the reddit links!

study guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/92ndgx/my_review_sheets/

anki deck: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/cckw41/my_anki_deck/

how to use/ study anki if you’ve never used it before: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/q8k7k0/how_to_study_miles_down_anki/

equation sheet: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/7vs9dq/equations_sheet/

anki is good for content review but you have to understand the concepts pretty well before using it. otherwise you’re just guessing and not learning as efficiently (at least for me)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING, I NEEDED THIS SO MUCH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

How did you feel Step 1 prep compared to MCAT prep?

Quick disclaimer: I took the MCAT in 2018, and I'm sure study strategies have changed over the years. Also, I cared about my score on the MCAT for application purposes, but Step 1 is P/F. That said, here's a comparison of my personal experience with both exams:

MCAT:

I studied while working a full time job (approx 40hrs/week) with a shift schedule.

I used Kaplan books and online practice tests to prep. Typically, I would read through a section in Kaplan then do practice questions in the book.

I knew that my strengths would be the CARS and psych sections, and chem/phys would be my weakest section.

I took a handful of full-length practice exams until I reached my desired score.

Total study time: approximately 4 months.

Step 1:

I had dedicated study time, no classes or job.

I used First Aid, some anki flashcards, and UWorld practice questions. By the last month or so just doing a lot of practice questions proved to be the most helpful part of my studying.

I took both UWorld self-assessments plus 2 NBME practice exams (they're $60 each which I paid out of pocket, which sucked) and the "Free 120".

The most overwhelming part was having no structure which meant I procrastinated a ton, and didn't really develop a strong study method going into dedicated so I spent a lot of time figuring that out.

I had to delay my exam date multiple times and I was really anxious the whole time about the possibility of failing the exam. Eventually I managed to comfortably pass an NBME exam and the Free 120 so I just decided to go for it.

Total study time: approximately 3 months.

Test day:

Both exams were a pretty similar experience. I was worried about my ability to focus, but was able to sustain focus well throughout for both. The noise-cancelling headphones were extremely helpful. The rooms were also temperature-controlled and I dressed comfortably. I used all of my breaks to relax, sip some coffee, have a snack, and focus on the upcoming block. Overall, neither exam was as difficult or as terrifying as I had built it up to be in my mind.

Hope that answers your question!

so i’m actually curious, what premed course eren took? and what branch of medicine he’s at?

AHHAHA so funny u mention this bc this chapter is literally me deciding Eren is not in fact going to follow through on his dreams of being a doctor 😂 bc it is simply TOO MUCH WORK! And the logistics of him and MIKI living happily ever after while he goes to school for like another 100 years just didn’t make sense to me. But he’s still a science boy I was thinking sports therapy, maybe a masters for him. But where I live anyone can be pre med as long as u take the required courses and do well on the MCAT. So for example I was literally a bio major and I did in fact take and struggle with O Chem 1 😂🙈 that was my tipping point for actually getting out of sciences bc I was like fuck this shit man! So that’s where Eren is at, he’s doing all his required courses considering the MCAT but for the sake of the timeline he’s gonna give up lol

Hey @ premed anon!! I’m in my third year of college and while I’m not premed, my roommate and most of my friends are, and I’m a biochem major so I’ve taken all the so-called premed classes. From what I’ve seen/heard from those around me, many people take the mcat in the winter/spring of their junior year. It’s also pretty common to take it the summer between sophomore and junior year, but this often requires self-learning material from classes you might not take until junior year. Like you said, it’s one of those things where you schedule it when you feel ready for it. As far as when to begin studying, I think most people start hard-core studying/preping the semester before you want to take the mcat. I definitely recommend saving your notes from bio/chem/genetics/etc so you can look back at them when reviewing for the mcat

!!!^^^^^

100 Days of Productivity Catch Up Post

Day 11/100--May 1, 2022

The last couple of days were a little hectic with a few ups and downs so I haven't had the chance to post in a while.

Of the downs we had:

Long days in lab. With my super long commute, I find that if I finish later at the lab by the time I get home (6 or 7) it's really hard for me to do anything else at home. Also I had to do a lot of really long experiments so I'm really exhausted by the end of the day

My messed up sleep schedule reminding me of how messed up it is and making me bedridden with a migraine.

I didn't get as much done in terms of MCAT studying as I wanted to.

Of the ups we have:

My experiment finally working!!! I've spent months trying to get my transfection to work on my cells and it finally worked!!! They took up so much of the plasmid and a whole bunch of them took it up too! I'm super stoked! That means that I'm one more step closer to finishing the troubleshooting stage of my thesis!

I've read through 1.5 research papers this week. The goal is to read 3 per week, so I guess I'm halfway there? It's a lot better than earlier on this semester.

I've booked my hair appointment for this week. Calling and making appointments gives me so much anxiety so I've been putting it off for a while so I'm pretty happy about getting this done

My friend graduated from his program this week so we went out to celebrate in our favourite cafe yesterday. We are both usually super busy with school and since we go to different schools it's hard to get together throughout the year. So it was really nice to see him again after a while. I also got to catch up with some other people I haven't seen around.

The Uni was giving out free pizza and had a bbq throughout finals week so I got to snag some free food this week which is always a win.

Today's plans:

clean my room

water my plants

finish chapters 1 and 2 of chem

catch up on anki

finish reading the rest of the paper I started this week

chapters 1 and 2 of MCAT bio

Back to Normal-ish

((hi

i took my MCAT today. it took 6-ish hours and while it wasn't as bad as i was expecting the chem/phys portion cooked me pretty good. im pretty tired rn so i cant say much

but i might post a starter call or something,,, maybe not a starter call bc i doubt i'll have the energy to do any real good writing atm. i need a few days to just... chill.

maybe i'll just send starter memes to people that want em. real low-stakes stuff. just so i can interact with more people and maybe actually do stuff on here

hope y'all are doing ok-ish. im gonna go to bed now

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[10/28/2023]

I decided to go back to having a study diary because my life is falling apart. It’s almost 1 am, so I’m debating on an all-nighter. I need to get less sleep to achieve my goals, so it starts here. I’m going home in the morning, so I can hopefully spend the day at the library with my friend.

Goals:

Biophysics homework

Psych notes (for MCAT purposes)

Zotero work

Emails

Chem notes and studying

✅ Reschedule meeting for nonprofit

Update: I think I need an increase of my medication dosage.

only good thing about the subjects on the mcat is that sometimes they’re redundant. like thermodynamics is covered in gen chem and physics. acid-base chemistry is covered in gen chem biochem and organic chem. the nervous system is covered in bio and behavioral science. lots of similar stuff.

Huh, apparently on reddit a lot of people were having issues with the chem/phys section of today’s MCAT which I was kind of okay with. Maybe I did alright then.

might have to change my major if i need to fit a certain amount of phys/chem/bio classes in order to prep for pre-med/mcat