GPA

In order to be a strong student in college we need to consider a few factors. Here is a list of questions to ask yourself in the process:

1. What classes am I taking? Are they generally considered hard or easy?
2. When am I taking the classes?
3. Who is the professor teaching the classes and what alternative professors are there?
4. Does my school have any resources that let me find average GPA and grade distribution for a class? (Example: UCI has a website called ZotTistics)
5. Can I take summer school?
6. Where am I in my college journey, what deficits in my CV/experience do I need to improve on before I graduate or apply to medical school. How can I bridge those deficits?

Next, we go over planning

1. Make a 4 year planner
2. Make each quarter as easy as possible
3. Find clubs or campus resources to make friends in your major. The more people you know, the more likely you can receive valuable school or class specific insight. Now is the time to be less shy. You don't have to be an extravert, but now is the time to develop confidence in yourself and stronger social skills if you haven't already. Would you want your doctor to have difficulty with social skills or lack confidence?
4. Find out who can be your lab partner for lab classes sooner rather than later. At least having one person you know that is responsible for their work can make some lab classes much easier

Classes themselves

• The most effective study method that I have found is called Spaced Active Recall. I believe there is a decent amount of data to show that this method is highly effective for memorizing chunks of information. What I like however is that it potently shows you what you DON'T know about the material and can then study. So what is it?
• Spaced active recall: take a piece of paper and write everything you know about the class onto the paper. whatever you miss, go back with your notes and fill in on the paper/correct what you wrote. Do this a variety of ways and you will quickly memorize and understand information. Make sure that when you are writing down things you are also explaining what's going on. You are essentially "lecturing the paper"
• A nice derivative that I like is called Spaced Cued Recall. This isn't quite as intense as the above method, however I have found it to be highly effective
  • Cued Recall works in tandem with the lecture slides you are probably provided. Generally, especially for fundamental classes, you are provided with learning objectives. Here, instead of writing everything about the course like Active Recall, you are going to try and answer or fulfill the learning objectives as much as possible. Like before, use your notes the slides to fill in and correct what you missed.
  • A more detailed version: If your professor does not provide learning objectives, you can make them yourself. Or, in even more detail, make a study guide for yourself for the lecture. Essentially, write basic questions that are derived from the slides and then at a later time answer them yourselves. There should be enough questions to cover essentially everything covered in the slides/lecture material
• Flash Cards. Flash cards are, well, just okay. They are effective, but we need to tweak how we use them in order to maximize their effect. Making flashcards is more of an active learning process, which is what we want, but going over flashcards incorrectly I argue is actually a poor study strategy. Ok, so what do I mean by that? The "correct" way to go over a flash card is to see the card, answer or describe what is being asked, and then look at the other side of the card. This is how most people use them the first 1 or 2 times, but after 3 to 4 runs through a flashcard deck we tend to get a little lazy. Next is how often we use the cards. A lot of times we only go through the card deck once after really learning the material, and this isn't very effective for long term memory. It can be really good for short term memory, but keep in mind that the principles you learn in your freshman and sophomore year will carry strongly on the MCAT and the upper division courses. We want to learn things not just for a test, but for long term memory and the purposes of being educated. Of course, we don't need to become encyclopedias, but we do need to have a strong foundational understanding of the sciences wherever our professions may take us.
  • Optimizing our flashcards: We are going to use software like Anki to maximize our spaced recall patterns. Anki is going to become your best friend!