A couple of you have asked for my schedule so here is a typical day!
With the exception of some weird days, the following is sort of “A Day in the Life” of what I have found works best for me. Its all but required that we go to class. (There are usually points involved just for showing up.) When the whole week stretches in front of me with 15 hours of biomedical foundations (BMF) and then our 2 clinically based classes adding 2-4 hours each, as well as Anatomy gearing up, its getting to be a lot of class time.
6:10 AM- Wake up! Coffee.
6:20 AM- Get dressed, hair, makeup, breakfast.
6:45 AM- Gather up gym clothes, change of clothes for after the gym, books, backpack, packed lunch, etc.
6:50 AM- Leave for School!
7:15 AM- Put stuff in my locker, lunch in the fridge, more coffee.
7:25 AM- Head to the library. Print lecture notes, go to my carrel and look over stuff or bang head on my desk.
8:00 AM- Class starts. We have completed 3 credit hours already. Boom! BMF I- Biochem DONE. Now we are in Genetics, Molecular Bio, and Embryology. Easily my three favorite courses from undergrad rolled into one.  We usually have 2 or 3 hours. On really heavy days we have 4. We get a 10 minute break at ten til of every hour and so I will stretch, get water or coffee, pee, or lay on the floor, wishing I could sleep.
12:00 PM- Lunch. I bring a lunch most days and so does everyone else for the most part. By 12:20 I’m usually done eating. I’ll study, print stuff off for the next day, run to QT, or call my niece Addie since she isn’t in school.
1:00 PM- OMM. Today we had OMM and its fun so I’ll go with that even though we only have it once a week. It lasts 2 hours and they have a guest osteopathic doc come teach us certain techniques. Its starting out slow still (we haven’t learned how to fix anything) but you get used to touching people and its nice to move around a little. Its definitely more social than other classes so I like it.
3:00 PM- Anatomy. Again, we don’t start dissecting til next week but we went today and took a mock practical, assigned group leaders, went thru lab procedures, etc. They also posted our cadavers’ causes of death so that was super interesting. I’m excited and grateful for the gift of these peoples’ bodies.
5:00 PM- Work out. Honestly, the whole day goes better if I run/lift RIGHT after class. Otherwise I talk myself out of it later. If I can just make it into the gym without looking at another handout, then I can run and not think about how much studying awaits me at the end of each evening.
6:00 PM- I change into comfy clothes and study in a breakout room with my friend Macy. Making it through note taking and reviewing everything that was lectured on that day is the ideal but we don’t always make it. Sometimes a lecture or two gets stacked onto the next day’s which makes tomorrow even more of a load. I would say that an hour of material here covers about the equivalent of 4-50 minute undergrad class periods. And OBU was no cake walk. It probably takes a good hour and a half of sifting through each lecture before I feel good enough to move on. We eat snacks, take breaks to get coffee or just talk about other things. And of course we talk thru harder material and ask each other questions if things feel iffy. We have a good system going. Once we can’t go without dinner anymore, we leave.
9:00 PM- I get home to BA on average around 9-9:30. I sit (or lay) down and try to breathe deeply and make peace with the day.
9:30 PM- Depending on how I’m feeling, I’ll either take a shower now or go right back to studying and shower before bed.
11:00 PM- I start entertaining the idea of going to bed. I’ll gather stuff up for the next day and decide where my stopping point on studying is.
12:00AM- Bedtime. If I go much past midnight, I’m worthless in the morning until after lunch!
 
This schedule takes SO. MUCH. DISCIPLINE. Seriously everyday, I try to find a way around it or how to get out of doing something and just sleep, but you really just have to do it, or you’ll fail. If it seems like I’m studying all the time, I feel like I am; but, I also fell like I’m not. I feel like I should study more. Always. I’m either studying or on my way to studying. There’s really just no time for anything you don’t FORCE into your day. You have to say, “This is something I have to do even though I should study.” If its for my physical or emotional wellbeing, I’ll do it. So that’s pretty much running and eating. Its very difficult but I’m not saying that to complain or because I hate it. I’m telling the premeds out there because if this doesn’t sound worth it to you to be a doctor, you probably should find something else. For me, its just like with running. You get out of it what you put in, and the pain is worth the progress. I love what I’m doing. I would do it for free, but I’ll do you one better and say that I would pay to do this, because I actually am paying this school to make me do this everyday. Crazy right?
P.S. Posts will be less frequent because like I said, I should always be studying. I will make a little time for this though! Thanks for reading and helping my blog grow!