Tips for First Year Students

• Keep up to date with lectures. Since the course is content heavy, the material can have a way of piling up rather quickly! It is important to review the lectures and your notes as soon and as thoroughly as possible while managing your other activities.

• Due to how content heavy this course is, it is important to find a way of studying efficiently. This can be individual to each person, as different people have different learning styles (flashcards, notes, etc.). If you find that the methods that worked in high school do not work as well now, do not lose hope! Try to find something that works for you, and discuss with peers (and lecturers if necessary, they have been to medical school before, and may well have faced the same challenges).

• Sometimes, a concept may be difficult to grasp, or the lecture slides may not explain it in a way that you can understand easily. Do not give up, look for alternatives! Make use of the resources available at hand. This includes asking the lecturers for clarification, or your peers. Alternatively, there are certain useful resources available, such as textbooks (Gray's Anatomy, Guyton and Hall Physiology, etc.) and websites (Teach Me Anatomy, etc.)

• Unlike in A-Levels, or any other qualification you have done in school, you will not have access to past papers. Medical schools generally will not release past papers, as they often like to repeat questions (although on the website StuDocu, you will be able to find exam papers and questions from other universities, uploaded by students). However, you can do some practise by going through the workbooks that have been provided, and by making your own questions. The workbooks are especially useful because of how they put lecture material into a question format similar to exams. Due to the clinical vignettes provided, it can put the information into context, stimulating situations you will face in practise.

• You may find that your performance in comparison to your peers is average; do not let this get you down, and try to find ways to keep a high morale. Due to the selective nature of medical school, all your peers will be strong students, compared to high school, where your performance may have consistently been at the top.