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Study with Me + Revision tips from friends - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #32

2018-04-24 · Study with me · Ali, Jake, Charlotte, a guest · recording, 12:46 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying (also: Mindset, motivation and happiness, Productivity and time) · mode: Demonstration and walkthrough · tags: Aimed at students

In his third study-with-me vlog, Ali, a final-year Cambridge medical student, shows a sunny exam-term day of short group study sessions: drawing diagrams from memory and building an active recall spreadsheet together. His friends Jake and Charlotte and other medics add tips on exam stress and comparison, and Ali argues for efficient hours over long ones, rest without guilt and keeping exams in perspective.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — A study-with-me day in exam term: waking up, Huel and coffee, off to a psychiatry lecture

  • ★ For breakfast Ali blends Huel with milk and usually adds a spoonful of instant coffee, which he says makes it taste sort of like a Starbucks frappuccino. — 00:00:29

00:00:59 — Walking through Emmanuel and Christ's with Jake: his advice on exams and motivation

  • ★★ On a sunny April day in his final year at Cambridge, Ali says his exams are about five days away. — 00:00:59 · Emmanuel College
  • ★★ Jake: Ali's friend Jake advises students taking exams not to be intimidated by how much work the people around them claim to do, because it is probably all a myth. (hedged) — 00:00:59 · Jake
  • ★★ Ali finds the psychiatry revision lecture at Christ's College really useful: a solid hour going through psychiatry presenting complaints. — 00:01:28 · Psychiatry

00:01:54 — Charlotte on clinical communication skills, her snacks and dealing with exam stress

  • ★★ Charlotte, a sixth-year medic at Emmanuel College, revises clinical communication skills alongside active recall: knowing everything is not good care if you cannot explain it well and thoroughly to patients. — 00:01:54 · active recall, Clinical communication skills, Emmanuel College, Charlotte
  • ★★★ Charlotte says stress about GCSEs and A levels is natural, but students should keep perspective: if exams go badly it is not the end of the world, they can always resit, so they should not pin everything on one set of exams. — 00:02:31 · Charlotte
  • ★★★ Charlotte says the grades written on the exam results paper do not define who you are, and your worth should not lie in them. — 00:03:00 · Charlotte

00:03:29 — Drawing acromegaly and Cushing's from memory, the group active recall spreadsheet, history role plays and the eyes

  • ★★★ Revising with Charlotte, Ali draws the acromegaly and Cushing's examination diagrams from memory and fills the gaps from a master diagram, then she draws them and he fills her gaps: teaching her is active recall for him, so it helps both. — 00:03:29 · active recall, Charlotte
  • ★★★ Ali builds his active recall spreadsheet in Google Sheets with friends: for each neurology topic the group brainstorms questions an examiner could ask, writes them in column A and works out the answers for column B. — 00:04:28 · active recall
  • ★★ For the spreadsheet Ali and his friends collate many sources, including Cases for PACES and his OSCE book, and look up anything they do not understand on Google or Wikipedia before it goes in. — 00:04:28 · Wikipedia, active recall
  • ★★ Ali sorts out paperwork at the post office for the house he hopes to move into around July 2018, and says there will be more on it closer to the time. (hedged) — 00:04:57
  • ★★ To choose what to revise next, Ali and Jake ask what they would be least happy about if the exam were tomorrow, and find it is the eyes. — 00:04:57 · Jake
  • ★★ Revising the eyes, Ali's group throws likely exam scenarios at one another, such as gradually blurring vision, brainstorms the differentials, then one person googles it and they work out what they missed. — 00:05:26

00:05:54 — A nap, efficiency over hours, sharpening the saw, and a friend working outside with Forest

  • ★★★ Answering viewers who admire his work ethic, Ali says he is not a productivity machine but likes to work efficiently: he would never spend three hours making notes from a textbook, which looks like productivity but really is not. — 00:06:23
  • ★★★ Ali thinks the key is efficiency: you can put relatively few hours into work and still do it efficiently. — 00:06:23
  • ★★ Ali says it is sometimes important to take a break; he tells himself he is sharpening the saw, as Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People calls it: resting now to be more efficient later. — 00:06:52
  • ★★ a guest: A friend of Ali's works outside in the shade with headphones, starting a timer and growing a tree in the Forest app to make sure the work actually gets done. — 00:06:52

00:07:14 — Working with others, comparison in the library, and exam term as a social time

  • ★ a guest: Another friend of Ali's puts the phone on do not disturb so as not to look at it. — 00:07:14
  • ★★★ Ali likes working with other people because it gives a realistic idea of how little everyone else works; studying alone in a library, especially for A levels or at university, inflates what others seem to do and makes you think you are not doing enough. — 00:07:14
  • ★★ a guest: A fellow medical student says that in a library everyone is there only to revise, so it gives a false idea of the rest of their lives: people seen working hard there also played football or went out with friends. — 00:07:43
  • ★★ a guest: The same student says comparing yourself with others is a natural human struggle that can be really degrading and put you in a bad state of mind, so it is important to support each other. — 00:08:25
  • ★★ a guest: The student says the medics of their Cambridge college have worked really hard to collaborate and share resources. — 00:08:55
  • ★★ Exam term is one of Ali's favourite parts of university life: studying the same material as friends in one place, each doing their own thing, is very social. — 00:08:55

00:09:24 — The mug with his face and an hour researching revision merchandise

  • ★★ Instead of working, Ali spends an hour researching how feasible it is to make posters, mugs and t-shirts and designing some with his revision catchphrases, such as "active recall is a way of life". — 00:09:53 · active recall

00:10:22 — Stopping work on a sunny evening, exams are not everything, Avalon until 1 a.m., sign-off

  • ★★★ Ali says it is very easy to fall into the mindset that exams are the only important thing in your life, especially when parents keep telling you to work harder. — 00:10:22
  • ★★★ Ali says that when it is sunny and friends are together it is totally okay to decide to do only a little work and spend the rest of the day playing board games or having pizza with friends. — 00:11:00
  • ★★★ In exam term Ali values intense, focused bursts of revision but sees no need to go hardcore, because the result of one exam will not define their worth as human beings. — 00:11:29
  • ★★ Ali and his friends play Avalon from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.; he calls it a really good board game, like Mafia or Werewolf but better, because no one is eliminated and everyone takes part for the whole game. — 00:11:29

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: active recall

Also: Charlotte · Clinical communication skills · Emmanuel College · Huel · Jake · Katherine · Psychiatry · Wikipedia

Only in the description or credits: University of Cambridge

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