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First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A

2018-05-01 · Livestream or live hangout · Ali · recording, 45:32 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying (also: Relationships and personal life, Medicine and his doctor years, Mindset, motivation and happiness) · mode: Answering questions · tags: Aimed at students, His own products discussed, His own numbers, Family

In his first, impromptu livestream, the day after his final exams, Ali, a final-year Cambridge medical student, answers a stream of viewer questions: motivation is a myth best replaced by discipline, helped by more fun, less friction and a salient outcome; confidence comes from competence; Oxford and Cambridge want nerds rather than extracurriculars; and he credits his success to the luck of his birth.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Starting his first livestream: can anyone hear him, is the phone sound good enough

00:01:32 — A quick room tour of his Emmanuel College room

  • ★★ After a quick room tour on the stream, Ali says he will make a proper room-tour video with slow-motion, close-up, blurred-background shots of his books and things. — 00:03:18

00:03:40 — Anki or Quizlet, mind maps, Cambridge and Oxford tips, his applications and the UCL rejection, anatomy, four A-levels

  • ★★ Ali really likes Anki for medical school: its iOS app costs £24, one of the best £24 he has ever spent, though Quizlet is free. — 00:03:40 · Anki
  • ★★ Ali says mind maps can be good for revision as long as you don't look at the book while making them, so that they are active recall; they should hold the main points, not much detail. — 00:04:07 · active recall
  • ★★ Ali says his video on how to actually learn is coming soon: he is in the planning stages. — 00:04:33
  • ★ The background music in Ali's videos comes from the website Epidemic Sound. — 00:04:33
  • ★★ Ali's tip for getting into Cambridge University: get really, really good grades. — 00:05:00 · University of Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali's one best tip for an Oxford interview: think out loud. — 00:05:00 · University of Oxford
  • ★★ Ali applied for medicine to Cambridge, Imperial, UCL and King's: UCL rejected him and the other three made offers. — 00:05:29 · University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London
  • ★★ Ali says UCL rejected him as too arrogant and recommended a year out to develop his people skills; he admits he was quite arrogant at the UCL interview, already holding his Cambridge offer. — 00:05:29 · University College London
  • ★★ Ali got 13.5 A* grades at GCSE. — 00:05:29
  • ★★ In his Google spreadsheet of revision questions Ali writes answers as short points one, two, three, four when they are a list of things to learn. — 00:05:52 · active recall
  • ★★ To avoid burning out and overworking in exam season, Ali advises studying with your friends. — 00:05:52
  • ★★ For anatomy Ali advises Anki and Instant Anatomy, a website by the Cambridge anatomist Bob Whittaker, and learning the rules that cover a lot of ground, such as which nerve supplies a muscle group. — 00:06:22 · Anki
  • ★★ Ali says a video on how he manages his time at medical school is also being planned, since people always ask him about it. — 00:06:48
  • ★★★ Ali's exams finished the day before the livestream (30 April 2018), so he now has all the time in the world to make lots of videos. — 00:06:48
  • ★★ Ali advises always taking four A-levels if you can: three is suboptimal in his opinion. — 00:06:48

00:08:13 — Top grades in two weeks, book recommendations, A-levels for medicine, studying 12 hours a day, his favourites

  • ★★ Ali says that with no work done at all, two weeks of revision probably cannot get you top GCSE grades. (hedged) — 00:08:13
  • ★★ Ali recommends the non-fiction books Happy by Derren Brown, one of his favourite books on living a happier life, and Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek. — 00:08:13 · The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss
  • ★ Ali sleeps about seven hours a night. — 00:08:13
  • ★★ Ali says any A-level is fine for medicine as long as you have biology, chemistry and probably maths, though some universities require neither maths nor biology. (hedged) — 00:08:43
  • ★★ Asked how to study 12 hours a day for over a year, Ali says don't, and asks why anyone would want to. — 00:08:43
  • ★★ Ali's tip for English literature: memorise quotations. — 00:09:12
  • ★★ On people who choose medicine only to make a lot of money, Ali says you can do that in America but not really in the UK. — 00:09:35
  • ★ Ali recommends his Bose QC35 headphones as really good. — 00:09:35
  • ★★ Ali says a video on the iPad Pro as a study device is coming out shortly. — 00:10:20 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali says an April favourites video is coming out as well. — 00:10:47
  • ★★ Ali was born in Karachi and moved to the UK in 2003. — 00:11:50
  • ★★ Ali's favourite fiction books are Harry Potter, Mistborn, The Name of the Wind and Noughts and Crosses. — 00:11:50 · Harry Potter

00:12:37 — Why he chose medicine, gap years, work experience, UKCAT, Anki cards, blogging, group study

  • ★★★ Ali chose medicine over computer science: he liked coding but thought a computer science degree would turn it into a job, and he wanted it to stay a hobby. — 00:12:37
  • ★★ Ali would love to make a collab video with the YouTuber Jack Edwards and asks anyone who knows him to tell him so. — 00:14:06
  • ★★ For a gap year after four medicine rejections, Ali advises picking up skills that will enrich your life: teach yourself things, learn instruments and singing, start a YouTube channel, code, design, travel and cook. — 00:14:31
  • ★★ Ali went to Westcliff High School for Boys. — 00:14:31
  • ★★ Asked whether there is still time to do 50 psychology essays in two weeks, Ali says probably not: cut them down and focus on what is important. (hedged) — 00:14:31
  • ★★ Asked whether medicine applicants should do work experience at a GP surgery or in a hospital, Ali says both. — 00:15:06 · Work experience
  • ★★ Ali got five A* grades at A-level, or four, since general studies does not count. — 00:15:06
  • ★★ Ali's tip for the night before an exam: go over everything once, then sleep. — 00:15:34
  • ★★ Ali scored about 695 in the UKCAT and says he did really badly in it. — 00:15:34 · UKCAT
  • ★★ To get hospital work experience without knowing anyone on the inside, Ali says you have to go through the official routes. — 00:16:01 · Work experience
  • ★★ Ali made too many Anki cards in his first year; now he makes them only for the things he really struggles to remember. — 00:16:01 · Anki
  • ★★ Ali's advice for starting a blog: get started, don't worry that nobody reads it for the first few months, keep at it and be consistent. — 00:16:01
  • ★★ Ali says group studying can be unproductive but is fun, and becomes productive as long as someone takes the lead. — 00:16:01
  • ★★ Ali's inspirational quote is Eleanor Roosevelt's: we would stop caring what people think if we realised how seldom they do. — 00:16:52
  • ★★ Ali is Muslim but really does not like the word religious. — 00:16:52

00:17:21 — His theory of exam performance, inclusivity, luck and genes

  • ★★ Ali stays motivated to revise by studying with friends. — 00:17:21
  • ★★ Ali applied to Emmanuel College because it was pretty and had ducks. (playful) — 00:17:21 · Emmanuel College
  • ★★★ Ali's theory of exam performance rests on three things: intelligence, which is fixed, and knowledge and practising exam technique, which can be worked on. — 00:17:21
  • ★★★ Two weeks before an exam, Ali advises focusing on exam technique, because two weeks is not long enough to gain much knowledge. — 00:18:02
  • ★★ Ali has been losing his hair over time and feels very insecure about it. — 00:18:02
  • ★★ The quality Ali most admires in people is inclusivity: bringing other people in, as he would invite a new housemate to a pizza night. — 00:18:02
  • ★★ Ali says medicine is for all personalities. — 00:18:02
  • ★★ Ali says he was very lucky to be born with decent genes for IQ, which has really helped him, and that none of his success is down to him. — 00:18:02
  • ★★★ Ali's general attitude is that success comes from circumstance: he was born into a good family with decent genes and did not squander that hand, and nobody can take credit for their successes. — 00:18:49

00:19:16 — Motivation is a myth: discipline, and three ways to raise motivation

  • ★★ Ali says he is planning a video on the myth of motivation, with a diagram of the gap between thinking you should do something and doing it. — 00:19:16
  • ★★★ Ali calls motivation, the idea that you must feel like revising chemistry before you revise it, a complete myth: if you know you need to do it, discipline is the way forward. — 00:19:46 · discipline
  • ★★ Ali tries to scrub the word motivation from his vocabulary because he thinks it unhelpful: if he needs to do something, he does it because he is disciplined. — 00:20:22 · discipline
  • ★★ Ali treats pure discipline as an ideal to look towards, without beating yourself up too hard for falling short of it. — 00:20:51 · discipline
  • ★★★ Ali gives three ways to improve motivation: make the activity more fun, reduce friction, and increase the salience of the outcome. — 00:20:51 · friction
  • ★★ Examples of raising the salience of the outcome, says Ali: viewers watch his Cambridge videos or Ibz Mo's to stay motivated, and his brother kept a picture of Oxford as his desktop wallpaper. — 00:21:17 · Ibz Mo, Taimur Abdaal, University of Oxford
  • ★★ To make two hours of boring SixMed admin emails more fun, Ali goes to Costa, gets a flat white and puts on music. — 00:21:41 · 6med

00:22:10 — SixMed's income, Oxbridge wants nerds, public speaking, confidence is domain-specific, exams as a game

  • ★★ Ali thought he had a reasonable chance of getting into Cambridge, but says it is always just a chance and he was very lucky to get in. — 00:22:10 · University of Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali says you are pretty much guaranteed a job if you study medicine. — 00:22:10
  • ★★★ Ali says SixMed made him a reasonable amount in the past but is declining: the Medic Portal advertises everywhere and has the private schools, new companies charge £20 a course, and at SixMed's size VAT and corporation tax rule such prices out. — 00:22:34 · 6med
  • ★★★ Ali says he does not really care about making money: he is comfortable with what SixMed has made for him and his family, and wants to focus on becoming a good doctor and making YouTube videos that give things away for free. — 00:23:04 · 6med
  • ★★ Specialty training abroad is not for Ali personally, though many people are doing it. — 00:23:30

  • ★★★ Ali calls it a myth that you need extracurriculars for Oxford or Cambridge: they look for massive nerds who are really good at their subject, not well-rounded people with Grade 8 piano or Team GB rowing. — 00:24:15 · University of Oxford, University of Cambridge

    “All you need to do is be a massive, massive nerd and be really good at your subject.”

  • ★★ Ali says practising your religion at university is not that hard: if most of your friends are in the Islamic Society, it is very easy. — 00:24:37

  • ★★ Ali's advice for becoming more confident in public speaking: just do it. (hedged) — 00:24:37
  • ★★ Ali says he never really feels incompetent. — 00:24:37
  • ★★★ Ali says confidence comes from competence: if you are good at something you will be confident at it, and confidence is domain-specific. — 00:25:05
  • ★★ Ali is not confident at dancing because he is not good at it, but confident at what he knows he is good at, and he would never call himself generally incompetent or unconfident, which he thinks an unhelpful attitude. — 00:25:35
  • ★★ Asked how long A-level students should revise per day, Ali does not know and suggests about eight hours. (unsure) — 00:26:01
  • ★★★ Ali says exams are a personal game, a little test of how much you remember and not a competition; treating them as a personal challenge means you probably won't get stressed by them. — 00:26:01

00:26:33 — Research in Japan, healthcare systems, A-level study hours, notes on the iPad, a doctor's pay, breaks, YouTube, World of Warcraft, how his channel began

  • ★★ Ali was very nervous at his medicine interviews and had no real way of handling it. — 00:26:33
  • ★★ In his second year Ali went to Japan for a research project; the project went nowhere, but it was a fun trip. — 00:26:33
  • ★★ Asked whether stress can make eczema worse, Ali calls it controversial but thinks the evidence is that it can. (hedged) — 00:26:33
  • ★★ Ali hears Scandinavian countries have good healthcare, calls the American system absolutely crap, and loves the UK system, though the NHS probably can't survive in its current state. (hedged) — 00:27:16 · NHS
  • ★★ Ali wishes he had taken further maths at A-level. — 00:28:50
  • ★★ On A-level study leave Ali studied the whole day, 10 to 12 hours. — 00:28:50
  • ★★ If you don't get into medicine, Ali says: apply again if you want medicine; if you don't really care, apply for something else. — 00:28:50
  • ★★ Ali's tips for getting a grade 9 at GCSE: spaced repetition and active recall. — 00:29:16 · spaced repetition, active recall
  • ★★ For his A-levels Ali worked at Southend's local library from about 9am to 7pm, then went home. — 00:29:52
  • ★★ Ali writes up his notes on an iPad Pro with the Notability app. — 00:29:52 · iPad Pro, Notability
  • ★★ Ali used to play video games but no longer does: he thinks they are a waste of time. — 00:29:52
  • ★★ Ali says his medical ethics series has covered the major topics, but he wants to make a video about Alfie Evans soon and is working on it. — 00:29:52 · Medical ethics
  • ★★ Ali says a new doctor starts on about £30,000 a year on average, before tax. — 00:30:35
  • ★★ Whether you can work while studying medicine depends on the work: Ali runs a company teaching BMAT and UKCAT courses. — 00:30:35 · 6med, BMAT (exam), UKCAT
  • ★★ Ali takes study breaks whenever he feels like it: he is not disciplined about regimented time and doesn't think that is necessary. — 00:31:12
  • ★★ Against teachers who put you down or tease you, Ali advises treating it as banter: as long as you don't take it personally, it does not matter how mean someone is. — 00:31:12
  • ★★ Ali recommends starting a YouTube channel because it improves your public speaking and teaches filming and editing, skills in demand in anything you go into. — 00:31:39
  • ★★ Ali no longer lives in Southend: his family has moved to St Albans. — 00:32:04 · St Albans
  • ★★ At secondary school Ali was addicted to World of Warcraft, with about 180 days played in total over some three years, which he reckons at three-plus hours a day. — 00:32:04
  • ★★ Ali turns 24 in exactly ten days (11 May 2018). — 00:32:51
  • ★★ Ali pays for university with a student loan from the government. — 00:33:19
  • ★★ To revise for long hours, Ali advises making it fun. — 00:33:41
  • ★★★ Ali started his YouTube channel when he decided one day on his medical elective to make a video, filming himself talking with his phone. — 00:34:11
  • ★★ Ali calls the Pomodoro technique pretty legit. — 00:34:40 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ Ali's tip for A-level biology: learn the mark scheme. — 00:34:40
  • ★★ Ali calls GCSEs very, very important. — 00:35:09
  • ★★ Ali says a Saturday job is fine alongside medicine, since the medicine degree is not that hard. — 00:35:09

00:37:00 — He sings a song for the viewers

00:37:29 — His rank at Cambridge, hard topics, pre-reading, why obstetrics and gynaecology, his girlfriend, podcasts and favourites

  • ★★ Ali tells a viewer who has firmed Emmanuel for medicine that they can hang out next year (2019), because he will be at Addenbrooke's. — 00:37:29 · Addenbrooke's Hospital
  • ★★ Ali does not think A-levels prepared him well for medicine. — 00:37:29
  • ★★ At Cambridge Ali ranked 71st in his year in first year and 30th in second year. — 00:38:23 · University of Cambridge
  • ★★ In third year Ali shared the prize for top of the year, but within psychology only, and thinks he came second there. — 00:38:51
  • ★★ To understand hard topics, Ali advises trying to explain them to a friend. — 00:38:51
  • ★★ Ali advises against any pre-reading before medical school: there is literally no point. — 00:39:21
  • ★★ Ali thinks you can't really get a UK student loan unless you are a UK student. (hedged) — 00:39:21
  • ★★ Ali wants to go into obstetrics and gynaecology because it is really fun, a good mix of medicine and surgery, with generally young and healthy patients. — 00:39:21 · Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★★ Ali no longer feels nervous when speaking in public, though he used to. — 00:40:26
  • ★★ Ali's favourite YouTubers are Peter McKinnon and Casey Neistat. — 00:40:52 · Peter McKinnon, Casey Neistat
  • ★★ For medicine Ali read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. — 00:41:17
  • ★★ Ali met his girlfriend through the Addenbrooke's clinical school pantomime. — 00:41:46 · Addenbrooke's Hospital Pantomime, Addenbrooke's Hospital
  • ★★ Ali took up skateboarding in his third year and still uses it as a form of transport. — 00:41:46
  • ★★ Ali listens to loads of podcasts, among them The Tim Ferriss Show and Creative Exchange (as heard). — 00:42:13 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ali agrees with Chris Pratt that every year since the age of two has been the best year of his life, and does not like to compare years. — 00:42:13
  • ★★ For A-level biology and chemistry Ali recommends CGP revision guides. — 00:42:13 · CGP
  • ★★ Ali says he never feels imposter syndrome. — 00:43:01

00:43:52 — Sign-off: better livestreams to come, SixMed's ads against the Medic Portal, the next videos

  • ★★ Ali will get a setup to plug his camera into his computer for proper livestreams with a microphone. — 00:43:52
  • ★★ Ali says he will do more livestreams because this one was a really fun way to spend 45 minutes. — 00:44:29
  • ★★★ Ali is about to run Google AdWords ads for SixMed's BMAT and UKCAT courses the next day (2 May 2018) to try to beat the Medic Portal. — 00:44:29 · 6med, BMAT (exam)
  • ★★ Ali says the Medic Portal pays about £3 a click on Google searches for BMAT Crash Course, the name of the BMAT course he made five years ago, and calls its own course BMAT Crash Course. — 00:45:00 · 6med, BMAT (exam)
  • ★★ Ali hopes another revision video will be up the next morning, to be followed by another study-with-me vlog and more vlogs. (hedged) — 00:45:00

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali's first livestream was an impromptu attempt with about 250 to 300 people watching at any given moment, which he calls ridiculous and awesome. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 6med · Anki · discipline

Also: People: Casey Neistat · Ibz Mo · Peter McKinnon · Taimur Abdaal · Tim Ferriss

Projects: Addenbrooke's Hospital Pantomime

Works: Harry Potter · The 4-Hour Workweek · UKCAT

Organizations: Addenbrooke's Hospital · CGP · Emmanuel College · Imperial College London · NHS · University College London · University of Cambridge · University of Oxford

Concepts: active recall · friction · Medical ethics · Obstetrics and gynaecology · Pomodoro technique · spaced repetition · Work experience

Places: St Albans

Events: BMAT (exam)

Products: iPad Pro · Notability

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