I got a LifeAlert ad in the mail this week. Yes, LifeAlert is still going strong. It (very loosely) inspired this post.
Sweating in orgo
Here’s a story. It was sophomore year of college. I found myself Day 1 of ORGANIC CHEMISTRY at the intro lecture sweating bullets. My hands were clammy. My mouth went so dry it was an effort to swallow water. A sense of dread washed over me. I had physical symptoms of a panic attack coming on. It makes me ill all over again just thinking about it. After class my pulse was probably 115+. I was so nervous I texted my mom to sincerely ask her for prayers.
How was I going to do this? I just listened to my aged professor tell all of us that he knew exactly what our class average would be. That we would lose our social lives to this class. It felt like it was totally out of my control. I had no strategy, plan, or skills for mastering organic chemistry, especially not on top of the already-full course schedule.
I wish I could say I spent the next two weeks learning about learning, especially for organic chemistry. I WISH I could tell you I as a pre-med mastered procrastination and my own self-improvement.
But alas, I did not.
That entire semester was a slow spiral downward that culminated in essentially a mental breakdown which required immediate attention and a hard reboot of my mind for the next semester.
I was wiser and decided against taking all my hardest classes at the same time, opting to take organic chemistry that upcoming summer (COVID summer!). I did pass. But I did not master those subjects or become the best student ever.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have been less afraid. I would have been more willing to face the knowledge-gap experience of learning new material for the first time. I would have been extremely efficient in my learning to optimize my life and be sustainable. I would have adopted and adapted the strongest evidence-based learning methods to my specific classes, leaned into self-learning with 3rd party resources, and focused my effort on the biggest, most high-yield topics first. I would have crushed it.
Reading my textbook was a mind numbing slog.
Attempting to learn by brute force with practice questions first was psychologically defeating.
Copying down everything the professor said in hopes it would mean something to me didn’t work.
Unlock your blocks with AI
If you are taking a hard class right now, you can use AI to shortcut a lot of the struggle I went through 5 years ago.
Feel free to copy these prompts and use with ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, whatever.
- Give me the three best resources I can use to efficiently learn _____ for my college class.
- Create a mini-syllabus for me of the biggest key concepts or areas I should master during the course in _______.
Take what it gives you.
Put it in a spreadsheet.
And type in, link, or save your key resources. Think YouTube channels, blogs, review books, etc.
Take your syllabus, and copy the topics into that spreadsheet to make sure you cover the bases.
Watch your video, read your chapter.
Go back to your AI and ask it to test you on _____.
Put in your answer and prompt for an explanation of the problem and answer.
Even better if you can do this AHEAD of a class on a topic. (That way your professor can correct any little mistakes the AI made!)
Doing it this way expedites learning and uses AI to pull your brain over the hurdles of the overwhelm and unknown in school.
What will I use to learn this? That doesn’t suck.
How will I “study”? (Whatever that means)
How can I know going into a test if I know any of this?
How can I get these problems and questions explained in a way I can understand?
You don’t need a higher IQ, you just need a learning system.
Pre-med struggling building your own learning system or stressed for your application cycle?
I was just in your shoes, and now I’m in med school.
I am taking on just 2 pre-med mentees this quarter to build a learning system machine and craft a killer application forged in Tolkienesque fire from Mount Doom, so application day is a BREEZE.