This past Monday I took my Metabolism and Nutrition mid-term (I think I passed…) As usual (and as expected) the weekend was a major cram session, and I finally turned into bed at 4 am (where I proceeded to roll around in bed with my mind constructing random thoughts about hypokalemia which made no sense whatsoever). Basically my whole weekend was spent between phases of studying and whining about studying.
In undergrad, I usually only spent one or two days studying for a test or exam. Here, I had to start like 3-4days in advance. So basically, the amount of material I needed to know for my medical school exam was 2-3 times as much as for an undergrad exam. All that said, the exam questions weren’t any harder than any undergrad exam.
If you ask any medical student about whether medical school is challenging, I’m sure they’ll say yes, but I’m sure they will also tell you that it’s not intellectually harder (though I guess it depends on what their undergrad major was. But I would say this is probably true for any student with a science background). Rather, the reason why academics in medical school is more challenging is simply because you have to learn a significantly greater volume of information in a shorter period of time.