Which is more fun,
college or med school?
You may think that is a trick question because obviously, it would be college, right?
Well, I actually enjoyed medical school more than I enjoyed college.
And in this video, I'm gonna explain how you can do the same.
What's going on guys,
Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com
Now If you haven't already, its first important to understand an overview of college versus med school.
So there is a video on the Med School lnsiders Channel,
I've got a link to it down in the description
and it's more of a formal comparison you know
the - the workload, the- I mean it's four years in each.
But how are you spending each year, things like that.
Let's definitely watch that to get an overview before we kind of dive into the specifics
of how college and medical school were for me.
Now, for college. We usually consider college to be fun. Right? So you got - you got parties,
maybe you're trying alcohol for the first time, maybe some other substances If you're adventurous.
You're on your own for the very first time, and you're no longer living with your parents.
so, this newfound freedom - you are going on adventures with your new friends,
and the workload, even if you're a pre-med isn't nearly as high as it's going to be in med school.
So you have a lot of time for extracurriculars, or hanging out with friends, having a life.
Now in medical school, It's kind of the opposite.
You are studying way more, you're partying way less
You have so much more material to go through
and therefore it's a lot harder to have a life outside of the classroom.
The novelty of being on your own has kind of worn off,
and the stress and the pressure is like at a whole new level.
I mean even in med school it's competitive
Pre-med was competitive, med school is competitive
especially now if you want to go into something competitive like plastic surgery or dermatology
where you need to be at the top of your med school class to have a chance of getting in.
So for those reasons, people normally say like "oh, yeah, med school is terrible like worst years of your life!"
I would beg to differ. I actually enjoyed medical school more than I enjoyed college.
Okay now, why is that? Well,
number one, let's talk about my college experience.
My college experience wasn't as fun as the average person's for a few reasons.
So I've talked about this on this channel and also elsewhere - on med school insiders.
I got diagnosed with Crohn's Colitis during my first year of college,
just a couple of months in,
and that's - I mean it's a life-long autoimmune illness,
and I lost thirty pounds, like I had to miss a couple of weeks to school,
it was very stressful, obviously -
and to add to that stress literally like less than two months later, you know my family life imploded,
we moved into a one-bedroom apartment, like money was very tight.
So now, you have the health struggle, you have the family, you have the financial, all at once.
Very dark period of my life obviously and I wasn't happy. There was a lot of anger.
But I used that anger to really fuel - like I redirected it to really fuel my.. my drive,
and I was very passionate about becoming a doctor, I was... I was not gonna stop at anything else,
this is what I'm gonna do, you know try to stop me, watch me do this.
So because of these reasons, the first few years of college especially,
were very different for me compared to the average person.
So I was working a lot harder because I was - I was gonna get into, not only mess - I was gonna like
I was gonna kill it. I was gonna crush it. Right. And because my health wasn't really stable,
until you know.. mid to end of college, I wasn't able to have as much of a "life" as some of my peers.
So that was a big part of it, but then another part that I think applies to more people is
this whole idea of like figuring out who you are. A lot of people are going through that stage in college
that's just part of the normal stages of development and when you're figuring this out,
it's harder to like truly express yourself, truly be yourself, because you're still concerned about
what your peers think and what.. what are other people gonna say, you know.
That was a process that I really only started accelerating during my senior year of college.
Once I got into med school - once the hard work was behind me and I was able to do more introspection,
you know sit on my rooftop, watch the sun set, have like my speakers and just like listening to music
things like that. Now, believe it or not, my med school life was actually more balanced than my college life.
The reason being, in college.. I just brute-forced my way.
I got top marks in my classes, I got top marks on my MCAT, things were great in terms of the results
but the way I got them was not like.. it was just like, ugly brute force.
And in med school, I realize that there was a better way to study so my first ever YouTube video,
this was the this was the idea, the passion that really drove me into making Med School Insiders,
was wanting to teach people how to study more effectively, because it totally changed my life
and I wish that I knew those things sooner. So, my first ever video,
titled "Pre-med Study Strategies: What I Wish I Knew In College", I'll have a link in the description,
that one kind of goes over the things that I learned. And now in med school, I was studying smarter not harder,
and that allowed me to actually learn much more information, be much more effective in studying
but then have time for a life, so I even bought... I've even bought one of these
It's a beer pong table.
So I kid you not during my first year in med school, I bought this beer pong table,
which was one of my favorite purchases from med school. If you want to check it out,
I'll actually have a link down in the description too for that, but it's foldable. It's portable, It's regulation size.
Two feet tall, two feet wide all those things and you know, just put in my car drive over to my friend's place
and then boom just like, "Got the beer pong table" and then if you want to like if you're really hardcore
which, obviously I kinda was,
You can even set it up at your house and like practice so that when you go to the party you're just like
dominating at beer pong.
By the way, in college, everyone would play beer pong with the actual beer in the cups.
which always like disgusted me. So in med school for my cups on my side, I'll just have water and
sometimes I would drink some was I wouldn't it was more just the game is fun
whether or not you have alcohol, you know. If someone lands it in the cup, then you pull it
and then if you have alcohol on the side, you can - you sip that or you just.. just don't drink.
And people thought I was crazy but here's the thing, was... I was embracing who I was as a person.
You know. I was like this is, this is what I do. The other thing - seeing your hair and nasty stuff
floating in the beer. and you want me to drink that? No thanks. I'll pass.
And then over the course of med school, it just kind of became the norm
and then now like I'm in my late 20s, anytime we play pong It's always with water.
Now to do beer in your cups is like "oh, that's disgusting."
So, you know not saying I'm a trendsetter, but..
Okay, another thing about med school that I loved, the subject matter.
So in college, you are learning - you're more likely to take classes that you may not actually enjoy.
Cool thing about med school is, everything you learn is about Medicine.
One of my favorites was Anatomy. So you have human cadavers and you're actually dissecting like -
if you want to go into surgery or if you're interested in surgery,
then Anatomy is gonna be like one of your favorite subjects.
Cardiology was super fascinating like combining physics with biology and just.. it's dope.
Same with pulmonology. So I was neuroscience in college and I loved that major.
It was amazing and then doing neuro in med school was kind of taking it to a whole new level,
going even deeper and that was also super fun. So there are so many different things in med school that are just
like way more - - assuming you want to be a doctor and you find the subject material interesting,
it's just way more captivating. It just.. it's really interesting stuff.
And then the last two things. Number one, I went to my number one med school which is UC San Diego,
a big reason was, I had very fond memories of San Diego, I loved the - the culture, the climate,
It was like this juxtaposition of a very high-stress environment of med school on average and then you
have San Diego which is like beaches, and amazing weather and just like easy to relax and unwind
and reduce your stress. So I love San Diego, the program is amazing, the other things is the people.
So in medical school, my classmates were just amazing individuals, I could learn from every single person,
and each person was so impressive in their own way.
And some of my closest friends to this day are from med school. Really truly amazing people.
Okay. So what are the lessons learned? Okay, so the main points I want you to take away though,
the main lessons learned from this is, first of all, common knowledge isn't always right.
So the idea that "oh med school sucks" and like you're gonna be miserable. That's just dumb, I mean
I mean there's- there's so much nuance to everything. We'd like to simplify things and try to say
"oh yeah college = easy, med school = hard, and residency.. you know also hard" and whatever.
You have to think for yourself, right? You can't just accept what other people are telling you
without challenging it. At the end of the day you have total control on your perspective
and then how you want to approach that stage in your life. So for me, college was grind grind grind
and then med school for me was a little more balanced.
So it is totally possible for you to also really enjoy and love medical school, just like I did.
I would say one of the most important things is getting.. is claiming your time back and that usually means
totally revamping your study strategies because most of us, you know, especially in college
we don't have the right study strategies and then in med school, if you - if you know about active learning,
space repetition and recall, you know, desirable difficulties. The four main things that are scientifically,
evidence-based to be beneficial for learning memorization things like that,
then you're gonna be way better off. If you're about to go into medical school.,
what do you think you're gonna enjoy and if you're already a med student, what it is that you enjoyed
that maybe I didn't cover in this video. Let me know with a comment down below.
As always guys, thank you all so much for watching.
And I will see you guys in that next one.