Popular Apps Perfect For Students

May 5 2018

Got a lot of work done in the morning today but then accidentally took a nap form 8pm to 10pm and now I’m scared I’m gonna be awake all night LOL

Tomorrow studybuddy and I are going to the botanical gardens again!! I am so happy!!! To celebrate I painted three of the five succulent plants my roommate and I have adopted. It felt really good to paint again for once :C

USMLE STEP 1 STUDY TOOLS AND TIPS

It is approaching that time of year where the second year medical students are preparing to cram for the United States Medical Licensing Exam Step 1. A test some consider to be the most important exam of medical school and subsequently determines the rest of your life. That is a little dramatic but I think it should be your goal to do the best you can. Here are some of the tools I used to study for Step 1:

First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 2017

This is the holy bible of USMLE Step 1 studying. I highly recommend this book and I think almost every medical student who has taken the test would say the same. I would read through this book 2-3 times to really have it sink in.

Pathoma

A lecture series made by a certifiable genius: Dr. Husain Sattar, a pathologist from the University of Chicago. This series was amazing and incredibly detailed. A lot of high yield material is covered in his lectures. 

https://www.pathoma.com 

USMLE World

The question bank of all question banks. Though it may be school dependent, almost everyone from my medical school chose to go with this question bank. A couple thousand questions covering the majority of USMLE Step 1 topics. The questions are challenging but you will see your scores improve as you continue to study throughout your first and second year. I’ve even used this product for Step 2 and I am currently (literally open on my computer) using it for Step 3. My number one goal would be to complete every question offered in this question bank, it is a lot but well worth it.

https://www.uworld.com

The rest are to cover my weakest subjects from USMLE Step 1: Biochemistry, Microbiology and Pharmacology. I recommend the following tools to turn your greatest weakness into your greatest strength:

Microbiology

Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple

Lange Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Flash Cards

Pharmacology

Clinical Pharmacology Made Ridiculously Simple

Lange Pharmacology Flash Cards

Biochemistry

Clinical Physiology Made Ridiculously Simple

Lange Biochemistry and Genetics Flash Cards

Based on this post 

“Failure is the key to success" 

We’ve all heard motivational quotes similar to the above. While they serve as an important reminder on our rough days, sometimes we need something more than hugs and well wishes to get us through. 

 You’ve failed. What next? 

Let it out: Step back. Take a few days off. Shower, catch up on that sleep debt. Remind yourself of who you are outside your academic study. Catch up with a friend for coffee (or just get some coffee). Watch a movie, marathon a tv series, built a pillow fort, tumblr, youtube spiral - anything. Because your academic life is only one piece (of varying size) of a larger puzzle. Remind yourself of who you are outside of university/ school. 

Formal/ Informal Avenues of Review : Check your school/university’s academic policies. Are you eligible to resit the exam? Were there any extenuating circumstances that affected your performance (e.g. medical, emergency etc)? Are you eligible to seek an adjustment to your marks? If you’re eligible, what documentation will you need to provide? Which staff member can you contact to follow up your application? If you’re not eligible, are there any other members of staff or advisor (e.g. course advisors, councillors, student leaders) you can discuss your circumstances with? 

Reset, Recuperate, Retake:  It is likely that you will need to repeat or retake the class/ assessment/ unit. That’s ok. Seek feedback from your lecturer/ tutor or teacher. Consolidate your strong areas. Focus on the areas of the course you find challenging. Use the feedback given to target your study time! 

Same Shit, Different Day: While the content may be the same, using a different method to study may be more effective ( see below) 

Same content? Change it up!

flashcards by @illolita​, 

colour coding 

audio recordings by @riseandstudy​, 

mindmaps  by @reviseordie​

sticky notes  @etudiance​ 

Change your study habits by @whilwheaton​ 

Practice past papers.  (see below). 

Something to help you get back up on your feet 

Videos and speeches to help you push through 

On being wrong 

On regret 

On making difficult choices 

On what the fuck to do with your life 

On "falling behind”   

On rushing things 

On success  

On motivation - for recent graduates 

On perspective by @fishingboatproceeds​

 Just do it 

Find songs to cry and scream to 

 8tracks and this spotify playlist 

Classical music for any mood  by @violaboss​ 

Find something on the Nostalgia Machine  

Infinite Jukebox 

Make your own music

IDGAF by Watsky “Let me tell you about my GPA, four-O, straight A’s and my- idgaf!” 

 Something to help you fucking laugh or smile 

 Honest Trailers 

Dance Mashup 

Thomas Sanders @thatsthat24​ 

This kid and this kid 

Goat Remixes 

This vine 

Need more?

Cute flash games (+amazing background music) 

Motivation wall by @study-ings 

Mug Cake by @sortedfood 

Calming Manatee 

Ultimate motivation song 

SCREAM INTO THE VOID (personal favourite) 

 Things to remember 

 Oi, have you ever failed anything? 

 Yes. See here 

Graduation is a journey. 

Yes, studyblr makes studying look glamourous, neat, aesthetic, "oh, look how these _____ notes helped me get an A+.” But writing notes, having fancy pens, using apps (whilst useful) only form one part of a larger narrative. 

The reality is much less appealing. The road to graduation is not a fairytale. The road to graduation is fucking tough. It may involve tears, frustration, all nighters, crippling anxiety and unhealthy levels of caffeine consumption. One set back does not knock you off the path to graduation. Setbacks are arguably a part of the journey. 

 Sometimes, hard work and effort will not translate into results. 

 There’s a special brand of frustration that comes with dedicating the past month/week/ year to a particular project and not achieving your desired result/ grade. It stings like a bitch and is often accompanied by a sense of doubt. 

Check that you’ve followed your syllabus. Accept that there may have been factors outside of your control. Revisit the process - what did you enjoy? What did you learn from the mechanics of the process? 

The value of hard work does not necessarily lie in the result attained; nor is the result attained a reflection of the worth of your efforts. 

 Experience is an advantage 

Retaking the test/assessment/ unit can be an advantage. You know what questions to expect. More importantly, you know how you react under exam conditions. Prepare. Plan your exam time. Will you start the exam paper from the beginning or the end and work backwards? 

Use this experience in those pesky interview questions! (e.g. the good ol’ “tell me about a time you failed”) 

Perfection is not a prerequisite to success 

 Ah, my pesky perfectionist tendencies. At times, I must remind myself that I don’t need to be perfect in order to reach my goal. Not having the latest app, 10 different coloured pens, that fancy notebook, the newest edition of the textbook does not mean I’ve automatically failed. I just have to be more resourceful. 

Just start. Work with what you have, to the best of your ability. Yes it may be difficult; you might need to access extra resources online, or find material from other sources. Your notes may all be in the same colour, or spread over three different notebooks. But success will not be an option unless you start. 

 Other useful tips 

On bad semesters by @post–grad 

 This masterpost by @areistotle 

Reducing stress by @mindpalacestudy 

 How to fail by @psychstudyblr 

 A final note… 

You’ve probably been through hell to get to where you are. Celebrate your achievements - don’t diminish them. Build a support network (heck, at the very least make a youtube playlist of funny videos). You’ve passed an exam before. You’ve endured X number of years of formal academic education. Sure, each exam is slightly different and each comes with its customised brand of torture. No two exams are exactly the same. But have confidence in yourself - you’ve picked up some transferrable skills along the way - determination, resilience, the endurance to pull all nighters.

Whether you’ve been a straight A student up to this point, a masters student or top of the academic pyramid, failure is going to be one of those annoying things you’ll eventually face. 

What you do with it? 

Well, that’s where shit gets interesting. 

All the best, 

-fuckstudy 

Masterposts are posted every other Monday (asia pacific)/ Sunday (everywhere else). See previous masterposts here. Feel free to request topics here. 

previous topic: law 101 - how to read case law

Today = teaching myself cabling in yellow yarn and making to-do lists

☪⚛

Here are some posts about cosmology, astrophysics and physics. I separated some of the main posts about space. Follow the list below ↓

Space-Time Fabric

What are Gravitational Waves?

What is Dark Energy?

What is Gravitational Lensing?

What are white holes?  

Interacting galaxy

Quark epoch

Cosmic microwave background

The collision of two black holes holes

What is a Quasar?

What are Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs)?

What are Pulsars?

What is a Supernova?

What are white dwarfs?

What are brown dwarfs?

How did a solar eclipse prove the theory of relativity?

Black hole vs star

Millisecond Pulsar with Magnetic Field Structure

Some intriguing exoplanets

Cepheid star

UY Scuti

TRAPPIST-1 planets

Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) 

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)

Very Large Telescope (VLT)

What is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)?

ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source

Keck Observatory

Coronal mass ejection

Stars

Interesting facts about stars

Stellar parallax

Edwin Hubble

Interstellar asteroid Oumuamua

The most distant supermassive black hole ever observed

X-ray binary

Black holes

What is an Exoplanet?

Smith’s Cloud

Type Ia supernova

Protoplanetary disk

Magellanic Clouds

Herbig–Haro

Constellations

Solar system: Formation

Comets

Sunspot

Plasma Sun

Mercury

Venus

Mars

Ceres

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Zodiacal Light

Eclipse

Excitation of atom by photon

String Theory

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Particles

What are the four fundamental forces of nature?

Nine weird facts about neutrinos

IceCube ( IceCube Neutrino Observatory)

What are Quarks?

Quantum Vacuum

Fermions and Bosons

30 years after the detection of SN1987A neutrinos

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO)

The Large Hadron Collider

Vampire squid

This Photo of a Single Trapped Atom Is Absolutely Breathtaking

Halo (optical phenomenon)

Dirty thunderstorm

Bioluminescent Plankton

Where Your Elements Came From 

IG: astronomy_blog

My blog

To all my freshman babies who are panicking right now about how much your college textbooks cost: Yeah, you’re right, that’s some highway robbery. No, you don’t have to lie down and take it. You have options. Follow my advice and fly on your own debt free wings.

1. Forgoe the bookstore entirely. Sometimes you can get a good deal on something, usually a rental, but it’s usually going to be considerably more expensive to go through official channels. Outsmart them, babies.

2. Does your syllabus call for edition eight? Get edition seven. Old editions are considered worthless in the buyback trades, so they sell for dirt cheap, no matter how new they are. It’s a gamble, sure; there might be something in edition eight you desperately need, but that never happened to me. However, I’ve only ever pulled this stunt for literature/mass comm/religious studies books, so I don’t know it would work in the sciences.

3. Thriftbooks.com, especially for nonfiction and fiction. Books are usually four or five dollars unless they’re really new, and shipping is 99 cents unless you buy over 10$ in books, in which case shipping is free. 

4. Bigwords.com. It will scan every textbook seller on the internet for the lowest price available, and will do the same to find the highest price when you try to sell your books back at the end of term. Timesaver, lifesaver.

5. In all probability, your library offers a service called interlibrary loan which is included in your tuition. This means if your library doesn’t carry a book you can order it for free from any library nationwide in your library’s network and it will be shipped to you in a number of days. Ask a librarian to show you how to search for materials at your library as well as though interlibrary loan; you’ll need to master this skill soon anyway.  If you get lucky you can just have your required reading shipped to you a week before you need to start reading, then renew vigorously until you no longer need to item. I’m saving over 100$ on a History of Islam class this way.

You professors might side-eye you for bringing an old edition or a library copy, but you just smile right back honey, because you can pay your rent and go clubbing this month. You came here to win. So go forth and slay.

A User’s Guide To The Brain

More about the human brain and behaviour on @tobeagenius

Free MCAT Study Materials!

Here’s master post of some great MCAT study materials and resources. Click on the bold titles to open links to folders containing the files listed below. Good luck!!!

2015 KAPLAN MCAT REVIEW BOOKS (pdf links listed below)

Behavioral Sciences Review

Biochemistry Review

Biology Review

Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Review

General Chemistry Review

Organic Chemistry Review

Physics and Math Review

BIOLOGY

Molecular Biology; Cellular Respiration

Genes

Microbiology

The Eukaryotic Cell; The Nervous System

The Endocrine System

The Digestive and Excretory Systems

The Cardiovascular System; The Respiratory System

Muscle, Bone and Skin

Populations

The Berkeley MCAT Review - Biology Part 1 (2011)

The Berkeley MCAT Review - Biology Part 2 (2011)

BIOCHEMISTRY

Lab Techniques

GENERAL CHEMISTRY

Atoms, Molecules and Quantum Mechanics

Gases, Kinetics, and Chemical Equilibrium

Thermodynamics

Solutions

Heat Capacity/Phase Change/Colligative Properties

Acids & Bases

Electrochemistry

Intro to Chemistry

Electrostatics

Gases

Thermodynamics and Thermochemistry

The Berkeley MCAT Review - General Chemistry Part 1 (2011)

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

Molecular Structure

Hydrocarbons, Alcohols, Substitutions

Carbonyls and Amines

PHYSICS

MCAT Physics Book (2015)

Translation Motion

Force

Equilibrium, Torque and Energy

Momentum, Machines, and Radioactive Decay

Fluids and Solids

Waves

Electricity and Magnetism

Light & Optics

Linear Momentum

PSYCHOLOGY / SOCIOLOGY

SCIENCE

MCAT PRACTICE TESTS / QUESTIONS

Practice Tests

Solutions

OTHER MCAT STUDY MATERIALS

Examkrackers Complete MCAT Study Set (2007)

These materials will help build your knowledge and test taking skills, they may not fit the current MCAT exam criteria but it will definitely build your knowledge of the subjects being tested.

26 . 01 . 16 // give me a shot to remember

the thesis progress journal

it’s all based on louise desalvo’s concept of a process journal for writers, from her book ‘the art of slow writing’ which i read way back in 2014 but has stayed with me all this time. she based that concept on sue grafton’s journal, which “stands as a record of the conversation she has with herself about the work in progress.” desalvo talks about her own process journal : “to plan a project, list books i want to read, list subjects i want to write about, capture insight about my work in progress, discuss my relationship to my work (what’s working and what’s not, whether i need to make changes to my writing schedule, how i’m feeling about the work)” 

her view of the concept is so interesting and can easily be applied to grad school : “keeping a process journal helps us understand that our writing is important work. we value it enough to plan, reflect, and evaluate our work. a process journal is an invaluable record of our work patterns, our feelings about our work, our responses to ourselves as writers, and our strategies for dealing with difficulties and challenges.”

she says, and i quote : “our progress journals are where we engage in the nonjudgmental, reflective witnessing of our work. here, we work at defining ourselves as active, engaged, responsible, patient writers.” and like ???? yes, go off louise!

every week i make an entry with my three to five priorities. since i currently still have seminars, my entire week cannot be dedicated to my thesis, so these priorities allow me to really focus on specific things. they can be bigger or smaller depending on the amount of time i have to work on my thesis.

every day i work on my thesis, i make an entry. i try to answer two questions : “what did i do that day to make progress on my thesis?” as well as “how am i feeling & what i can do to feel better?” i also choose two to five specific tasks to achieve that day and write about the progress. for example, if my task is reading an article, i’ll write it down, check the box once i do it and write a summary of the “experience” (how was the article, was it useful for my research, should i read more of that author’s work, etc.) that way, i can look back at previous tasks, know what happened and learn from it.

i also use the journal almost like a bullet journal (the OG kind) with ongoing lists of important things. of course, there are some to do lists here and there (even though i prefer having my comprehensive task list on todoist), but it’s mostly things like

names of people who have helped me so i can thank them in my thesis

call numbers of books to borrow or archives to consult

research hypotheses 

things to look for in the archives i consult

questions to ask my professor/advisor/archivist/etc.

issues that need to be fixed in my thesis

books/articles to read

additional things to research

i also use it as a regular notebooks for all things thesis. one of my seminars this semester is a methodology course, so i take notes in my journal as reference. i also sometimes will write some reading notes if i don’t have my computer on me, such as key quotes or arguments. also, all of my notes from meetings/calls/emails with my advisor are put in the journal, as well as a any pertinent meeting notes (with an archivist, fellow student, my mom, etc.) lastly, sometimes it just becomes a catch all for brainstorm sessions and random thoughts.

for me, this thesis progress journal is the best way to take a step back from the actual work and reflect on what i’m doing, good or bad, and what i can do to make things better, but most importantly, it allows me to understand my progress.