Actually, I’ve realised this for a while.. I just thought that it was a really inefficient method of learning, but I was doing this on the bus and I guess it’s actually not as bad as it seems. I first realised that I was more engaged in my blog writing (more of the serious topics) when I typed on my ipod back in 2010. I was going to the city a few days ago and totally forgot to bring work to study on the bus.. and then I decided to try doing what I did back in the days.

It wasn’t too bad. I was pleasantly surprised! I’m not sure how good it is in terms of actually LEARNING the content, but it’s certainly a good way to test your understanding. If you can rattle off what you’re doing on a typed screen and in particular, I find that it’s more effective than typing on a computer. I guess I’m so intimately connected to my phone, so that’s why writing out stuff like a text message is so effective for me.

I mean, writing in pencil on paper is definitely the most favourable method but as a last resort, it’s not half bad.

There’s a reason they give you a week or two at the end of term to study for exams - it’s because that’s for consolidating understanding and recalling everything you’ve learnt throughout the term or semester. I mean, realistically you CANNOT remember everything for every subject.. unless you have some sort of weird, freaky amazing memory or something. But like.. I’m speaking for the average student.

Spend the time during the term to understand your content - it’s much easier to recall something you’ve already covered in the past, rather than visit it for the very first time one week before the test. It’s doable - certainly is, I’ve done it a billion times before but it’s just so much easier to “cram” something you’ve already learnt, and in that way, it’s not really cramming, I suppose.

Don’t try to cram everything in the one week because you’ll end up neglecting the rest of your subjects.

Let’s face it - no one can keep tanking the work 24 hours a day. I know for me, there’s a period between about 1-3pm where I just completely crash and burn and I can’t absorb anything. Take advantage of that time and either go do something enjoyable or just nap for a while. The thing with naps is that you can’t sleep for too long, else you’ll go into REM and then you’ll be even less productive when you wake up. Limit yourself to a nap for about 20 minutes. Apparently that’s the amount of sleep you need to revitalise, but at the same time you won’t be completely drained when you wake up.

There’s absolutely no use trying to hammer in the work when you’re exhausted. Everyone is only human and so you definitely need a break once in a while!

They work especially well in university. I’ve got about 3 or 4 different study groups and they’re all great. It’s not necessarily about teaming up with the smartest people - it’s about working with people who you can work efficiently with. Personally, I find a lot of genius kids really.. pretentious because they think they know everything and so they don’t give everyone else in the group a go at learning and it’s so counter-productive.

The key is to keep the group small - and if the groups get too big, then split it into smaller groups. There’s nothing restricting you from having multiple study groups! The more, the merrier, because you get different people’s opinions and explanations and overall, I think it’s more effective.

These days, I do hardly any individual study because I find it a lot more interesting to study in a group. I don’t learn by reading - I learn by being explained things and then talking it out with other people. As far as visuals are concerned, whiteboarding your groups’ ideas are brilliant, and you can always save your work by taking photos. I tend to become really distracted and I tire so easily, so having people there to keep me on track is really beneficial as well.

These sorts of groups lessen the competitiveness of the course a lot. You’re sharing your ideas, sharing your resources and even though it’s all to attain the best of your ability, you’re working together as a team instead of working by yourself. It’s also a really good way to make friends and it’s social as well. There are so many benefits apart from the obvious academic ones.

In terms of notes, if you do 4 subjects and you have 4 people in your group (including yourself), then get one person to write up notes for each subject and then each week you rotate. At the end of the week, collate your notes and then get the person who wrote them up to explain what they’ve typed up. It’s a very efficient way, and so you only really have to do 25% of the year’s work.

Study groups are amazing. I love mine. Effectively, you’re reducing your workload by about 60-70% because of the whole group contribution.

I’m not completely sure about the bonded system in Australia, but certainly in universities minus UQ (CSP and International students only) and Bond University (Full fee paying only) in QLD, there are CSPs (Commonwealth Support Places, subsidised by the government), full fee paying, and bonded places.

For Griffith University, it’s a very competitive process. The medical course is a combined 2 year accelerated Medical Science and 4 years Medicine program (BMedSci/MBBS). At the end of the MedSci degree, the bottom 25% will be bonded. Bonded places are determined academically. For JCU (James Cook), it depends on an interview. The places obtained are CSP or bonded for locals, and full fee paying for international students. Regardless, you’re bonded for the duration of the MEDICAL course. For Griffith, it’s 4 years, and for JCU, it’s 6 years because it’s a completely undergraduate degree (we don’t have an undergraduate fast track degree - it’s integrated).

I’m not sure what you mean by “bonus points” but certainly there are advantages of being bonded. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be bonded unless I was completely sure that working rurally was my passion. Even if I were interested, I’d still want to have a CSP because it just opens my options to wherever. In terms of getting a job, if we’re balloted to wherever, I think people who’ve obtained rural scholarships have a choice in where they want to do their internship - they’re ‘above the ballot’, so to speak.

The government is definitely advocating rural medicine because of the vast shortage of rural doctors, and there are a myriad of benefits from working in the country. As far as specialties are concerned, I don’t think being bonded or unbonded is a determining factor. I’m not completely sure how it works, and when I find out more I’ll definitely post about it.

No, not in 2 minutes. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 10 minutes. And certainly not tomorrow. In the long run, every single minute you have is precious. Work now so that you can finish as quickly as possible. You can relax now, mess around and then stress now, finishing everything really last minute, OR, take the smarter approach - work NOW and then you can do whatever later. It’s good discipline.

Start now, because it takes time to get into a good habit. I’ll stress this - it takes a month to build anything up to a habit, so don’t feel bad if it’s really hard trying to get into a routine straight away. It takes time. Work hard now and relax later.

It’s rewarding in the long run.

No matter how much of a “late night” person you think you are, you really aren’t. You’re always more refreshened when you wake up. All nighters for exam cramming is fine, because you need all the time in the world to prepare for those exams, but during the term, try to formulate a reasonable sleeping pattern. Let’s face it - going to school is absolutely exhausting. It’s psychologically draining with all that information overload, and for you to try to extend beyond what you’ve already absorbed is kind of futile. Two benefits of sleeping early:

• You can absorb and learn things much better the next day at school.
• You can work much more efficiently the next morning.

My advice is NOT to work completely when you get home, but rather rationalise your time out. Read over what you covered at school and just try to get a basic understanding of the concept, rather than to aim to finish your homework. If you have an assignment, I’d definitely recommend seriously having a look at the task proposal to see what you have to do. I think that sleep is a brilliant tool to passive and subconscious learning.

Rather than try to stay up as late as possible to finish everything while using sleep as a reward as such, try sleeping at about 9 or 9:30pm (maybe 10) and waking up at 4 or 5am. Believe me, that 2 hours when you wake up and freshen up is much, much more productive than staying up until 2am, half asleep, not knowing what you’re doing at all. Because you’re fresh, you’re also going to be more likely to be able to concentrate during lunch time and you can continue your study in the library.

If your sleep pattern is as screwed up as mine, what I’d suggest is to try to sleep 10 or 15 minutes earlier each day. Within a week, you’d have managed to regulate your pattern by a whole hour and that means that you’re getting more sleep.

I guess now I can post about interview help! UMAT maybe.. GAMSAT definitely NOT, but interviews shouldn’t be too bad, since I passed mine :)

• General interview questions/getting started
• Teamwork/leadership
• Scenarios
• Conflict/resolution
• Current issues
• Controversial issues

Those are basically the topics I’ll be covering for interviews, simply because that’s all I practised.

Good luck!

It’s possibly the worst form of distraction, ever. Learning to discipline yourself enough so that it doesn’t affect your studies is extremely difficult, and almost imposible. Realistically, it’s.. so damn hard to control it. I’m one of the most last minute people that I know, but I tend to panic and that drives me to completion. That’s one method to not so much combat procrastination, but at least to finish your work.

One way to trip yourself into a panicky mode is to leave your studies until the last minute, like.. legitimately the last minute. It’s not something I really recommend doing intentionally, but it happened to me last semester. I just assumed that my chemistry exam was going to be an absolute breeze and that I could learn absolutely everything legitimately the night before.

Wrong.

I have never, ever been that scared for an exam and for all my other subjects, I really learnt the meaning of time management. Whether I’ll apply that to this year, I don’t know. We just have to wait and see, but because of last year, I’ve promised myself to try to improve and work consistently rather than cram everything in the last week. It’s really slow progress for me, but then again I guess I am improving. It’s a long way from success, but the steps are there.

The mentality you should probably take is that “I’m going to have to do this some time, so I might as well do it now”. Try not to give up in frustration after the first time; everything does take time, and you can’t really be expected to change your habits purely after a bit of thought. It’s like telling yourself that you’ll work harder at maths and try to be the best you can. You can’t attempt the problem solving questions straight away; you must have the knowledge and work your way towards the harder questions. It’s the exact same approach to working more consistently. You can try, but you won’t get there immediately.

Try to work for 15 minutes continuously without distraction. Actually, it mightn’t be a bad idea to test your concentration - isolate yourself in a room for 15 minutes without anything. No phone, no computer, no laptop, no internet, no music.. just concentrate and see if you can last. Anything will seem more exciting than that, guaranteed. As you successfully complete 15 minute blocks, increase that time by 5 minutes and eventually you’ll hit the 45 minute mark. After each block, take a 10 minute break to refresh, but make sure it’s ONLY 10 minutes. Time and discipline yourself; if you fail, you’re only cheating yourself. Make it 10 minutes exactly, and try not to use the internet because most likely, you’ll stay distracted for at least 30 minutes. Eat something or have a walk around, get a little more proactive.

If you manage to work up to a 2 or 3 hour block, make sure you reward yourself. Rewards and intrinsic encouragement is the best because it comes from within yourself. Watch a movie afterwards (or at the end of the day), but only if you don’t have assessment coming up in the next few days. If you do, pick up the phone and ring a friend!

It’s all about the build up an consistency. You’ll get there.