The Big-Ass Master List of study tips I found on the Internet (that actually work)

A few months ago I started collecting study tips and tricks from Pinterest and other online sources, and over the semester I've put a few of them to the test.

As an older student, studying was a long time ago for me. In fact, studying was kind of never ago, because before I went back to school last year, I'd never studied before. I was the prototypical underachiever: a "gifted" kid (hate that word) who found everything easy until things got hard. I never learned how to try, so I learned how to fail. If something was hard, instead of trying, I didn't do it.

In high school, I flunked out of Chemistry and Algebra II (didn't even try to pass) and was put in the classes where they put people who are barely going to graduate and probably can't read. Meanwhile, I was taking IB classes in English, History, and Theatre.

If it wasn't easy I didn't do it. So I never studied. Ever.

My first failed attempt at college, I only took humanities classes - once again because they were easy. Never studied, made As. Writing research papers is a cake walk for me, but I dropped remedial algebra three times. Then I dropped out of school.

It took a decade of eating humble pie in a dead-end job to teach me that in order to make something out of my life, I had to learn how to be bad at things. I had to accept they don't come naturally, and learn how to do them.

Unfortunately, it also means that I've taken all my "filler" courses. For the next two years, 100% of my classes will be math and science, subjects that (obviously) are challenging for me. The irony is strong. In an attempt to take the easy way out, I've made things way harder for myself. The only way I will be successful in my undergrad and get into med school is with good, old-fashioned hard work.

I am a woman in her 30s learning to study for the first time. These are the methods and tricks that have made it possible for me to take a semester of nothing but math and science, and make As and Bs.

Use the Study Block Method 

I learned this from an MCAT tutor's free strategy webinar. I learned a lot of good stuff from her website actually, and I'll mention a few more shortly. But so far this is my favorite - so much so that I wrote a whole blog post about it. I recommend you go read that if you have trouble focusing or staying on-task while you're studying.

The basic gist is that instead of resolving to study a few hours that day, you actually schedule the block of time and treat is as sacrosanct. Set an alarm for 30 minutes before and use that 30 minutes to make sure you have eaten, peed, checked your email, let the dog out, looked at your text messages, put your phone on airplane mode, folded the laundry, set your Pandora or Netflix to the right background noise, or whatever else needs to be done, because when you start to study, everything else is blocked.

Sounds simple, but often the simplest ideas are the most profound. It really works.

 
Disable distracting sites

I highly recommend using a browser add-on like Leechblock or StayFocusd to disable distracting sites during your study block. It helps me to know, in weak moments, that I can't look at Pinterest or check my email even if I want to. You can set up days and times in advance if your study blocks recur on a schedule - for example, Saturday from 11 to 1, you can't get on Facebook even if you want to. This can help motivate you to keep to a schedule.

Speaking of motivation...

"Are you not entertained?!"

Listen to the Hans Zimmer station on Pandora

I normally have Netflix playing in the background at all times. (This is why and how I've watched the entire series of The Mindy Project like five times and haven't gotten tired of it - I'm never really paying attention to the show.) But TV can be distracting, especially when you're doing an audio summary. (More on that below.)

Hans Zimmer is a composer who scores mostly action movies, so it's basically classical music for kicking ass. If it's appropriate background music for when Russell Crowe fights tigers, it's probably not going to put your to sleep.

You can tell this music is designed to motivate, and it's nice to have wordless music that gets your blood pumping without pulling your focus away from the task at hand. This is the problem for me with techno, house, and other electronic music. I like some of it, but the beats are too distracting. I can't make flash cards and dance at the same time.

Speaking of...

 Make flash cards by hand

When you write things down by hand, you retain more of the information. This is what psychologists call "deliberate difficulty." You make it hard so your brain has to slow down and pay attention to it. This is why I write my notes by hand and why I switched to hand-written flash cards.

For a while I was using a program called Anki to do flash cards. It's not a very user-friendly system and it has a learning curve, but it's a method favored by a lot of med students because it uses spaced repetition to only quiz you on what you need to learn.

I liked Anki alright, but I found I wasn't retaining things as quickly as I would have liked.

I started trying handwritten flash cards because by then I knew writing by hand was very helpful. (One of my professors only allows us to turn in hand-written work, and found that when he switched to this method, grades improved.)

I found I retained more information just by making the flash cards than I did typing them and studying them on a screen over and over. Something about using your hand to write makes a connection that isn't there when you're typing.

The other major benefit of written flash cards is you can take them anywhere and whip them out. You don't need your laptop. (Anki does have an app for your phone but it's quite expensive.)

I use colored flash cards to distinguish between classes and write the unit or chapter number in one corner. I also flip the card upside down when I write the answer side, because I like to use this next method...

Turn your shower into a watery study cube

Image from blog.flashnotes.com via Pinterest

This is a bit of an extreme method, but when you're cramming big-time, or studying for something major like the MCAT where you have to retain insane amounts of info over long periods of time, this can help you a lot.

The reason I write the answers upside down on my flash cards (relative to the question side of the card) is so I can put them in tightly sealed Ziploc sandwich bags and tape them to the walls in the shower. While I shampoo, condition, shave, etc., I can quiz myself with the flash cards - just flip the bag up to see the answer. (Hang the bag with the opening side down to make sure water can't get in.)

When I feel confident I know the material, I take it down and stick different cards in the bags. Easy.

You can also keep a stack of flash cards next to the turlet to make other private moments more productive. But make sure you keep them in a box or a plastic bag because eww.

Make an audio summary

This is one of my favorite tricks that I learned from Leah4Sci.com. (A note: I don't know Leah, I'm not paying her to be my tutor, and she's not paying me to say nice things about her. I've just found her website genuinely helpful.) Leah is an MCAT tutor and gets paid to help her students remember lots and lots of stuff over long periods of time.

At the end of your study session, record yourself reviewing your notes. Pretend like you're teaching the material to someone else. We really do teach best what we most need to learn. Speaking your notes aloud will help you retain the information, especially when you are synthesizing as though explaining to someone.

But it doesn't end there. Pop your earbuds in while you drive, do laundry, mop, etc., and listen to your recordings. Plan to listen to them every day for at least a few minutes. You can even play back at double speed to squeeze more in. This way you are practicing a triple whammy retention strategy - you wrote down the material by hand, you spoke it aloud, and now you're listening to it.

Evernote is a gift from Heaven

I use Evernote to record my audio summaries, and to do basically everything else.

There are many, many guides to Evernote and how to get the most out of it. I'll just mention a couple things that make me want to marry it.

I use the premium version. It's only $6.50 a month with tax, and even my broke ass can afford that. The premium version makes your handwriting searchable, and that alone is worth $6.50 to me. This way if I can't remember the title of a note and I forgot to tag it, I can search something I know is in there - even if it's handwritten - and Evernote will find it for me.

In Evernote you can divide everything into notebooks, share notes with classmates even if they don't use Evernote, clip articles and images from the web, email important stuff directly to your Evernote inbox, and much much more. I use it for everything, and am considering going paperless next semester. Because with Evernote Premium's searchable handwriting feature, you can go paperless even if you write everything by hand. All you have to do is take a photo of your notes and they're converted to PDF.

I have Evernote on my laptop, iPhone, and kindle, and every ten minutes the app auto-syncs across all devices. This is the future, y'all.


Take notes using the Cornell method

You've probably heard of this and decided it was too much trouble. It's really not.

The idea of Cornell notes is that you divide your paper into three sections, which requires a ruler or straight-edge and takes about 10 seconds. The top right 2/3 of the paper is for note taking, making sure you write only what's important and abbreviate as much as you can without obscuring meaning.

The column on the left is the most important. This is where you write questions or prompts based on the content on the right. You look at your notes and imagine how a test or quiz question on that material might be phrased.

The bottom sliver of paper is reserved for summary. To be honest, I don't always use this section and have considered getting rid of it. Some people find it very useful. I should probably take more time to try it before I write it off entirely.

Besides the textbook, this left hand column is where I get most of my flash card content.

This method makes you start thinking about how you'll be tested on the material, and trains you to pick out what's most important from what you've written down.

Pro tip: draw your lines on several pages in a row before class so you're not fumbling around with a ruler during.

Revise your notes using colors and drawings

This idea came 100% from Pinterest. At first I rolled my eyes at the photos of gorgeous fancy hand-written notes with colorful amazing hand-drawn pictures, thinking, "Puh-leez. These are 19-year-old sorority girls with nothing better to do than sit around and color shit." And maybe some of them are, but this method works. It forces you to synthesize material and organize it in your mind to fit on the page. It's causing your brain to make associations and begin to process what you probably wrote in a hurry the first time.

I didn't start trying this method until late in the semester but I will use it much more in the fall. I understand thermochemistry equations more than any other quantitative unit in my chem class because I revised my notes in this way. It's also a handy sheet to refer back to when you're working practice problems.

Last but not least, share these with your study group and they will love you.

Before summer semester, I'll be investing in a set of colored pens, probably Staedtler since I hear great things about them. Highlighting will be reserved for handouts and the textbook.

Ditch the spiral and use graph paper 

I used to love spirals. Then I took my first semester of hard-core lab sciences and legit math, and I had so much content that I was drowning in spiral notebooks. As my pre-cal class filled up an entire five-subject Mead and then some, and I wanted to pull my hair out from all the flipping and searching, and as I realized it was going to take four - yes, four - spirals to organize my chemistry content, I began to search for alternate methods.

First I tried loose-leaf filler paper, and that method was pretty good. But graph paper is better.

I use this pad. I only write on one side because the convenience is worth a little extra dough to me. It's perforated cleanly at the very top, and the cardboard back is super thick so it won't flop around.

The gridlines help me keep everything neat, especially when I'm quickly drawing my lines for Cornell notes. With this $5 pad and a $1.50 ruler from Walmart, I am an unstoppable note-taking force.

The graph is helpful not only for drawing lines, numbering, outlining, and sketching pictures, but something about the little squares just helps you write neater and smaller. I can't explain it. Try it and see, especially if you have trouble keeping your notes legible.

When you're done, easily tear out the page and put in a folder, or punch holes and place in a binder under the tab for that unit or chapter. So much cleaner, neater, and easier than juggling a million spirals.

If you're paperless, scan and upload to Evernote. If you choose the photo setting, EN will retain the graph lines. Choose the document option, and EN will convert the notes to PDF, making them searchable and erasing the graph lines.

Last but not least...

Use school supplies you like

I can't stress this enough: use stuff that works for you, not against you. Whether it's a crappy pen that gets ink everywhere, a raggedy-ass spiral, muddy highlighters, a backpack that gives you spinal stenosis, or a planner with too-small squares, bad supplies can ruin a student's life.

I can't tell you how much easier and better my life as a student became when I realized that not all school supplies are created equal. When I was younger and didn't care about school or spend any time on it, a dispoable Bic pen and a $1 spiral was fine. But now that I'm spending the bulk of my waking hours on school, having supplies that get the job done without making me pull my hair out is essential.

You are more likely to sit down and study if you're using supplies that make you happier and more productive. So if you've been eyeballing those colored pens, a slightly pricey planner, or some Rhodia paper (swoon), buy them. You may spend an extra $50 or more per semester on quality supplies, but that $50 can be the difference between a B and an A.

Until you know what you like, don't buy large quantities of anything. I made the mistake of buying 2 dozen Bic Velocity pens. I like the way they write, but once I switched to graph paper, the tip was too thick. Also it leaks ink everywhere. (My mouse pad and laptop are living proof.) 

Give yourself time to experiment and come up with products and systems that work for you. Don't settle for supplies or methods that annoy you or make your life difficult. Keep trying new stuff and new strategies until you find what works - your mood will improve and so will your grades.

I hope some of these tips work for you. What am I missing? Comment with the study trick that makes your life better, because I want to try it!

Study blocks make your body rock.

I'm not gonna apologize for the title. I stand by it.

Study blocks are saving my ass. I wish I had discovered them earlier this semester. I probably would be making 3 As instead of an A and two Bs.

At first glance study blocks seem like a big fat "duh." But if you're like me, you are distracted easily and have trouble focusing for long periods. Actually, my biggest issue is beginning to focus. I don't know if that's ADD or just being a person, but it makes me less productive than I'd like to be.

Here is a typical "study day" for me.

I wake up later than I meant to. I look at my planner and realize I need to study two subjects today. I say to myself, Self, you need to put in a couple hours today in Chem, and at least a couple hours in Pre-Cal.

Two hours later I have drunk coffee, looked at Pinterest, let my dog out twice, done a load of laundry, eaten breakfast, and the only vaguely study-related thing I've done is found my flash cards and highlighters. (They are next to me on the couch... somewhere... maybe under a blanket.)

Eventually I get down to studying, but every 15 minutes or so I check a text message, get up and get a drink, check my email, change the Netflix or music, etc.

In the end I'm lucky to get an hour or so of actual work done.

The library hasn't helped much. I still get distracted by my phone, the Internet, music, and guilt over the fact that I left my dog in the kennel to go to the library when I have my own office and desk at home.

I wasn't quite sure how to handle this problem without drugs or therapy or something, until I attended a free online MCAT strategy webinar held by Leah Fisch, an MCAT tutor. (For the record, she is not paying me to plug her. She's not even aware I'm plugging her. I just have really found her site super helpful.)

Leah introduced me to the idea of study blocks. This is how she has her students organize their study time.

Basically, instead of saying, "I need to get in two hours of studying today," and writing "Chem - 2 hours" in your planner, you schedule a block. For example, 1:00 to 3:00. You write "Chem 1 pm - 3 pm" in your planner and draw a rectangle around it. Use a colored pen or highlighter to make it stand out.

The next part is the most important: honor the living hell out of that block. Treat it like it's the scheduled C-section of your first child. It has to be that much of a priority. (Ok, maybe not that much...)

This means that during your study block you:

- turn off or silence your phone and DO NOT LOOK AT IT. The world can wait two hours for you.
- block yourself from the sites you waste your time using, especially social media sites.
- don't check your email or do any other "important" online tasks.
- make sure you have water, snacks, or any other needful things at your side because you're not getting up unless you have an explosive diarrhea situation or a significant portion of your house catches on fire.
- set your Netflix or iTunes playlist to repeat so you don't have to mess with anything, because even little things like this can pull your focus big time.
- go to the bathroom, fold your laundry, let your dog out, do any little pesky things you need to do because, in case I didn't mention it, during this study block you are not allowed to do ANYTHING but study.

My life. Err'day.

Think of it this way: the "block" in study block doesn't so much mean a "block of time." It means everything else in life is blocked by studying for that period of time.

Basically you are treating your study block like something important that you cannot get out of, not like an optional activity that you work around everything else. You treat it like an important work meeting or a final exam, so that everything else takes a backseat and your entire focus is on the subject at hand for that two hours.

Speaking of two hours, that is the max amount of time I schedule myself without a break. Usually after two hours I will be done, or take 15 to 30 minutes and switch subjects. Sometimes - for instance, this weekend, since I have 3 finals next week - I will go longer than 2 hours per subject, but not without a break.

If you can't study for two hours, and you're planning to take the MCAT or GRE or another major exam, it's important you start gradually building your endurance. The MCAT, for example, is 7.5 hours long. If you can't focus in big chunks you're gonna be in trouble.

The study block method is one of those genius ideas that seems obvious once you know of it, but few of us truly shut out everything when we study. Doing so has been the key to solving my focus problems and has made me significantly more productive.

If you have other tips and tricks that work for you, I'd love to hear them!

"Always for pleasure, darlin'."

I have two cumulative finals, one in chem and one in pre-cal. I'm not good at math, so these are my hard courses. If I do very well on both finals, I could pull a B overall in both. It all comes down to this last test.

So of course I am procrastinating like gangbusters.

I know everybody thinks they have ADD and most of us probably don't. All the symptoms of ADD are also symptoms of being a person. But sometimes I wonder. It is not terribly hard for me to focus, but terribly hard for me to get focused.


I'm giving myself an hour break, is my point.

Let's talk about New Orleans. It's been on my mind a lot lately. Well, it's always on my mind to some extent.

Next year I'll be applying to med schools and I will apply to LSU and Tulane, although I have to make Texas my first choice. There are some great schools here and in-state tuition at most of them is amazing.

No matter where I go to school, I hope to match in New Orleans, and even if I don't, that is where I will practice, raise my family, live my life, retire, croak off, and be buried above ground so my big ol' dirty corpse does not come bobbing up during a flood.

There are three types of people reading this. One type is nodding, imagining their own dream Italianate mansion in the Garden District, or restored double shotgun in the Bywater. Another type is asking "Why New Orleans?" out of curiosity, because they've never been there, or only for a long-ago drunken Mardi Gras in the Quarter.

The third type is also asking "Why New Orleans?" but with a look of horrified disgust because to them, New Orleans is where you go to either be poor, get shot, have your car stolen, or drown in your attic. Maybe all of the above.

I did not visit New Orleans for the first time until 2011. I was dating the man whose lucky ass I would eventually marry, and he took me there because it's his favorite city. He lived there for a long time, a long time ago, and is from that general area. He has lots of dead ancestors with French names buried on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, and his mother's people were boat builders.

The Gulf Coast is not like the rest of the American South. In one sense it's Southern, and all the good and bad that goes along with that: soul food, poverty, hospitality, racism. (I'm being flippant; the stereotypes are largely bullshit. Most southern people are just regular-ass people.)

But on the Gulf Coast there's this other layer that's southern but also French but also Caribbean but also Acadian but also Spanish but also German but also its own thing entirely. My husband grew up spending summers in a cabin on stilts on the coast, shucking oysters and eating crawfish by the pound, sleeping in hammocks and spending days on boats checking crab traps.

In his early 20s, deeply ensconced in a punk rock phase and sporting a now-legendary green mohawk and Dr Martens, he moved to New Orleans and lived in a shotgun in the Marigny with a bunch of other punk rockers who soaked up their booze vomit puddles with cigarette ashes. He paid his meager bills hustling time shares to French Quarter tourists. It wasn't a bad gig, to hear him tell it. He got $50 per rube who sat through the presentation, and basically hung out in the Quarter all day.

He actually sat on the steps across from Jackson Square and read a paperback copy of The Vampire Lestat. I mean, can you imagine?

At night he joined the other ne'er-do-wells at Checkpoint Charlie's, where you could do your laundry while you drank. I think you still can, actually.

In any case, this man who loathes "the big city" has maintained over the years a love affair with the Crescent City. When he's there he comes to life, and it turns out, so do I.

I was not expecting to like New Orleans. I thought I would find it dirty and trashy, all lurid glitz. I imagined it like a southern Las Vegas, basically kick-ass food at exorbitant prices, plastic crap made in China with "New Orleans" printed on it, and sex trafficking. 

Instead I found a place like no other on earth, in a way no one has yet been able to put into words. I've heard it called the northernmost Caribbean nation, and that's pretty close, but it leaves out how American and how European it is at the same time. Of course it is also garish and dirty, but not with the grasping soullessness of a tourist trap. If New York and San Francisco are high-dollar escorts, New Orleans is the street hooker with the heart of gold who might accidentally give you the clap, but will also ask about "ya mama and them" with genuine interest while she feeds you an amazing shrimp Creole.

Since 2011 we've been back several times, once with our dog, who I'm pretty sure peed on every inch of Esplanade Ave.'s spacious neutral ground. We've never experienced New Orleans like real tourists because we don't have the money. We don't stay in hotels or eat at fancy restaurants. We park at Elysian Fields and walk. We take our go-cups and we go. We soak it in. It's the most vibrant place I've ever been. I feel alive there.

Mark Twain said that New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans are the only American cities, and everywhere else is Cleveland. He was pretty dead-on. But New Orleans puts San Francisco and New York to shame because not only does it have an utterly unique character, but unlike those other places, it is warm and welcoming. It embraces you like the velvety, humid air. You're never a stranger there.

Crime in New Orleans is a problem, but it's a problem in a lot of places. Its crime rate is only very slightly higher than the average major American city. In fact, violent crime in 2015 was 1% higher in New Orleans than in Denver. Crime in NOLA gets over-reported because in a way New Orleans is America's city. Just about everybody goes there or has been there. A shooting on Bourbon St. is newsworthy in a way that a shooting on Whatever St. in Denver is not, because so many of us have either been to Bourbon St. or plan to go one day.

In truth, New Orleans's tourist mecca status means the tourist areas are ridiculously well-patrolled. Like most cities, if you avoid the shitty neighborhoods and mind your p's and q's, you'll be fine.

When you're from a big city like I am, a city that is known for being "international," with tons of corporate headquarters and giant highways and a business-centered spirit, where everything is money-money-money and go-go-go, power lunches and luxury auto leases and house-flipping seminars, you forget that ambition and drive are not everybody's reason for living. I love the enterprising spirit of my city, but there is nothing like going to a place where the focus of life is the moment.

Life in New Orleans is about the delicious food you're eating, the people you're hanging with, the drinks you're gonna drink later that night, the music you're gonna dance to. Those are not diversions, ways to unwind until the next important thing. They are the important things.

New Orleans is lazy. It's careless. It's wild. It's... sublime.

It only took a few visits for me to tell my husband that I wanted to live there one day, and just like the song says, "I know I'm not wrong... The feeling's gettin' stronger the longer I stay away..."

I'm old enough to know that places we vacation are different when we live there. No matter where you move, you take yourself with you. I don't believe for a second I will leave reality behind by changing my zip code. But I'm also old enough to know what I like, what my priorities are, and how essential it is to not just settle for anything because it's the way it's always been.

It's at least two years until we get to be New Orleanians, and possibly as many as ten. So our consolation prize is incorporating little aspects of New Orleans into our lives. We put Tony Chacherie's on everything, drink Community coffee, eat Creole food whenever we can (my father-in-law makes gumbo every Christmas), and listen to Professor Longhair and Rebirth Brass Band and Dr. John and - duh! - Lil Wayne.

I think most people have a love affair with a certain city. Some of us are lucky to go to ours, and even others get to make it home. I hope I get to be that lucky. New Orleans is one of those things I imagine on the horizon, waiting for me on the other side of this journey through school to a career.

Drew Brees said, "When you love New Orleans, she loves you back." One day I imagine myself - hopefully - being a good doctor for the good people of that filthy, corrupt, lovely paradise of a city. Meanwhile, she will hold it down for me. I will learn chemistry, she will laissez les bons temps rouler. In fact, she will still be rouler-ing long after I'm gone. And that is just as it should be.

-------------------
For more New Orleans goodness, see the 1978 documentary Always for Pleasure or the much more recent HBO series, Treme. I particularly recommend the latter because real NOLA musicians play themselves and every episode is filled with incredible music. Once you've seen the first season, though, the title of this blog post will make you feel sad feels. Sorry about that.

Introducing the Rad Non-Trad

Welcome, and thanks for stopping by!

At some point everybody had a secret meeting without me (this happens a lot) and decided to start using the word "non-traditional" instead of "old" to describe students like me. I'm fine with it, because I have mirrors in my house and therefore don't need any other reminders that I'm old.

I'm non-traditional as hell, though. And I'm starting a blog about it. 

This blog is more for my use than for anyone else, if I'm being totally honest. It was suggested to me by someone I trust - and of course by "someone I trust" I mean "the Internet" - that I should start a blog devoted to my school experience. I'm doing that because it seems like a good way to decompress. This will be the wall I wail to, a wall I get to decorate with my favorite colors.

It'll be nice to talk to someone, even if that someone is me. If you're a student you probably know that being in school is like being sick - no one gives a shit about the details except you, and maybe your doctor.

Speaking of doctors, that's what I'm trying to be.

Later I'll post something with all the sordid details of my decision to try to go med school as a broke 36-year-old married woman. For now, suffice it to say, I'm 36, broke, and a married woman. That's all you really need to know about me personally. I'm keeping this blog anonymous because I do other stuff in life that makes me somewhat find-able on the Internet, and Egon warned me not to cross the streams. (It could be bad.)

As for the details you need to know to follow my educational journey, they'll come out eventually. Here are the basics:

I'm about to graduate from a 2-year school with an Associate of Science degree I technically started 17 years ago. (You can laugh.) I am stupidly proud of getting this stupid degree. When I get the notice that it actually happened (after finals in a few weeks) I will cry. I promise I will cry.

My GPA since I started back to school is 3.6, but because I was an idiot many years ago and left school without withdrawing and got a bunch of Fs, my cumulative is just over 3.0.

Also because I was an idiot many years ago, I have no "easy" courses left. No filler. Only one more math course (Calculus) and lots and lots of science. So if, going forward, I make a B in Calculus and As in all my sciences (you can laugh) I will be able to top out around 3.4.

So my only hope of getting into medical school is making the rest of my application amazing -- great letters of rec, extracurriculars with leadership, volunteer hours, shadowing, research, publications, and a stellar interview if I get that far. But most importantly - the MCAT. It is my Excalibur.

Actually you know what it is? It's like that scene in The Neverending Story where Atreyu has to walk between those two giant sphinx statues with boobies and he has to believe in himself or they'll shoot him with their eye lasers. I'm Atreyu and the MCAT is the statues with eye lasers. 

Tentatively my current plan is to take the MCAT after my junior year, so just about a year from right now. This is a risky step because I will only have taken one semester of orgo, maybe one of physics, and no biochem. But I don't want to wait til my senior year because it takes about a year for the application and admission process, and I'd like to avoid a gap year. Because I'm old. My whole 20s was a gap decade.

If my current tentative schedule works out, it would put me graduating with my B.S. in Neuroscience in May 2018 and starting medical school later that same summer.

Which would put me graduating from medical school in 2022, at age 42. And finishing my residency in 2026, at age 46.

It's all pretty overwhelming, but I've floundered for so long, and this is the first thing that I truly feel deep in my gut is what I need to do. I may fail, but if I do I'm going to fail trying my ass off.

I look at it this way: eventually, God willing, I will be 46. I can either be 46 and a doctor or 46 and not a doctor. I'd much prefer the former.

Everything depends on me acing the MCAT. (Booby sphinx eye lasers.) If I do well on the MCAT, I can probably get into an okay American med school. Which is all I ask.

It's going to be insanely hard. That's what this blog is for. I need someone to talk to, and that someone is me.

Like I said, no one cares about the horrors and foibles of your education except you. So this is my way of chronicling this ridiculous journey for posterity. If along the way I inadvertently offer some advice or encouragement that helps out another rad non-trad, that will be awesome.

Maybe next time I'll talk about why I want to be an OB-Gyn, where I plan to live and practice once I'm out of school (hint: it has a river and a levee and a Mardi Gras), and what awesome free helpful website I'm using to help me pass the MCAT and all that happy horseshit.

Meanwhile I'm gonna go make some flash cards. Most women my age have babies and mortgages and 401Ks, I am broke in my PJs in a rented house with my dog and husband, making flashcards.

Let's hear it for the late bloomers!