My Story
Second year in Cambridge is infamous for being the most difficult year. It’s known to systematically drain your enthusiasm and passion for medicine. But, the thing that kept us going was the prospect of our 3rd year (the intercalation year), a chance to choose a subject we enjoyed and study that in more detail. But more importantly, the 3rd year was promised as a bit of a holiday year, where the workload becomes a fraction of what it previously was.
So amidst frantic revision for second year exams, I was faced with an important decision: “what should I pick for 3rd year?” Should I pick a subject known to be chill like psychology, or something known to be super tricky like pathology? Should I base the choice solely on enjoyment? Or should I go rogue, and pick a subject non-scientific like philosophy or management? All tricky choices to be making with exams looming.
Eventually, after much deliberation and pestering the year above, I arrived at the decision of pharmacology. I really liked learning about drug pathways and drug choices in 2nd year, so thought it would be a great idea to study this in more detail and also do a research project in the field. My expectations for pharmacology was essentially to be learning drug management for clinical conditions, more drug pathways and drug development. I expected everything to be clinically contextualised, so that I could appreciate why that bit was important. But, my expectations were far, far from the reality…
Come my first lecture, I soon realised that “clinical context” was a myth. The lecturer was talking about Kv1.6, 1.8 etc. with apparently no real clinical point. I thought “ok just one lecture; it’ll get better”. The second and the third came by, and still the same. So finally, I decided it was time for a change.
Up until that point in my life, I was very rigid in my thinking, especially when it came to following through with things even if it wasn’t enjoyable, purely because I’ve committed to it. Whilst this is a seemingly admirable attitude, it’s not always right. At the end of the day, we need to prioritise our happiness too. So I acted on this and emailed a few people to try and change courses from pharmacology to neuroscience with psychology (my second choice initially). After a few meetings, I was lucky enough to be allowed to switch. Obviously I had missed a couple lectures of the neuro-psych course, but I soon caught up and was really very happy with the switch. Everything being taught was genuinely interesting and had an obvious real life translation and application. On top of this, there was a huge degree of freedom on this course, where we could pick whichever lecture series we wanted to follow.
However, whilst I was enjoying the content, I also felt very lost and clueless as to how to make notes, how to prepare for lectures and how to study. I felt like this year was completely different to my previous, very structured years, and I really had no idea how to tackle it. The main differences that made me feel this way were:
1. The lack of clarity on exam syllabus,
2. Lack of handouts,
3. Expectation to read scientific papers and
4. Organise your own supervisions and lecture attendances.
Once I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I eventually started reading the lecture slides and looking up recommended scientific-papers, reading them in detail and trying to make brief notes. But, I found it difficult to decide which papers to prioritise, how many to read, and in what detail. It was only near the end of the year, I figured out that the best way to learn was to work backwords, starting off with a past exam question and making essay plans. More on this in the guide!
