When starting something new, especially something as big as grad school, it can be pretty easy to make it your main priority.
You are learning a huge amount of material that you will be tested on, but since you’ve never taken a test at MBKU before, how can you know how difficult it will be? How can you judge when you’ve studied enough to be adequately prepared?
These were some of the questions I asked myself when I started the PA program. As a result, during the first week I ended up staying in the classroom other than a quick dinner break till 11 PM the first 4 days because our class had a test that first Friday. I was not the only one in my class who dedicated so much time to studying initially. It wasn’t until the end of December that something that was said to my class at orientation really rang true. ‘Grad school is a marathon, not a sprint.’ While I was able to maintain that pace for a few weeks, where I essentially limited myself to eating, sleeping, and studying, I quickly noticed my stamina for studying, as well as everything else, gradually began to suffer.
It was around that time that I asked myself some new questions. What are the things that I really enjoy that always put me in a better mood? What are the things that, when I don’t fit them into my day, make me feel disappointed or let down? Have I been making any effort to include these things in my life since starting grad school? I’ll spare you the list of things that make up my answers to the first 2 questions, but if you’d read this far, you likely have guessed that my answer to that final question was at that time a resounding ‘No’.
While I have really come to appreciate that my professors work hard to support us and make this process as manageable as possible, no one would ever say that this is easy. However, living a spartan lifestyle of only the bare requirements of life in addition to as many hours of studying that you can fit in the day is not going to work for most people. The trick is to find a balance. Not just between studying and other things that will look good on your resume or make you a little extra spending money, but between the amount of studying that gets you the grades you want and your personal answers to the first 2 questions. If those things include social things like joining an on campus club or going out to dinner with some classmates, great! If your list is composed of more solitary activities such as following YouTube rabbit holes, working out, cuddling with a pet, or painting, there is nothing wrong with that either!
Grad school at MBKU is your time to be as successful as you can be. Speaking from my own personal experience, having even a half hour to look forward to when I let myself read something that is in no way related to medicine, practice piano, or even just take a nap, can be an extremely powerful motivator to power through that last bit of studying. Naturally, balancing your time will always be paramount to succeeding, but you will not fail a test for taking 30 minutes out of your day to de-stress a bit.
If I could go back to the start of my time at MBKU, this is the advice that I wish I had. The tests will always be a bit scary and the voice in your head telling you to ‘study more’ may never completely go away, but if you don’t give yourself opportunities to enjoy the things that bring you joy or even help you unwind, you could be resigning yourself to a miserable education experience.
