HELLO! WELCOME PA ’23, PHARM ’25, AND OD ’25.
Congratulations on making it this far!! It is an honor to be a peer advisor and to be able to help you navigate through your first year of graduate school. I know things may seem overwhelming with school starting in a few weeks, but hopefully from these other blog posts, you have been able to apply some of the advice my fellow peer advisors have shared. I know a lot of this information are similar – to take care of yourself and your mental health, exercise, having “me” time, etc. I wanted to emphasize again, don’t put your own personal health on the back burner. There are 2 main pieces of advice I would like to share as you are start this journey in becoming a medical professional: sleep and have a good mentality.
The most important thing that I have learned during my time as a graduate student is the importance of SLEEP!! Before school even starts, I highly recommend working on your sleep schedule. During school, you can find how you study best, but make sure that you get 7-9 continuous hours of sleep a night, especially before exam days. Sleep health is very important to retain more information, concentrate, and to be overall happier. I look back at the times during undergrad where I would pull all-nighters for exams and be exhausted during my exams and not perform as well.
I know you all probably know the importance of sleep, but to reiterate some, here is a list of benefits of sleeping you might have not known:
- Lower weight gain risk
- Lower risk of heart disease
- Prevent depression
- Lower inflammation
As you can see, there are so many benefits of sleep other than to be a good student, so please get some good night sleep every night!!
My final advice for you is to always have the mentality that all the material you are learning is for your future patients, it’s not to pass an exam. Try to understand the material instead of just memorizing. If the amount of material in a certain module is overwhelming, take a break, and go on a walk or talk with another classmate because they’ll understand what you’re going through best. When I feel stressed and feel like giving up, I think back at how hard I’ve worked to be in my dream program here at MBKU. I know there are so many other pre-PAs/pre-health students who would love to be doing what I am doing right now, so I am reminded to be grateful for my opportunity in studying medicine at an amazing program.
Hope that helps! We got this! Congratulations again on joining the MBKU family! See you during orientation!