I had such a great time during my 2nd year of uni – I had amazing times with friends, strengthened current friendships and made new ones, worked more productively than I felt I have in previous years, gained more experience from some clinical placements, and made some great memories. Everything was going so well until the reality of the coronavirus pandemic hit, and then before I knew it I was back home and 2nd year was pretty much done! I thought I’d post a bit of a reflection on this year of university, both for myself to look back on in the future and for anyone who will be going/applying to university this year 😊
2nd year consisted mainly of lectures, with some clinical placements, seminars, workshops and dissections. The main topics we had this year were gastrointestinal, renal, endocrine, reproduction and central nervous system. The structure of this year was very similar to first year - each week had it's own topic and there would also be a case study linked to this. A bit of the case study would be released every day and then we would have a lecture to go over the case on a Friday afternoon. The last 4 weeks of the year also had some more independent PBL-style teaching which brought together some topics we had learned throughout the past 2 years. We got to choose our own groups for this which was really nice and these weeks were quite quiet :) The workload this year was quite a lot and some of the lecture content and anatomy (especially neuro) was pretty challenging! However, I feel like I have finally found the revision techniques that work best for me which meant I could work effectively but still productively, and still be able to enjoy my free time. I might do a more detailed post at some point soon on how I worked this year– but in summary, I made Quizlet flashcards for the content (rather than making long sets of notes like I have in the past), I used a lot of resources including YouTube videos to learn anatomy, and I tried to revisit older topics as often as I could. I stuck to my routine of waking up between 6 and 6.30am so I could do some work in the mornings before lectures and have a lot more time to myself in the evenings and at weekends! (I’m currently writing this post at almost 1am and questioning how I managed to stick to such a good routine at uni). The clinical placements I had this year were similar to the placements I had in first year – there were a few GP placements (which mainly included shadowing GPs, nurses and other healthcare staff) and a few hospital placements (when we practised clinical skills that we had been taught in the med school). This year we also got assigned to an individual patient in the community to follow their healthcare journey and focus on a specific aspect of the healthcare they received, which was a really useful learning experience. I've had a few questions asking how the workload/amount of free time in 2nd year compared to 1st year. Of course this will probably vary for different uni's and different courses, but I'd say it was pretty similar. If anything, I felt like I had more free time in 2nd year due to the way the lectures were spread out and I'd also say that I learnt how to work more efficiently this year. I’m currently in the process of making a scrapbook with all of my uni memories and it’s so nice to look back on so many good times, and I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring! (Making a scrapbook is definitely a good lockdown project for anyone who is struggling to fill their time)! It’s sad that we missed out on the end of 2nd year but I’ve had a great year overall and hoping 3rd year will be just as good! If anyone has any questions about studying medicine or university life in general, feel free to message me on Instagram 😊 Jasmine x