{"id":1447,"date":"2016-09-15T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T17:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/studentblogs\/lorna15\/?p=241"},"modified":"2016-09-15T17:03:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T17:03:00","slug":"what-to-expect-starting-medical-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2016\/09\/15\/what-to-expect-starting-medical-school\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Expect: Starting Medical School"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #993366\">It&#8217;s not long until term starts again, so I thought I would write a couple of posts for the new freshers to prepare you about what to expect during your first few weeks and months. It is a daunting and exciting time, so relax and enjoy it and remember if we all made it then you can too!<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-81\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/studentblogs\/lorna15\/files\/2015\/12\/DeathtoStock_Wired7-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"DeathtoStock_Wired7\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">What to expect:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To be behind on work<\/span>&#8211; no matter how hard you try, how organised you are or how much stationary you buy from the Union shop you will never be on top of lectures. Learn to &#8216;park&#8217; things (but not too much, you do need to do some work too!).<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To have ups and downs<\/span>&#8211; it&#8217;s a huge transition and gets the better of the best of students- learn how to relax and where to turn for some help. The student counseling service can be brilliant.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To feel out of your depth<span style=\"color: #000000\">&#8211; everyone feels like this, but few people are honest about it<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To be persuaded to buy lots of books that you will never read<\/span>&#8211; this is hard to avoid. It&#8217;s worth chatting to older years to work out which are essential, borrowing from the library, buying second hand (although check the edition!) or using the library ebooks (these are invaluable).<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To be a small fish in a big pond<\/span>&#8211; everyone goes on about this and no-one believes them&#8230; until it happens.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To make lots of friends and not remember anyone&#8217;s name<\/span>&#8211; it&#8217;s worth asking early, it gets a bit awkward after Christmas!<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To get lost<\/span>&#8211; don&#8217;t be afraid to use the maps around campus (they are there for a reason!)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To have LOTS of social events<\/span>&#8211; it&#8217;s tiring to go to them all, but my advice would be don&#8217;t miss any boat parties- they are very special!<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff6600\">To dress up lots<\/span>&#8211; nearly every med school event involves dressing up: Bops, boat party, freshers ball, RAG invasion&#8230;. So bring your fancy dress box and a tux\/smart dress<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993366\">University is a huge change. Most people love it, but if you do hate it- you are not alone and it <em>does<\/em> get better. Now I&#8217;m starting to sound like my mum so I shall stop writing&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; in which I offer my top tips for new freshers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1044,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}