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One of the main things I learned from high school was my learning style. At that time, I was a junior in high school who was struggling with AP World History. This class was really challenging for me because it wasn’t just memorizing facts. Fortunately, I had a teacher who was very approachable and dedicated to helping his teachers. Because I had done so poorly on one of the exams, I scheduled a meeting with him. I didn’t know what to expect from this meeting, but I was ready to get any help necessary.

This point alone is so important. Get the help that you need. It can be difficult to reach out, but there is nothing wrong with getting help. In the end, you’ll only be better for it. If the person you reach out to isn’t helpful, find another person. I recommend getting help as soon as you realize you are struggling. I’ve waited until I got poor grades, and sometimes that is too late. Once you feel like you don’t understand a concept or a subject, reach out to your teachers/professors.

If you don’t know what to say for help, I suggest looking at the concepts and creating specific questions, so your teacher/professor knows where you are struggling. Most teachers do not like it when a student goes to office hours and asks them to re-teach the entire lesson. Be prepared with specific topics to get the best help.

However, in high school this wasn’t the reason why I was struggling. At that time, I did what most students did.

I did my homework.

I paid attention in class. Well…for the most part. High school was a bit difficult because I was waking up at 5:30am. There were many moments where I drifted away from the class because I was tired of sitting in class.

However, I was really trying. I applied everything I knew about studying to this class, but I was still struggling. This class was just the beginning of my journey as a student. However, I really wanted to improve, and I needed someone to help me crack the code AP World History.

At this meeting, my teacher asked me a series of questions. I thought they were strange questions, but I went with the flow. I can’t remember all the details of this meeting. But one question he asked me was “how do you like to get directions?” and then he proceeded to give me some examples to choose from. As he listed them, I said I could use each of those methods. I liked having landmarks to know where I am, but I also liked specific steps that I could read. 

Now I think the best part about this meeting is when he was done asking me all these questions, he said “Well, now I know why you’ve been struggling. Your learning style is multimodal”.

I sat there with a confused look on my face. What did that mean?

He proceeded to explain that from all the questions he asked me, I needed various methods to learn how to complete different tasks. 

A light bulb went off.

He was right. I needed various modes to help me learn. I noticed from my years of learning that he was right. I was never able to control what method helped me learn. I needed to read, see, hear, write, and speak the material out loud to remember it. However, I didn’t have control of which one of those methods would help me remember the information.

I thought it was crazy because I didn’t realize that there were some people who just needed to read a textbook to remember information or that some people needed to hear the information to remember it.

Given that I was in a high school that gave each student an iPad, my teacher suggested I download Notability (it was a small one-time fee back in 2013). He suggested I write my notes on the iPad and record myself speaking the notes out loud. This method would help me read the book, while also writing the information, and saying it so I had three modalities working. I could then listen to myself speak to get the final modality of hearing the information.

Now, I did that for my AP World History class, but I did not do that in college. In fact, I think I became a worse student in college because of how demanding the courses were. I did well in most, and I did struggle very hard with others.

Except, in the back of my mind, I always knew it would take me longer to master information because I needed to experience it in various forms.

 After years of struggling, I finally figured out what method of studying works best for me. It took me all of my first year of medical school to truly understand how I needed to approach medical school, but I am so glad my teacher told me that I was multimodal from such a young age.

 So, what does that mean for you as a Pre-Medical student in high school or in college or maybe even as a medical student?

To me, and this is entirely my opinion, I think it means everyone should figure out their learning style. At this point, you might have an idea of what works. Or maybe, like me, you need someone else to guide you through it.

Fortunately, one of my friends in medical school is a Peer Fellow. She shared that the Peer Fellows were given a quiz to take to figure out their learning styles which I have posted below so you can figure out yours!

LINK: https://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/

All you have to do is answer all these questions and it will tell your learning style. From there, you can figure out what to do for your learning needs. You do not need to pay for anything. Here is what my page looked like. 

If you want to see strategies, you can look at this specific part. The website does ask you to pay $11USD for the full report of your specific quiz, and it gives a free example report of what you could see. However, they also provide strategies for each type, and I think that could help best.

I also have other posts about study tips that you can check out here: https://www.thecuriousmedstudent.com/5-tips-for-incoming-medical-students/

If you are curious about what I do now as a second-year medical student, you can keep reading. If not, just take the quiz and share my blog post to help me out! 😊

My Second Year Study Techniques:

I need at least three passes of the material.

I try to do this in this order, but sometimes medical school is just too busy. I also hand write my notes on my iPad with the Notability app. I make very specific note sheets for each disease. I use the following sources to make these notes:

Boards and Beyond

First Aid

Textbook(s)

School Specific: Lectures

Practice Questions 

It takes me a while, but it hits all the modalities for me. I use Boards and Beyond to prime my brain for the material of the week. I use First Aid for any Board Exam specific material. I read the textbook/watch lecture to get the third pass. By this point, I have hit all modalities, so I have an idea of what the information is.

I use the practice questions to help me solidify information and learn from my mistakes rather than as a check point for retention. That whole technique took me until the second block of my second year of medical school to finally understand. I can make another blog post for that if you are interested! Just let me know in the comments.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, let me know with a comment on this blog or Instagram.