If how much free time you’ll have in med school is what concerns you most then you should probably seriously reconsider your choice of medicine as your profession.
The fact is that med school will take a large portion of your day with either long classes or studying, you’ll have much less free time than you did in high school, but if you’re able to organize your time efficiently, you’ll still have enough free time left to catch up with your friends, watch TV, take some time to yourself.
Maybe on some days, you’ll even be able to take the whole day off to relax and recharge but most of the time you’ll have to study for at least 2-3 hours a day if you want to stay on track with all the work.
Here Is How My Day Looked Like Before COVID19 When I Had All Classes In College:
- I woke up at 5.30 or 6 am, depending on when my morning class started. If it started at 8 I woke up a 6 /6.15 and if the morning class started at 7.30 I woke up at 5.30.
- I had around 40 minutes to get ready for college. Washing up, dressing, and making my face look decent for public took me around 20-30 minutes, and then I had 10-15 minutes of extra time to drink my morning coffee and eat breakfast. I always ate breakfast in the morning because it’s important to start your day with energy and wake up your metabolism. I had a 10-minute walk to the bus station and got on a bus at either 6.30 or 7 am.
- I got to my college around 10 minutes before the class started. The length of my classes was different from day to day, sometimes I finished at 2 or 3 pm and on some days I finished at 7 or 7.30 pm. It then took me another hour to hour and a half to get home, depending on whether I had to wait for a bus or not.
- When I got home, I studied for 1-3 hours on 45-minute intervals with 10-minute breaks and then took a shower to went for a walk, a run, get together with my friends …
When studying medicine you still have free time left but you should spend as much of it studying and working for your dreams as you can. Of course, you should take some time off and do other things as well but having free time shouldn’t be your first priority.
The amount of my free time drastically decreased when it was exams season. During exam season we don’t have any lectures or lab practices, just exams and during exam season you have to be able to study for 10-12 hours a day with short food breaks. I know this may not sound like something you’ll enjoy doing, but when you’re studying something you love, something you find interesting, and studying knowing that your knowledge may one day help save a life you’ll see it’s not bad at all.
And don’t worry, exam season days lasts maybe 2 months a year so on other days you should have enough free time to spend some doing other things than studying, just make sure you organize your time. Maybe try making a schedule and stick to it as much as you can, that way you’ll always know where your knowledge stands and when you need to start preparing for your exams, start with papers, etc.