This Date in UCSF History: 10 Solid Pieces of Advice for First Year Students

Originally published on September 5, 2002.

Welcome First Year (insert school here) Students! In the next week to months you will be bombarded by advice from everyone on everything from where to buy toilet paper to what profession to go into. Being a top school, most of us UCSFers think we know everything, and we feel that it is our duty to pass on all our accumulated pearls of wisdom to the years below us. Following are the top ten summarized pieces of advice you'll be getting in the days to come. 

1) Don't expect to get away with anything. Most of us come from huge public universities where the 500:1 faculty-to-student ratio allowed us to slip through the cracks and not draw attention to ourselves. Due to the rather large number of faculty members compared to the set amount of students, the faculty actually will know you by name and know what's going on in your life at UCSF I have known far too many people who have been personally called in by deans for everything ranging from test performance to professionalism issues to financial aid irregularities. Think about this before you fall asleep in small group. 

2) Keep your balance. This is probably the most generic, yet most salient piece of advice that you will hear. The process of training that you are undertaking is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself and continue to do the activities that make you happy and fulfilled. Go to the gym, explore San Francisco, or take a mental health day. Long as our journey may seem, try to enjoy the ride. To the sizable amount of students who have already mastered this way of life, don't forget to show up to class every so often Don't use this "Finding balance" advice as an excuse to be lazy.

3) Don't clique up too early. The social bonding process has already begun by the camping trip. Graduate school is surprisingly like high school in the fact that the students group up by whom they feel most comfortable with, usually by interest, race/culture, sexual orientation, or just with neighbors. 

Regardless of the reason, finding an exclusive group too early can prevent you from meeting all the wonderfully cool people in your class. Be friendly and meet with everyone at the very start of class. Go to all the class parties before the guest list becomes exclusive. Waiting eight months to talk with someone for the first time just doesn't work. Don't forget that being reserved can be mistaken for being stuck up.

On a related note, know that there are no secrets in your class. Everyone knows about anything juicy that has happened in the past days. Gossip is rampant, so watch who in the class you hook up with.

4) Get as much clinical exposure as you can. Remember your final goal is to be the best doctor/dentist/nurse/pharmacist as you possibly can be. Spending your free time in the library and getting 95% on all your exams is probably not going to be the best way to accomplish that goal. Getting in the clinics to practice your skills and to observe medicine or dentistry in action is the most effective way to become a great practitioner.

5) Don't get bogged down with the details. In the months to come, the school will throw more information at you than you can possibly absorb. Filter through the babble and grab general concepts and clinically relevant details. Odds are you'll forget the rest seconds after the exam. Anything that's truly important will be repeated over and over again throughout your schooling and career.

I was told by an old professor that "Medical school only has two purposes: to learn the language of medicine and learning the culture of medicine. Everything else, you'll learn during your residency."

6) Don't waste money on food. There is a free lunch to be had nearly every day on campus. Best of all, most of these lunches go along with interesting presentations or meetings. If you save seven dollars three days a week on a soda and lunch by going to lunch meetings, you'll be surprised by how much extra cash you'll have by the end of the year. (For more information, see my article "The UCSF" Guide to a Quick (and Cheap) Lunch." Better yet, pack your own lunch.) 

7) Remember that you deserve to be here. Upon arriving here, I was suddenly intimidated by my 141 other brilliant, accomplished classmates. Never before had I ever encountered a group of such talented people, and never before had I felt so inadequate. If Olympic gold medalists get rejected from UCSF, how the heck did I get in?

It was a while before I realized that this attitude was completely normal -- and self-defeating. Rather than focusing on shortcomings, focus on developing yourself into the person that you want to be. Don't worry about how you score compared to the mean, focus on how much you actually carry away from the course. Besides, performance on exams are (almost) completely unrelated to clinical performance. 

8) Get organized. The amount of paperwork that you will accumulate will be enormous to say the least. Add to that the half-dozen classrooms you'll visit on a daily basis plus the four study groups and after school meetings. Given the fact that you're going to have to keep all your patients organized someday, organization is a skill better learned in school. A Palm Pilot is useful, but not necessary. Create a system that works and stick with it. Costco is a great place to load up on the dozens of binders you'll fill this year. 

9) Get involved. I remember when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley and I wanted to shadow some physicians to get an idea of what medicine is about. I had to apply to a highly competitive program, go through two sets of interviews, only to get rejected a week later.

Once I got admitted to medical school, suddenly doors opened, and surgeons were inviting me to scrub in for surgeries. The opportunities offered around and through UCSF are endless. If you get involved in any activity or organization, rest assured that you will be able to do as much or as little as your schedule allows. Leadership roles are numerous and easily obtained. For example, last year, a first year student with little journalistic experience (referring to myself) became editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. 

10) Don't be afraid to ask. Never be afraid to ask. UCSF has invested quite a bit of time and money in you, so no matter what sort of problems you are having, the school will support you by providing tutors, accommodations or other support. Most instructors and physicians are at UCSF because they like to teach, and so most are willing and enthusiastic to spend time with you. One last adage: If you don't ask, you don't get.