this was my flop era I was failing my a levels I was in a toxic relationship I hated myself I thought I was stupid um I was this close to giving up on my dream of going to medical school little did I know that with three little tweaks all of that could have gone away I had to make my mistakes the hard way however because you have me you do not have to suffer like I did if you have exams in summer then there is still ample time for you to turn it around all hope
is not lost if you're new here then my name is Faye I'm a finally a medical student who has balanced success in her studies all alongside pursuing my own purpose and goals without burning myself to the ground albeit there have been some bumps along the road and if you would like to join me on this journey of sharing my mistakes so that you can live the most potential fulfilled version of your own lives then please make sure to hit the Subscribe button picture this it is 2016. a bright youthful fresh-faced 17 Buffet walks into her
parents evening for sick form my a levels I was failing herbismally I think I was getting E's and E's on my homework I wasn't engaging in class I felt like I was never going to be able to get the a that I needed to get into medical school and I walk into my parents evening with my parents and I go and see my chemistry teacher and my chemistry teacher suits me down and my parents are there and there are other teachers around the area as well and he says to me so do you want to
go to university and I say yes yes I I would I would like to go to university he rolls his eyes and he says what would you like to do at University to which I reply medicine he then boosts up laughing and says to me you will be lucky if you make it to University now guys after that experience I was not feeling very encouraged but somehow I did manage to tune it around I ended up at medical school but I did end up flopping my a-level exams and having to reset them but then once
I got to medical school and I learned how to study properly and balance my time and organize my time and be a lot more strategic about how I studied I ended up doing just as well if not better than a lot of my peers who had got straight A's and a Stars first time round if that is not the proof that you needed that your intelligence is not fixed and it is all about how you study then I don't know what it is I am done with my waffling I'm gonna get straight into the three
things I wish I'd known to turn it all around a lot sooner than I did number one is make tough choices make strategic choices I nearly didn't get that out for me when I was in my a levels I did biology chemistry maths and Welsh back which is something you have to do in Wales but I did actually have another option which was history and I started taking history and I really enjoyed history I loved it at GCSE AI was pretty good at history and I liked the essay writing component but a couple of weeks
in I was finding it really difficult to balance all the a levels that I was doing and I knew that I needed three a levels to get into medicine so I thought I'm gonna drop one I am gonna drop one and without doing my research first mistake first mistake right there without doing my research I decided that I was going to drop history because in my head I thought history biology chemistry maths medicine which one doesn't fit history and I thought that with maths a subject that I was really struggling with and I did not
enjoy in the slightest I would have a better chance of getting into medicine than if I'd continued with history which I enjoyed but I didn't think was relevant now had I done a teeny weeny eenie weeny bit of research I would have realized that actually most medical schools in the UK you need biology and chemistry some you don't even need both biology and chemistry but there actually aren't many restrictions on your third a love and medical schools have too many applicants to look at what that third a level is obviously there are a couple exclusions
like I think a lot of medical schools don't like you doing critical thinking as an a level people gains medical school with biology chemistry and drama people get into medical school with biology chemistry and business studies people getting medical school with biology chemistry in Spanish if I just done my research I would have realized that having maths didn't really make a difference and I was so much better off doing a subject that I enjoyed I was good at that would be in an easier a than struggling and powering through maths I ended up devoting so
much of my time to trying to get my head around maths that biology and chemistry were neglected and ultimately all my grades suffered because of it whereas I wish I'd known that my third option could be something I found a little bit easier I'm not saying history a level is easy but it could have been something I found easier how this relates to you if you're really struggling with your a levels is think strategically look at the universities you want to apply for oh sorry guys I have a sore throat I'm trying to talk if
you only need three a levels drop one do not put yourself through the pressure and the stress and the hard work if you do not need it three or four a levels is Tough Enough am I Tough Enough Tough Enough hell yes I'm tough enough and if you are struggling cut the fat Point number two the most important Point by far and that is evidence-based studying I need to have a drink because you can't hear what I'm saying foreign being at Medical School there is a huge amount of information to take in there isn't actually
that hard necessarily individually but together it is eye-watering it's horrific and the only way that I've managed to consolidate all that information and get through my exams after flopping my a levels is evidence-based study methods evidence-based study methods will reduce what would have taken you eight hours to get your head around to two that is no exaggeration evidence-based studying is life-changing initially it may feel really unnatural if you're used to rereading and highlighting and drawing diagrams and making notes then evidence-based studying will take you outside your comfort zone it will be a lot more tiring
because you're using your brain and challenging yourself a lot more but it will completely change your life in terms of your grades what I mean by evidence-based studying is active recall and space repetition I have many many videos about actually for equal space repetition that I will put here here link below whatever but I'm going to give you a brief summary active recall is actively recalling information you have learned so questions flashcards practice papers explaining to your friends reading a piece of information covering over and trying to write down as much as you can remember
possible they're all active in opposition to passive forms of studying like highlighting reading even watching revision videos which I like to watch a revision video still not using your brain that much then on the other hand space repetition space repetition is gradually increasing the time between recalling the information that you want to learn so for example if I said to you we're gonna learn a little bit of Spanish right now and then in an hour's time I'm going to ask you so tell me a couple of the words you learn then in two hours time
I'm gonna ask you the same question then in a day then in a week then in a month what this does is it interrupts the forgetting curve so for example I learned Spanish at GCSE do I remember any of it what seven years on no but if you'd asked me maybe in sick form I'd probably be able to remember a little bit more or like in my first year of uni a little bit more the more time passes the less you remember and space repetition aims to interrupt the forgetting curve and strengthen the neural Connections
in our brain to make retrieving the information easier thus helping us perform better in exams and when we talk about evidenced based studying these aren't methods that I've pulled out with thin air that work best for me these are methods that have been studied time and time and time again there's so much research on studying I think a lot of people can be quite ignorant and fixed in their ways and this has worked for me so why should I ever change that they completely ignore this huge incredibly valuable volume of research that has been done
into studying effectively and efficiently that being said if you really enjoy making notes and you enjoy drawing diagrams and making pictures and watching revision videos don't cut them out of your study routine if they make you happy it's just important to recognize that these methods probably aren't going to get you to where you want to be in the quickest possible time finally the last point this is probably the point that is closest to my heart and the most frustrating aspect of the education system in this country in general and that is make sure you're adopting
a growth mindset when my chemistry teacher said to me that I would struggles make it to University I fell weak powerless hopeless and silly to be honest with you I thought that I was capable of getting to medical school and it took me a long time to actually shift that feeling of incapability and I remember looking at these chemistry past papers questions and thinking to myself I will never be able to answer these questions they are not within my capability they're not within my capacity I'm never going to be able to get there I think
when we are in primary school when we start school a lot of us are put into boxes of being smart or being not as intelligent or not as book smart but Smart in other ways and even if you're one of the kids who has been labeled smart that is still limiting to you I was labeled as a smart kid I did well in my gcses and then got to a levels and I struggled so so much and I think when I started struggling with my a levels because I'd been told that I was smart and
that was fixed and it was something that was inherent and could not be changed I felt like I'd reached my potential and used up all my smart and hit a ceiling that I was never going to get past traditional education does promote a fixed mindset whereas a growth mindset is an attitude that acknowledges you are capable of achieving anything as long as you have the right mechanism of getting there learning evidence-based studying actually made me realize that there are so many people that I thought were naturally and inherently intelligent but they actually just knew how
to study growth mindset isn't saying everyone everywhere is capable of anything a growth mindset acknowledges that there are methods and strategies for improving areas of your life that you're not naturally good at I think the way to practically Implement a growth mindset is to emotionally detach yourself from your failures and think about them critically if you have flopped an exam we are not going to revert to I'm stupid I'm lazy I'm never gonna get there we are going to emotionally detach yourself critically analyze the situation and think about what went wrong what could I have
done better was I studying in the most effective way possible was I studying at all did I have a good study timetable did I address my weaknesses effectively did I seek out help appropriately from my teachers all is not lost and if my story of being someone who flopped their a levels and is now a year away from being a doctor isn't enough to convince you then there are so many people in my year or other medical students I know or even doctors who had many many many flop earrings before they got into medical school
and did achieve their dreams it just took them a little bit longer to find the strategies that worked for them like a growth mindset evidence-based studying or making tough strategic choices to succeed more efficiently I want to finish this video by saying I am so sorry you're going through this I do not look back on my ears in sick form with fondness I struggled a lot my self-esteem was probably at its lowest after doing really well in my gcses I felt like I lost a piece of my identity because I wasn't doing well academically anymore
it's a very lonely place I think some people adapt to their a levels really well and for others the gem can be a little bit too much but if there's one thing that you take away from this video is all it's not lost when I felt like I was failing there were points where I decided to completely let go I felt like it was easier to handle emotionally if I failed because I wasn't trying than to fail despite trying it got to a point where I completely gave up I stopped trying because I couldn't see
any way to fix the problem and don't do that persevere keep pushing on ask for help from the people around you and I promise it may take a little bit of time but you will get there eventually thank you so so much for watching if you did enjoy this video then please make sure to hit the Subscribe button and if you do end up seeing your a levels after taking on board some of these tips then please please please come back in a couple months time and let me know how you got on I'm wishing
you the best of luck I hope you have a wonderful wonderful wonderful week and I will see you on the next video
