One of the best things about UCSD SOM is that grading during the preclinical years is pass/fail, which means that collaboration is highly encouraged. Your classmates are one of the best resources for learning here at UCSD. You might find that a classmate might be able to explain things so much better to you than any slide, lecture, podcast, or book can. This supportive environment is fostered by the fact that we don’t have to worry about competing with each other for the top grades. On a typical day, you’ll often see students studying together in MET or at a local coffee shop. The weekend before block finals, a lot of people are in MET studying together and we tend to hop from one room to another to keep each other sane/ask each other questions if we’re confused.

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We all have the same end goal in mind and we try to lift each other up as much as possible. Our class has an enormous Google Drive folder filled with hand drawn study guides, Anki decks, Google Docs, and other shared study materials from years past. Some of our Anki flashcard decks even have memes for a surprise mid-study pick me up! 

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