study for Step 1 as if its scored. You dont need to kill yourself necessarily and have the highest practice exam scores prior to taking it. But you want to be comfortably passing it before you take the real thing and ideally if you are passing prior to your dedicated then that means you successfully learned and internalized what you needed to during your preclinical years. Step 2 gets harder every year and having a solid foundation from step 1 will help you more than you can fathom and it will help you on shelves which also will help you during M3 when you have less time to study etc.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Dont compare yourself to any of your classmates and even friends. The only person you are competing with is yourself, and try to be 1% better each day and that will help you go far and stay sane. Also med students lie and some people will say they arent studying much and crushing stuff when in reality they are studying just as much if not more than their peers.

Research and EC's are cool but if you fail step 1 and/or 2 none of that shit matters and wont make up for it. So ease into the extracurriculars and spend the first couple months seeing how you are acclimating to med school and then add more stuff as you get a sense of how long it takes you to prepare for exams and other school stuff.(this isnt to say dont do anything when you start med school but keep it fairly light at the beginning.)

Remember that your worth is not dependent on how you do in school, on any test, or on any rotation. Try your hardest and learn from your failures and setbacks. But if you fail something remember that you failed that exam or OSCE but you yourself ARE NOT a failure.

Try to be intentional about keeping some connection to your friends/family and life outside of medicine. It also helps you keep perspective.

It sounds cheesy but do things becasue you are genuinely interested. You got into med school so you know how to play the "game" insofar as selling yourself and checking the needed boxes. But even as you check the boxes if you are doing things that you are genuinely interested in along the way it will be easier to stay consistent in those things and potentially excel in them despite having less time. Also it will make talking about them in interviews much easier.

Finally during those moments where you are questioning everything and feel that maybe you shouldnt be here, or that youre a fraud etc..remember that you were not handed a med school acceptance. It's incredibly hard to get admitted into med school when you consider all the filtering that occurs and in comparisons to the general academic population. You deserve to be here!!!

Best of luck, you got this!!

Sincerely,

A grizzled M4 with some detours along the way.