I noticed the pandemic was taking a toll on my academic performance and I felt a little discouraged. But after our first quiz, my school sent us an email about ProgressIQ and how students would have easy access to monitor their academic progress. After reading that email, it felt like the heavens opened! Now I could monitor my progress in a tangible way.
After my first exam, I noticed that ProgressIQ had a Snapshot feature that displays my progress on an interactive and user-friendly interface. As I continued through the semester, I learned that there are topics that I am actually good at, but there are some topics I needed to spend more time on.
The Progression feature plots my progress through my first couple years of medical school, and I am excited to see my progress as I prepare for Step 1. ProgressIQ has shown me the importance of taking baby steps. I learned to give myself grace to make mistakes and learn from them, that ultimately will lead to my progress in medical school.
The feature that benefited me the most is the Notes function. I kept detailed notes and uploaded documents for specific classes and their exams, recording all my weakness for each midterm. This feature helped me make specific improvements and took my [recommendation] letter requests to another level.
For [recommendation] letters . . . my professor commented later that I had explained the concept so thoroughly during a problem-based learning session. He enjoyed the Physics correlates and analogies I used and asked me if it was okay for him to share them with future classes. When the course ended and I needed that professor to write me a [recommendation] letter for research opportunity, I already had all the points I wanted him to emphasize, recorded in ProgressIQ.
As someone who requires an abundance of organization, ProgressIQ saved me from making lists of my advisors, course exams, and national exam scores. The Snapshot became especially important to me when I was planning and organizing my studying for my Step 1 board exam. When I was trying to recall which areas were my weakest, I was able to quickly pop up ProgressIQ and develop a plan that really allowed me to focus my attention on the areas that needed the most improvement.
That said, ProgressIQ is really important for pointing out more than just my weaker areas as it really was helpful at showing me my strengths, too. I remember about halfway through second year I looked at a classmate and said whenever I need a confidence boost, I go to ProgressIQ because I can see that my scorers have gradually improved with every test over the last 2 years. It’s super important to keep a positive and confident mindset as a medical student, and ProgressIQ really helped me to realize I was adopting successful study habits and improving myself as a student.
ProgressIQ has been an amazing tool that’s given me so much time back already, even as a first-year student. Having a program that can hone in on my weaknesses really focuses my study time on the high-yield areas for me. Having ProgressIQ is invaluable to my time management and my overall success.
The sheer volume of medical school can be overwhelming, and that’s where ProgressIQ really makes the biggest difference for me. Not only does it provide data to help me target my personal weak areas in my own study, but ProgressIQ notifies my faculty advisors as well, so that they can help me understand the things I struggle with. Overall, I am super happy with this program. I wish every medical student had access to this.
ProgressIQ has made it really easy for me to track my academic progress through medical school. With one click to the Snapshot view, I am able to see all my scores from prior semesters and current semester. With data visualization tool, I am able to generate a graph that shows my progression over time and also compare that with my peers by showing the mean and standard deviation of my class.
It has also streamlined my communication with my mentor. Prior to the mentor-mentee meeting, I will fill out a mentor form that makes him aware of any issues that need to be addressed during the meeting. And after the meeting, he will submit a response form documenting all the issues that we have discussed, this way, these mentor-mentee meetings are very efficient and effective. Overall, ProgressIQ has really facilitated my medical school journey.
