Joshua X.

I'm a fifth-year medical student at Imperial College London, and I'm really passionate about Medical Education, Research, and Leadership. I've spent more than 700 hours tutoring students both in person and online, helping many of them successfully get into their desired universities. 

I’m proud to be an ambassador for Quizlet, AMBOSS, and Make A Medic. As the Quizlet Medical Adviser at Imperial, I've created over 150 sets of flashcards that many students from different medical schools use to study for their exams, many of whom have also been able to achieve top marks in their cohort. I was also the lead for the third year medical school lecture series where I helped to teach a few topics and also providing lectures on how to revise. These experiences have taught me valuable study skills so that I can work smartly whilst also having a work life balance, something that I would teach my students to implement from an early stage since I think this is often undervalued and can in the long run save a lot of time and energy. 

Over the past few years, I've also been involved in helping out with the medical school interviews, so I know what academic tutors are looking for. I'm here to offer guidance, practice, and support as you navigate your academic path and encourage you to also consider a career in medicine!

First things first, I want the student to let me know what they want to go through and their overall goals and together we will formulate a plan for future lessons. At the start of every session, I will explain the topic that the student has requested using many methods. One of my favourites is through drawing. Research in 2014 by Shmeck et al. found the profound effect of drawing when learning about scientific information and anecdotally it seems to help make things stick with my students. 

Rather than having the tutor talk for the entire session, once I have explained the concepts to the students, I want the students to teach me using simple language. This principle is based on Albert Einstein ‘If you can’t explain it to a six-year old, you don’t understand it yourself’. Professor Dunlosky of Kent State University, through evaluating different revision strategies, found that the most effective way to engage students was practice tests and spaced repetition. Applying his wide-used method, after I feel that my tutee has a solid grasp on the topic, I will give them relevant past paper questions. In GCSEs and A levels, the key is to use mark schemes and identifying the words and phrases that they are looking for.  

Through the implementation of these techniques for my A levels (in addition to many more which I will discuss with the students), I found the optimum way to study for my A levels achieving the top mark of my school in Chemistry and overall scoring an average of 85% from all three A-levels. Using these techniques, I have also been able to achieve the President's scholarship at Imperial and also achieving a distinction at my time so far at medical school.