Hey! Congrats on your acceptance to Western
. We've just been in school for about 3 months so my perspective is pretty limited. Here are my thoughts so far.
Housing:
Some students live on campus in the Daumier/777/Helix apartments. Super convenient as you can get more sleep since you can practically roll out of bed 15-20 minutes before and head straight to lecture. The price is a little higher for the amount of space you get. Other students like myself live off campus with a 10-30 min commute. Cities include Chino/Chino Hills, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Claremont, Montclair. Pomona is pretty worn down and has a higher crime rate, so living in the surrounding cities would be the best bang for your buck.
Curriculum:
The curriculum will kick you in the teeth if you take it lightly! We have the same standards to uphold as the DOs and we take almost every class together aside from OMM (we have PMP). You'll develop great relationships with the DOs, especially in the lab where you spend 3-5 hours dissecting together 2-3 days out of the week. The first two weeks are rough as you begin to adjust and figure out your learning style. You juggle not only gross anatomy, a shared curriculum with the DOs (which is already a huge mountain to overcome), but we also take lower limb anatomy (beginning of PMP). Basically, you learn all of lower limb ahead of the DOs before we get to that part in gross anatomy. At times, you will notice that the curriculum is probably the toughest of all the colleges. Also, we start patient encounter very early and humanism is stressed heavily at Western. It can be nerve racking doing a H&P for the first time on a standardized patient, but it will become 2nd nature over time. In regards to PBL, it has been pretty light so far. We've split up in groups working out case problems and then did some case presentations. Assigned groups have to do a "grand rounds" presentation style at the end of the semester. We've also started meeting with students from the other colleges to work out problems and how each health professional would contribute to the case. Gross anatomy is definitely where all your energy will be on for the first 2-3 months.
School:
Campus is located in Pomona so the nearby area isn't the best. Drive 10 minutes and you'll find some great places to hang out. Drive 30 minutes south and you'll be in Orange County, which essentially has everything you'd want to do for fun. There are plenty of study rooms in the HEC building that have large whiteboards and flat screens to hook up your laptop. This is where people usually study. You can study in the library, but it's at the end of campus. The anatomy cadaver lab is amazing as well as the faculty and ISAC students that help run it! I think at some points, we've had so many cadaver donations that Western donates them to other schools.
The dean as well as the faculty/administration is very open to suggestions and they are always tweaking the curriculum based on feedback from current and past students. Dr. Harkless also meets with the entire class every now and then to discuss what we are doing well and what we aren't doing well. He also tries to be involved as best as he can by letting us know what he's been up to and things that are happening at the national level. Although obtaining a medical knowledge base equal to the DOs is great, the curriculum could improve by dedicating more time towards lower limb biomechanics and surgical skills. I am still only 3 months into the curriculum, so my perspective is far from complete. Also, even though Western provides us with subsidized prices to nearby gyms ~$50 year, I wish there was a large gym on campus.
Advice:
Enjoy your time off! Don't try to pre-study anatomy. It won't do you any good. The firehose will come at you no matter what
. Time management is key!!! You can still hang out with friends, have a life, go to the gym, be with your SO, see your family, play video games (maybe not as much), and do club activities, IF you have proper time management. In regards to ISAC and SMSPP, it seems like it helped the students taking it, but you definitely don't need it to do well. ISAC students will sacrifice 6 weeks of their summer studying anatomy, but they will have an exponentially easier time juggling other classes when the semester starts until we get to head/neck anatomy (they will join us again for this portion). I can't remember what else I wanted to say on the top of the head.
If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask or PM!
