Distance learning?

[oldladypremed]

Ok, I know this is probably a rediculous question, but is there any way to do any premed requirements online? It would solve a lot of problems if I didn't have to arrange childcare while taking these classes.

Thanks everyone!

Oldlady

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[UrSexyLatinDr21]

I think there are some schools that do offer premed courses online. Not too long ago there was a thread on it and if I am not mistaking, UC Berkeley something extension was a school that offer such courses. Maybe you can do a search..

Eduardo

 

[UrSexyLatinDr21]

http://www.studentdoctor.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62530

Hey Here is the thread I was talking about, hope it helps...

Eduardo

 

[manna]

The community colleges here offer a few things online - Gen Chem and Gen Bio I & II (with a simulated lab software program) along with lots of humanities, maths, english/lit, etc. I haven't taken any sciences online, but have taken a multitude of other general ed classes that way and loved it. Worked out great for my schedule since I'm employed full-time during the day, and have to commute almost 60 miles in any direction to get to campus.

 

[MSV MD 2B]

byu has microbioloy online. steer clear of uc berkley immunology. the teacher is awful.

 

[swc12nap1]

Don't take UC Berkeley Immunology online course. The teacher sucks and she grades your homework horribly. It will just ruin your GPA.

 

[CaMD]

Are there any UC Berkeley Extension (class or online) that you WOULD recommend?

Thanks.

 

[MSV MD 2B]

i liked the biochem online at uc berkley extension. the teacher was very nice and easy to talk to.what is the deal with the uc berkley immunology teacher? she was really awful.

 

[swc12nap1]

University of Minnesota has online biochemistry, genetics, cell bio, Iowa state has online genetics, molecular bio and biochemistry, Johns Hopkins has biochemistry, cell bio, and hard core science classes all online (though expensive).

 

[jbing]

Originally posted by MSV MD 2B
i liked the biochem online at uc berkley extension. the teacher was very nice and easy to talk to.what is the deal with the uc berkley immunology teacher? she was really awful.

just curious, do you remember her name? and why was she so bad?

 

[swc12nap1]

[I took the course but I eventually dropped it (which, by the way would not appear on your Berkeley extension transcript--the course is supposed to be 12 months duration and I dropped it after 4 months). The reason why I did not like it is that she is so picky about how you answer the homework (all in short and long essay questions) which constitutes a big chunk of the grade. I told myself, boy , if this is how she grades my final exam, there is no way that I am going to get a decent grade here. So I rather went to UCSC Extention, not online though, but get easily got A's in Molecular bio classes. But the bottom line is that the Immunology class might be good if you are after the knowledge, but if you are aiming for a grade, forget it. I would say take it somewhere else.

 

[MSV MD 2B]

i can't remember her name but she was very picky. even after she graded the homework she wouldn't tell you what the right answer was if you got it worng. she kept saying that it was in the textbook. then after like 2 homeworks i deiscovered that she was usuing an older textbook edition than mine. mine was what was on the course syllabus and immunology changes fast so yes there was some new and different info. but that had no bearing on how she graded my homework before even though there were some questions effected. she wouldn't look at it again or even talk to me about it. i had to take a break from the course and came back to it after 3 months asking if i coudl start over from scratch even if she dind't change the grades but hoping that she coudl if i improved and she said that she woulnd't look at any new homework. i had finish like 3 sets of homework. it wasn't that much but if learning was the goal, she didnt' help. so i basiclaly dropped it deciding not to waste my time.
not to mention that i think that there were some technological barriers. you ahve to copy and paste homework into an emaiol attachment- no attachments. so all of your formatting and stuff is lost. a few times chracters from my comptuer got garbled when they his her computer. i have no idea why and i was told that those quetsions were wrong. i saw the garbled chracter on her reply and tried to explain but she didnt' budge. and she also ddi not accept pdf files attachments even. i thought that woudl haev been easier for everyone. even the biochem teacher accpeted a pdf file from me. maybe she dind't know how to open them or something?
anwyay i was really interested in leanring AND geting the grade but since i coudl do neither with that teacher i dropped. i coudlnt' imagine haveing to write a paper in that class and haveing her grade it and the option being seding it through an email message or posting it to CA for it to take 2 months to grade.

anyway don't bother. check out brigham young.

 

[CaMD]

Have any of you had trouble with schools accepting grades from an online upper level bio (micro, immuno, etc.) class?
If people say taking courses at a cc is much worse than taking them at a 4 year university, it seems like online courses would get even less respect... Thoughts or experiences?

Does the AMCAS have a special way of designating them?

Thanks!

 

[lola]

i took a distance biochem class from uc berkeley. it was pretty much a joke. i mean, i got an A+, and now here i am in med school getting my butt kicked in biochem! the class had about 10 homework assignments that you had to do, a mid-term, and a final. pretty much your entire grade was based on the final, which you had to arrange to be proctored.
the teacher was great -- very very nice and prompt in returning assignments. however, i didn't learn enough to really make it worthwhile. i would have preferred a regular class but couldn't take one with my work schedule so opted for the distance learning course to meet biochem requirements at uci & usc.
i would not recommend taking distance learning courses unless you need it for a requirement and have no other way of taking it or if you have an interest in a subject that you can't take at a regular college. even though they will technically raise your bcpm gpa i guess, i doubt adcoms look at distance learning courses too favorably, particularly if it's obvious that you are just taking them to raise your gpa. i could be wrong though...
i guess other online courses could be different, but this uc berkeley course was not too challenging/worthwhile. oh yeah, and it wasn't really an online course. more of a you buy the book and workbook and do the homework assignments. then you submit the homework assignments to the prof by mail, email, or fax.
as for how they are coded on amcas, i have no idea! i never actually submitted my grade to amcas or any schools.

 

[swc12nap1]

Hey Lola, I know what biochemistry course you took at Berkeley. It is the Introductory Biochemistry right? I saw the textbook for that course and it is like a high school textbook. It is nothing compared to Stryer's, Lehninger's, or Albert's (just in case you are not familiar these are the most common biochem texts). Obviously, the class should be easy as you got an A+. Not that I am putting you down of course (the fact that you are already in med school tells a lot). But the bottom line here is that online courses could be all different, and maybe not be all easy. I started the Immunology online class (also Berkeley) and it was really hard--plus I did not like the way the instructor graded my homework so I eventually dropped it . Some schools that offer distance learning courses do not indicate that such courses were taken in such manner and therefore treated as resident credits--like Eastern Oregon State, University of Minnesota. I do not know how hard they are though.

 

[lola]

yeah, when i got the text book in the mail i was like ! it looks like something from junior high! of course i know what stryer, lehninger, and alberts are .
i guess my point is that i took this class and it was extremeley easy. if med schools find out how easy some distance learning courses are, they are going to be skeptical about them and unable to interpret your grade. this is not to say that some courses aren't a lot more challenging. i'm sure there is a lot of variation.
also, i don't think it's a good idea to take prereqs online. it's one thing to take a random class, but it's quite another to be getting your med school foundation from distance learning courses. i'm sure some courses are very good, but i don't think it's a good idea to take more than one or two distance learning classes. plus, how are you going to do labs with distance learning? is there any way to take the courses at night through a community/state college and have someone look after your child/children then?
think of it this way... if you were choosing between 2 applicants, one who took their classes at uc berkeley, and one who took their classes through uc berkeley extension online, both of whom had similar gpa's, ec's, mcat's, etc... who woud you choose? i would choose the applicant who went to uc berkeley, simply because there would be no doubt in my mind that that person was a good student. there are soooo many applicants that are competitive in this process. adcoms can throw out 1,000 applications that seem a bit iffy and still have a large pool of qualified applicants from which to choose. i personally would not want to possibly ruin my chances by taking tons of distance learning classes. but hey, that's just me. if you can do it and totally rock the mcat, i suppose it might be ok.

 

[MSV MD 2B]

not all of the online education courses are that easy. the microbiology course that i took from brigham young was normal. i mean it wasn't easy but it wasn't super hard either. you did have to know your stuff though.
in talking to one of my interviewers at a med school, he said that the admissions comittee was recognizing distance education courses more and more but they still didn't really view them the same as a classroom course. thus i would only use them for supplemental science courses not the prerequisites or if you have agood excuse i.e. you were bed ridden due to an illness or pregnancy or you were home iwth a baby or you were on a msisiosn trip in africa or hiking across antartica or something.
there is a course out of the university of new england in medical biochemistry that i hear is supposed to be very good.

 

[luckyzero]

I don't know if they actually check into it heavily, but some of the medschools I want to apply to say in their FAQ's that you may NOT take any prerequisits online or through any other method of distance learning, only classroom based classes would count.

so check the schools websites you are thinking of going to, see if they say anything regarding that.

 

[swc12nap1]

Here is an official word from Judy Levine, a former director of admissions in one of the schools in NY. It was posted on examcraker forum on September 2002:

By Anonymous on Saturday, September 21, 2002 - 10:34 pm:
Hi Judy,
I have a question about distance/slash correspondence classes. How do med schools
view these classes? My school isn't offering
organic II until the spring, and I found another
university that is offering a web-based section
that starts in a couple of weeks, so I was
wondering if this was worth taking. Thanks
so much!

By Judy Levine (Judy) on Monday, September 23, 2002 - 07:02 pm:


Response to Anon, September 21, 2002 - 10:34 pm:

Most medical schools have a definite bias AGAINST distance classes. For one elective you took just for the fun of it, it wouldn't hurt too much. For Organic, I would suggest you find a different solution to the scheduling problem.

This is from one person from one med school though. I hope it is not true to all US med schools. And maybe it depends on your situation. If you have finished your prerequisites 5 or 8 years ago and you just need a review, I think it is fine. Or if you plan to take online classes and then later go to take a semester or two to take classes in a real classroom to demonstrate that you can still get A's, I think it is also fine. But I guess to take most of your prerequisites online (if you can manage to find one--and I am sure there are many out there), there is where the issue comes in. Does anybody have heard from what other med school admissions say about online/distance classes?

 

[Nora]

Distance education is becoming more popular and many top rated faculties offer some of their courses through correspondence or the Internet. The bias may very well exist, people are often afraid of what they're unfamiliar with. I do know of 2 friends who've completed ENTIRE degrees through distance education and have since been admitted to MSU and Albert Einstein medical school so it really should be okay to do a few courses that route.

 

[MSV MD 2B]

they took even their lab courses online? how is that possible?

i asked the school that i was interested in and am now attending if these courses were acceptable and they siad that they were. i don't know if it was because i used reputable schools or the fact that they were not prequisities but just supplementals but they agreed to accept them

 

[Nora]

The two universities they've attended were University of Waterloo (a highly rated school) and Athabasca university. Both schools offer 3-5 day laboratory sessions with about 32 hours of lab work equivalent to any traditional course. Students must travel to attend these lab. sessions but can complete the 24 credits of Bio, Phys, Chem, and Ochem through this method.

 

[CaMD]

Would you say that doing UC Berkeley Extension regular (meaning, going to an actual class, versus online) is more reputable than doing the UC Berkeley Extension online?
(to an adcom's eyes)

I have finished my basic science requirements, but have little additional upper level biology, and these Extension evening classes seem like a great way to take a couple classes without interferring with my work schedule.

BUT I won't waste my time/money if med schools are just going to discount them anyways...

 

[MSV MD 2B]

talk to some of the med schools that are on your list.mention that it is UC berkley not bunfoon u.