zahque said:
question: how many students go through the smp program at georgetown each year, i.e., how many classmates will i have? are you guys close? do you study together? etc.
just random questions about your fellow smp students once enrolled in the program, since i haven't seen too much info on the subject here.
I'll jump on this one, since everyone else is probably either sleeping, getting ready for school or frantically cramming for our physio final today (as I should probably be doing
)
There are about 150 students in the SMP itself. There are approximately 150 M1's. So, there are about 300 students in the first year med school classes altogether. It makes it a bit crowded, but Gtown has been doing this for a while now and seems to have found a pretty good system for teaching all those people at once, IMO.
Are we close? Well, that probably depends on who you ask and what their experience is/was. Me, personally? There's probably a group of about 10 of us or so who usually sit together in class, and we are pretty close. We are actively rooting each other on in classes, interviews, etc. I have a circle of about 5 people within that 10 that is even closer. I have made some spectacular friends who I hope will be with me for the rest of my life.
On the flip side, I know of people in our program who I only know of because I have seen their photo on our class website. They never go to class activities, they never speak up, and for all I know, they may not even go to class.
Generally speaking, studying together is up to the individual. A lot of people really prefer to study on their own, and they certainly do. Many others feel that having someone else there is preferable. You will likely find someone(s) early on who matches your studying style and will form a study group, if you want. On a given day (esp as an exam approaches) it is not unusual to walk through the Library, or Leavey (the student union here) or other locations and find small groups of physios pretending to be dilligent.
With only 150 people, it is a fairly small amount of people, so it becomes a little community. There are few secrets, people tend to know each other's business. That can be a bit annoying, as rumors tend to circulate fairly easily. Overall, I think it is all up to you. If you decide that you don't want to be involved, you don't have to. I think if you decide that you do want to be social and involved, you will only have that much more fun this year.
Right now we are having a NCAA tourney bracket challenge. Stuff like that is fun, gives you a sense of normalcy and allows me to demonstrate my total, complete, and absolute lack of knowledge of anything relating to college basketball.
But when Arizona wins the whole damn thing, everyone else is gonna be crying. I'm telling you now!!!!
