Ascensionmd said:
stay away from ucsf!! its just the name. unorganized, unprofessional and underfunded.
uci is better cuz u live with ur classmates and better structure.
as a former ucsf post bac student i was VERY disappointed. oh yeah... they offer little or no nothing about volunteer or research opportunities. ur on ur own for that. oh yeah.. and the sponsoring physician, dr. drake, is never around. the administrators are very nosey and involve themselves unprofessionally in your personal life. and NO, ucsf and the sfstate post bac programs are NOT joining.
I totally agree with this Ascension about UCSF's post-bacc program, which is run by SFSU Prof. Barry Rothman who is known for being nosey. The SFSU and UCSF programs are not one program. With UCSF's program, you're done with your pre-req's, you will take classes like Anatomy, Micro, etc while attending meetings at UCSF with different professors in order to "network". I just completed 3.5 years at SFSU and have taken many classes with the UCSF post-baccs. I've also had an extremely terrible experience with Rothman and avoided him after the first semester.
So, here's the deal with the UCSF program - you are "in the UCSF program", you live anywhere in San Fran, you take classes at the large and impersonal commuter school SFSU with other pre-meds. Rothman runs all the SFSU pre-med and UCSF activities - which means that if you are in the UCSF program or have certain SFSU research scholarships, you have to attend a weekly meeting that Rothman puts together. In this meeting, he will ask people very personal questions about their lives based on what he has learned about you in private office hours - stuff you think is confidential. Most of the pre-meds on campus just avoided him unless they had to attend these meetings and those that did would just sit there (from what I've heard) and refuse to answer those personal questions.
Rothman also runs a summer pre-med program called Healthpath to give pre-meds a jump start on tough science classes. He pays you to do it, something like $300/week. The other person who runs it is Amy Hittner, at Psychologist at SFSU who wants everyone to get together and talk about their personal lives and why their parents are forcing them to become doctors. At first, it seems like they are giving these people an out before they committ to medicine, but now it just seems creepy.
Rothman hired me to teach English to the pre-meds in this Healthpath program the first summer I was at state. I took off from work at UCSF in order to teach nine hours a week at the tune of $5000/month. Sounds sweet, right? Except no one showed up for the class and they refused to pay me for the duration of the month, even though I had already taken time off from UCSF and couldn't get those shifts back. When I called him at home he said I didn't "play my cards right politically" because I called Amy Hittner first but that he'd find a way to get me the extra money if I worked in his office instead. I sent him an email telling him my admin skills and he never emailed me back. I never spoke to him again and when I saw him on campus I could see through his "helpful" facade.
OK - research opportunities at SFSU: pretty bad. If you get a Chem teacher who cares about pre-meds (berkman, gronert) they will have a packed lab of 20 students, get a teacher who just won a $1M grant (Erden) and he'll write the project description on a post-it before he leaves for his annual summer vacation in Turkey, if you get a Bio teacher they might be good - I know nothing about Bio, if you get a teacher who is a terrible lecturer (Simonis) you might have a chance to win a poster contest, as a friend just did.
Volunteer opps at SFSU: other than holding an office with the pre-med club - nonexistant!!
Research at UCSF: awesome, top notch - I would have done it in a heartbeat. It doesn't sound like being in the UCSF program will help you secure a position though - many pre-meds at SFSU do research at UCSF just by contacting PI's on their own. Its hard to get into labs there, but once you're in you'll learn tons.
Volunteer at UCSF: In the ER, we used to let volunteers wheel people around, take blood to the lab, yell at them for getting in the way of a code. No direct patient contact at UCSF for any volunteers though - too much liability. Volunteers in Surgery can run and get blood from the lab, watch some surgeries. OB doesn't take volunteers b/c of baby theft issues and the Gen Med floors don't really let volunteers do much.
HOWEVER, anyone who wants to can go volunteer at SF General, the free hospital in the Mission. That program is very well known for writing strong letters of rec and is considered an "underserved" - something that is important for "getting in" to school. There are also other great free clinics in SF where you can volunteer ... important in proving you're willing to work with an underserved population.
If I had the choice, I would go to UCI - being able to live with others in your program is helpful because the application process is STRESSFUL!! Having others to relate to is very relieving - knowing you're not alone. I also prefer southern california - I found SFSU to be a cold, foggy, unfriendly commuter school with run-down facilities and overall uncaring profs. If you will be taking classes at UCI and doing research all on the same campus it could be a more enjoyable experience overall than splitting your time between UCSF, SFSU's and Rothman's creepy class.
Of course, this is all opinion, based on personal experience.
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