Can any students currently in M1 or M2 speak to student wellness here? I would love to know the structure of classes, how often you get tested and how happy you feel! Does administration listen to the student body?
Current MS4, but no one responded and I'm bored af while my significant other is working so here I am! I'll speak specifically about the pre-clinical years since that seems to be your focus. Just a reminder that at Stony Brook, your third year actually starts January of your second year (confusing we know), so pre-clinicals are only 1.5 years. You start your first year with orientation, which is mostly a bunch of required busy work nonsense and a ton of fun, student run social events to get you out and meeting people. I actually met some of my best friends during this original block, and it was a blast. Then you go into what we call B3 - our "building blocks" classes, which is comprised of anatomy, then anatomy and biochem at the same time until Thanksgiving, and then immunology/hemeonc and microbiology at the same time until spring break. These classes are all currently pass/fail, and you get tested about every three weeks. Biochem and anatomy lab have required attendance, but after that everything is basically some mandatory small groups and labs and then non-mandatory larger lecture classes (which end up being kind of small group, because most students don't actually go and study in the library instead).
Pros: anatomy class was ****ing awesome. Anatomy prof/TAs and our biochem professor are awesome. Mandatory class sucks (especially since these were mostly big lectures with all the med students and dental students for biochem), but it meant everyone was around a lot and we all got lunch/dinner together, formed study groups, etc. I feel like I actually spent the most time with my classmates just studying and bonding during this period. While everyone wants to do insanely well and can get stressed out if they are anything less than perfect, I never really felt like anyone was competing AGAINST each other. Tons of people share resources, etc. Most frustration came when people thought they studied a lot and it just didn't really translate to the score they wanted. But honestly, I think these portions of med school are actually more about teaching you how to study/what resources to use for the rest of med school than anything else.
Cons: taking two classes at the same time sucks. Med school isn't like undergrad. I absolutely hated having to divide my attention between classes, and that can increase your stress. It never happens again after this, which made the rest of preclinical so, so much better. I would seriously avoid any program that makes you take too many classes at the same time. The immunology/hemeonc/microbiology classes are kind of taught more towards "PhD mentality," which wasn't really my jam. Got through them without too much pain and discomfort, and the material was pretty cool, but this was pretty much my least favorite part of all of med school.
After spring break of your first year you go into your systems courses. Our integrated pathophysiology courses are great. You finally get to devote yourself to learning one subject. The material comes hard and fast and, since a lot of it involves non-mandatory lectures and some small groups, I think everyone starts to do their own thing. It can be pretty normal to only see classmates like twice a week if you want; I ended up doing a lot of studying at some local cafes instead. Some people stick to their "groups" though and pretty much are all med school/med students all the time. In my class, everyone was pretty friendly and I constantly grabbed lunch with random people in my class when on campus, but I, like most people, did choose to spend a decent amount of time studying on my own off campus.
You have a longitudinal clinical introductory course and ethics course that are chill and not much work. They're fine and include hands on experiences/small groups.
BIG thing that may be less important to you guys, but since we take Step 1 AFTER clinicals (a thing that will still happen regardless of whether or not steps are scored or P/F), stress levels seemed waaaaaay lower my second year than at other schools. We were all just chillin doing our thing while I had friends that were all like NOOOOO STEP 1 KILL MEEEEEE at other schools. I did not step 1 prep at all until the last month of my clinical rotations. Dedicated studying for 6.5 weeks (we got 8 but that would have killed me), slightly above average student and I got a 25X. Class average the year before us was a 242, not sure what the average was for my class but I have some pretty average friends (love them but it's the reality) that DESTROYED it and are now rocking residency interviews from top tier programs. Since switching to after clinicals, NO ONE has failed. Plus, you can take step 2 pretty soon after if you want (not mandatory since sched is pretty flexible during phase 3), and there are step 1 questions on step 2.
For admin, I love most of the department. There are enough people in our UGME office that care about the students and will meet with you individually. Heck, my friend straight up texted our like head dean when she was studying for step 1 and was all stressed and he CALLED her to check in, make sure she was doing ok, offer solutions, etc. I generally feel pretty supported and like, since my success is tied to their success, the school will have my back. Since it HAS come up, and in the spirit of being candid, I do know that some of our minority students have recently been disappointed by leadership. Our school has generally been pretty pro-diversity (we have a really large local spanish immigrant population, we live in pretty liberal NY, etc), but a lot of the student body feels like diversity initiatives have been more student driven than admin driven, which has frustrated them. With the whole BLM stuff, our school put out a statement condemning George Floyd's death, etc, but basically asked students what we wanted to do in order to improve diversity initiatives, instead of putting things into actions themselves immediately. I don't really think this is a bad thing per se, since they are honestly super open to listening to stuff, but I know some of our student body really wishes they did more to acknowledge being URM/disenfranchised communities. We just got a new head of diversity something something (a really awesome physician that has basically run our student clinic for years), but i don't know. People wanted more.
Hope this helps. I'm just interviewing for residency right now and doing **** all since my travel plans got destroyed by the covid so feel free to reach out.
