Would love if you could share general thoughts about the school. What you've liked so far. What you've been disappointed about. How often mandatory events are (I know there are PBLs/TBLs so at least have some). I believe it's P/F preclinical and tiered clinical. Do you know if there is internal rankings? Any rumblings of any major changes coming down the way? One school I'm interested in is possibly merging with an undergrad school and another just went through a curriculum change, those things take years and usually are only known to people within the school. Any info on your particular campus, understand if not open to discussing specifics due to possible doxxing yourself. Also just general info about the city or anything else you may find helpful or wish you had known. Much appreciated!
What I've liked so far:
1. The collaborative aspect of our curriculum. In every single class, you'll collaborate with fellow peers to figure out problem sets, etc. It makes learning all the more enjoyable as you get to work through problems with classmates and tackle difficult material together.
2. The flipped classroom curriculum! Before starting here at Drexel, I was pretty anxious about the flipped classroom way of teaching as I had a not-so-great experience with it in one of my undergrad classes. But, I will say that I have thoroughly enjoyed learning in this way. It's so much nicer than sitting in a 3-hour lecture listening to a professor talk at students/read off a powerpoint. It also gives us lots of opportunities to apply what we learned through the readings/videos that we are supposed to complete before class. It also gives us a lot of free time outside of class for us to do non-school-related stuff.
What I've been disappointed about:
1. A lot of the different extracurricular activities that are offered are through a lottery system. For example, for our HOP program, students are chosen randomly through a lottery and, obviously, not everyone is selected to volunteer (the lottery is monthly, btw). I have yet to be selected despite signing up for multiple dates/different sites, but I think that's just due to me having terrible luck haha. I have lots of friends who have gotten to volunteer, and they've really enjoyed it.
2. Because our class is so big, we get split up into two different groups (where one half of the class is in one group and the other half in the other group), but the one downside is that you don't really interact with the other group since your classes are at different times/days. But! I will say that you'll do a lot of your interaction with the opposite group in extracurriculars/clubs, etc.
How often are mandatory events: so I think the majority of our classes aren't mandatory (expect for our doctoring classes and some other ones), but attendance is a small percentage of our final score for the class. In general, I feel like hardly anyone skips class because that's when we really go over the material through application problems, etc. In general, I would say we have maybe 1 or 2 truly mandatory events outside of our classes that we have to attend in a given month.
Internal rankings: tbh, I'm not entirely sure.
Any changes coming to Drexel: Well, the biggest one that I can think of right now is that the Philly campus will move to a brand new building that they're opening shortly in the University City area, which is really exciting! from what I've heard, the building is incredibly nice, and I'm really excited to use it next year.
Because of the above, my campus info won't really be relevant for y'all since the incoming class will be at the new building in UCity.
I feel like that's a lot of info for now, but if you have any other questions feel free to ask! Hope this helps
🙂