Hi to anyone reading this! I'm a current med student at Nova and happy to give advice or answer questions! PM or on the thread. My goal in this post is to provide info on things I wish someone had been straight up with me about before starting. This doesn't mean I don't like our program or I regret coming here, but we were given rose colored glasses which led us to be disappointed in some aspects. Things you should be aware of off the bat [**some of this won't make sense to you until you go to interview/after you interview**]-> The clinical rotation sites on the website have not been updated in at least 2 years. There are a lot of issues that limit your experiences because of the TBR campus [we operate as 1 large program, TBR DO is not an independent campus strictly speaking], so unless its available to both campuses, they will not provide whatever it is. They may show you some of "state of the art" technology for lectures/labs and things, but none of the current M1 or M2 classes ever saw it in our courses, so take that as you will; be prepared for COVID to be used as an excuse if questioned, keeping in mind the M1 class still had in person lectures and labs with masks. Because of the sheer size of the class on either campus, getting leadership positions is 90% a popularity contest; if you want to have a shot at anything, you need to be very active in the class social media and get to know as many people as possible. There will also be an additional hurdle relating to their master's feeder program students. I won't risk my position by commenting specifics on admin, take that as you will.
The professors are awesome, plus or minus a few, but that's going to happen anywhere you go. The students are wonderful, again understanding no matter where you go there will always be gunners or otherwise insufferable people. Our class is very collaborative, supportive, and consistently looking out for one another. The curriculum is fine, it wasn't my first choice approach wise, but I've done well. Keep in mind I have only experienced this curriculum, I can't reliably compare other schools. I think the main reason its so difficult is the way they schedule everything. It's dense and has more stuff than some other programs. You very well may be concerned about the board scores, as many of us were when applying, especially if you're going into previous cycles' forums. I honestly don't think that's a curriculum content problem, but the program current M1 and M2's follow is different from what the outgoing M4's and beyond had. They do not focus only on board relevant things, because while boards cover a lot, they don't accurately capture the way medicine is in real life (not entirely). Nova cares about making sure you are prepared to take care of people first, boards second- whether you agree with that or not may suggest some necessary introspection on your part. Before anyone launches at that statement, I am not saying there is no emphasis or lax focus on boards, there is OBVIOUSLY constant discussion on boards. You have to pass all 3 levels to graduate and MATCH, duh. However, there is an understanding that you'll be taking time to study lecture material they tell you is board relevant but won't be on a class exam. SO, in my limited experience, I've been guessing the issue is they don't ask enough board-style questions on tests. You really need to start incorporating board practice questions when you start systems. If you're not used to them and you wait until dedicated to start, you're going to be struggling. I don't know any M2s in dedicated right now who have complained about the curriculum not being good enough. Whats the bottom line from this massive post? Don't be misled by your interview or the website, reach out to current*** M1's (or M2's for clinical site stuff) who are not student ambassadors and aim for realistic expectations. If you don't foresee needing to interact with admin often (for personal situations), you'll be fine. Rotations are done by a lottery system and you have very, very little control over where you go. If you're good with personal responsibility and understanding boards take a lot of additional/repetitive study time on your own (regardless of where you go), you'll be fine. You may need to outsource for leadership opportunities.
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