I'm guessing most of us attend schools where PBL is not a huge part of the curriculum, but rather is sort of added as an afterthought.
I really think that what I've quoted here is the problem.
I go to a school with a lot of PBL, and I love it. I've pretty much always liked it, although it was kind of bumpy and difficult and frustrating sometimes at the beginning. Most of my classmates who came in skeptical about PBL have also come around and they like it now too. But we have some major differences in how we do PBL versus what some of these other poor souls are apparently suffering through.
One big plus is that we don't have any grades, GPA, or class rank here. CCLCM is completely pass/fail and unranked all five years. That is a huge thing. I don't understand how some schools can grade students and give them actual letter grades based on PBL sessions.
I would probably hate PBL too if I knew I had to kiss someone's a$$ to get an A. That's just really ridiculous IMHO.
Also, PBL was incorporated into our curriculum from the beginning, so it's definitely not tacked on as an afterthought. Everything else we do (seminars, journal clubs, research talks, etc.) complements the PBL part of the curriculum. It all goes together. You can't do PBL as effectively at CCLCM without the seminars, and you definitely won't get as much out of the seminars if you don't do PBL.
Most important, there are only 32 of us, and the class esprit de corps is pretty strong. Our whole school is founded upon team-style education. I think that PBL is kind of like Communism. It works pretty well on a small scale where people all know each other and have a vested interest in each other's success. But try to implement it in an entire nation (or in a class of 200 people where most people barely know each other), and it's doomed. In my class, there is a ton of peer pressure, but that pressure is to do MORE and work HARDER than what you'd be doing otherwise. Whatever else might be going on in your life, you just do not go to your PBL sessions unprepared. Period. It's understood by everyone. I have at times skipped all of my seminar reading, stayed up most of the night, and even missed a seminar or two. But I have NEVER shown up unprepared for PBL, and neither has anyone else. You don't screw your classmates over, even if that means a little less sleep.
It is obvious to me from reading posts by med students at other schools that my experience in med school is very different. It's a lot less individualistic at CCLCM compared to what people seem to be doing at most schools. And I am sure that plenty of people would hate going to a school like this. We have our share of annoyances too, like the dress code and the new seminar attendance policy. But if you're going to have a PBL based curriculum, I really think that this school has more or less gotten it right.
