blackula28 said:
Please discuss some pros and cons. That would be good.
I'm bias I go to Drew, but let me give you my reasons when I was trying to decide.
1. Helping the underserved
2. Students learn and do more at county hospitals (e.g. cook county, central, charity etc.) compared to those nicer hospitals where some patients won't even let a short coat go near them.
3. Degree is from UCLA
4. Tuition lower then any private school
5. Location I love L.A., after studying all day fri or sat I like to go out to the club, the card club, the paint ball club, the home club, the dance club and my favorate the strip club.
6. Weather, some places i interviewed at were just to cold or to humid to want to do anything but stay indoors. After studying all day that is the last thing I want to do. Only in So. CAl can you go surfing during the day and then drive 1-2 hours to do some nightime snowboarding.
7. I'm asian and I like the diversity of Los Angeles, some out of state places don't even have good dim sum for miles.
8. Most people say that one of the most important things for getting a good residency is your step 1 score, you'll be getting the same basic science education as the UCLA main program people so that shouldn't be a problem
9. When I made my decision Drew didn't have all this bad press, but if I had to do it all again I would still choose Drew/UCLA. By the time I start my rotations alot of these problems should be gone (I hope), but like alot of people have said before "step 1 pretty much determines your career" and how well you do is all about how much you put into your preclinical years and board prep time.
I have more reasons but gotta go back to studying neuro, when I take a brake again I'll post more.
