CCOM Attendance Policy

[felipe23]

So I was wondering if any CCOM students could tell me whether or not you HAVE to attend classes at CCOM. I recently was accepted and put down my deposit, so I was just wondering. I have never really benefited from going to any class. I went to orgo class only on test days both semesters and got A's, same with physics. I really learn well on my own. I really liked CCOM but idk if i could go to a school that forced me to go to class all the time when I just sit there and get bored to the point where I am wasting my time. I prefer to get the notes or lectures online and study on my own. Let me know if you have any information on this.

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[Ari1584]

So I was wondering if any CCOM students could tell me whether or not you HAVE to attend classes at CCOM. I recently was accepted and put down my deposit, so I was just wondering. I have never really benefited from going to any class. I went to orgo class only on test days both semesters and got A's, same with physics. I really learn well on my own. I really liked CCOM but idk if i could go to a school that forced me to go to class all the time when I just sit there and get bored to the point where I am wasting my time. I prefer to get the notes or lectures online and study on my own. Let me know if you have any information on this.

I have heard that not ALL classes are mandatory. I am almost positive that labs are and maybe a couple of specific classes...but for the most part...lecture attendance is up to you. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[SporkInaWall]

Ok my friend I am going to answer what I know in the limited amount of time I have. If you are from the area CCOM would suit you great, of the students who seem to have transitioned with the least amount of problems quite a few are from the area. This is something you should consider as it can be incredibly helpful to have someone do a load of laundry or cook you a nice meal from time to time or even just to listen to you bitch about how different your life is now compared to when you started. I think a lot of people on SDN get caught up in the prestige of a school and the facts that can be seen on paper and overlook this aspect.

Our curriculum is traditional and places VERY heavy emphasis on subjects taught by our anatomy department (anatomy, histology, neuro are the ones I know thus far). My class is just getting our first dose of the physiology department and from looking at our notes I think it will be a strong class as well and so will pharm (taught in second year). As for the other subjects we have the typical Intro to Clinical Medicine (ICM) which in my opinion has been more than adequate thus far though some people have their objections because it requires a little intuition. I know that Micro is taught very heavily second year which supposedly helps prepare you for boards. Aside from this the only other class I can comment on in Biochem. Personally I have my objections to how the class is formatted but it is a work in progress. The department reformatted it for the class of 2012 to include group quizes, clinical correlations as now for our class we have comprehensive exams at the end of each quarter which cover ALL the material since the beginning of the year. These comprehensive exams are suppose to simulate the boards in that we must pass them to pass the class and we get 3 attempts to pass before failing. Some may like this innovative approach but I feel I would have been better served to have it be a traditional class.

We do have a test almost every week. Now the difficulty of the test is what varies. Since starting on monday we actually only have two tests before we leave for xmas break. A normal biochem test is not all that difficult since we have about 5 a quarter so they don't cover that much material. Compare this to anatomy where we have 4 tests to cover all the material between August to the end of Feb and the amount of material for each test is absurd. Personally I can't imagine having all our classes be like this, it would lead me to procrastinate more than I already do and that would just be bad news.

Some classes are mandatory and others are not. Your tour guides should have talked about this but if not then I'll try to help you out. I would say you only HAVE to go to about 40% of class (not including labs, those are mandatory). Some students take this route and can do so because are notes are so in depth there is no need to use a book and all the exam material is based on the notes. That being said the majority of students attend classes (~80%) simply because it helps to go to lecture.

I believe I have already commented to you before on the rotations as well as provided a list of rotation sites. As far as your rotations go in the same specialty say general surgery, you can do 2 rotations in it third year and another 2 elective rotations in it 4th year (I believe this is the case). This is because it is a "required" rotation, thus you do your normal "required" rotations in it and then you also get the 8 weeks you can do during your 4th year electives. The rule is you can do 8 weeks of electives in the same specialty. This 8 week rule does not include the "required" rotations you may have already done in that specialty.

As far as hurting your chances for residency, some of the competitive fields such as ortho and derm in the DO world essentially require you to rotate at the program to be considered for an interview. General surgery is not as competitive and you would probably be fine doing your 8 weeks of it during your 4th year. I'm basing this off of my knowledge gained on SDN and not first hand knowledge so take it for what it is worth.

The most important factors in getting the residency of your choice are going to be your board scores, LOR's, clinical grades, followed by and in no particular order at this point class rank, EC's, research, pre-clincal grades, personality etc. Thus it is mostly on you to ensure you get a good residency.

Is the high tuition worth it? That is entirely a personal question and depends on your background as well as alternative situations. When I was selecting a school all my options were within about $5k/year of each other so I essentially didn't use tuition as a deciding factor. If you can save $10k/year or more then ya you may want to consider it but as far as how much weight you give to it vs location, curriculum, rotations, proximity to family is a personal decision.

Best of luck and I hope this helps!

Look around in the CCOM thread using the search tool. Lots of good info.

 

[TeamZissou]

Look around in the CCOM thread using the search tool. Lots of good info.

Hahaha If I could give you a gold star right now I would. Thank you for being resourceful!

 

[SporkInaWall]

Hahaha If I could give you a gold star right now I would. Thank you for being resourceful!

I was restrained from saying something with a little more punch to it but hey, maybe the OP just honestly doesn't know where the search button is. We've all been there right?

A gold star? I was hoping for a "free tuition for a year" card. Do you have any of those?

Anyway, thanks for the info. It has proven useful yet again.

 

[felipe23]

I actually did do a search and found the same stuff you posted, I was hoping for more detail however. I know we'd have to attend labs and group sections, but would we have to attend most of the morning lectures? If not would that make it possible to live in the city and I wouldn't have to worry about early long drives every morning(obviously test days I wouldn't care)? What percentage of your grade counts on your attendance in those that do require you to go?

I hope I do not sound lazy in these posts, I legitimately learn better on my own though group work does help a lot from time to time.

gold star for everyone

 

[TheTinker]

Did you ever consider looking at LECOM and their ISP (Independent Study Pathway)? It seems like the perfect fit for someone who does not want to spend time in class because they learn better on their own. Just a suggestion.

 

[TeamZissou]

I actually did do a search and found the same stuff you posted, I was hoping for more detail however. I know we'd have to attend labs and group sections, but would we have to attend most of the morning lectures? If not would that make it possible to live in the city and I wouldn't have to worry about early long drives every morning(obviously test days I wouldn't care)? What percentage of your grade counts on your attendance in those that do require you to go?

I hope I do not sound lazy in these posts, I legitimately learn better on my own though group work does help a lot from time to time.

gold star for everyone

Righto, well I'll break down our current schedule for you. Take a peak at it and it will help you. http://www.midwestern.edu/x1874.xml

So for biochem we have lectures which are not mandatory but they give us little extra credit assignments in class about 4 times a quarter which can raise your grade 3% or so at the end. So it's really up to you if you want to go or not. The Biochem classes located in AH (Hyde Atrium) are mandatory in that we have simulated patient cases and you are working with your groups.

Physiology is not mandatory except for Tuesday mornings where we have the case sessions. Even then the class is split in half and you only have your case session for one hour in the block of 8-10am.

Anatomy lecture is not mandatory. Lab however is, out of the 3 scheduled lab times a week you will be in lab 2 of those days. The other day you are scheduled to attend case studies which they encourage us to go to and the material is often on the tests but it is not totally mandatory.

OMM has a lecture for the first hour 8-9 that is highly encouraged but no one takes attendance. Lab from 9-12 you take a quiz in the beginning worth 5 pts (vs tests worth 100 i think) and you sign in at the end to get your points for that day. If you miss a day it's not the end of the world but it's really hard to get the techniques down if you don't go to lab so essentially everyone goes.

ICM sometimes has a lecture for the first hour which isn't mandatory and then the class is split into two and one half goes to lab to work on skills like auscultating, BP etc while the other has a case pertaining to what you learned that day. Sometimes there is no lecture in the beginning and it is just the two groups one in lab and the other in case session.

The weird pt-physician dialogue is suppose to be mandatory but we don't know how they are planning on enforcing that so a lot of people don't go.

If you have any more specific questions just let me know.

 

[Anita817]

I don't know the specifics of how many/which classes are mandatory, but I certainly got the impression that a fair amount of students admit to regularly not attending non-mandatory lectures. Actually, one student told my interview group how he and two friends have it worked out so that only one of them attends lecture for a certain class each day. The only issue I see with this plan is that none of the lectures are recorded-- which I had assumed was standard practice since all the other schools I looked at do record them. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to at least have the opportunity to go back and listen to a missed lecture if I wanted to, and not just rely on a classmate's digest.

 

[doggydog1]

Even though the lectures are not recorded, I heard that you can take voice recorders to class as long as you have the professors permission. Any current students have any experience with this?

I don't know the specifics of how many/which classes are mandatory, but I certainly got the impression that a fair amount of students admit to regularly not attending non-mandatory lectures. Actually, one student told my interview group how he and two friends have it worked out so that only one of them attends lecture for a certain class each day. The only issue I see with this plan is that none of the lectures are recorded-- which I had assumed was standard practice since all the other schools I looked at do record them. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to at least have the opportunity to go back and listen to a missed lecture if I wanted to, and not just rely on a classmate's digest.

 

[matthew0809]

I just have a few minor additions. If you miss OMM lab without an excused absence (like being sick with a doctor's note), then your grade is deducted 5% for the first absence, 10% for the second absence, and you fail for the third. So attendance is mandatory. Any of the classes that were listed above as mandatory are really, really mandatory. You can't skip without seriously hurting your grade. Attendance at the rest of the classes is really up to you. There are plenty of people who never go, but I think the majority of students find lectures helpful for performance on tests. There are also several students who live in the city and don't have too much of a problem with the commute.

You can use voice recorders to record lectures, but you have to get each professor's individual permission. I know a few students do record some lectures, but I don't know of any lecture-recording sharing system or anything. Also most of our classes make the powerpoint slides available on Blackboard, and the lecture notes provided are usually pretty substantial. Hope this helps!