Hi! I'm a current third year. I personally had a love-hate relationship with PBL. Going into clinics in March and out onto externships, I'm so happy I've had it. My block 1 PBL experience was rough but I didn't transition well to vet school. That being said, I came home for Thanksgiving first year and my mom, who's a small animal veterinarian (not a Cornell grad) and was thrilled. She couldn't believe how fluent I was in the language and the concepts I was being exposed to as a first year. I showed her all my cases and she loved how they choose cases of things that we will actually see, not these esoteric tricky cases you only see in academia. Yes, it's overwhelming at first. Yes, it's not how everyone studies. Yes, it's difficult to stand up in front of 8 of your peers, who are also mostly type A, and have your work critiqued. I loved it in the physiology and pharmacology section, block 3. It makes SO MUCH SENSE! Your real patient isn't just a liver, or just a clotting disorder. I love how we're taught from day 1 how to think of a patient as a whole. I also love how we're taught to think like clinicians. Making problems lists and explaining which diagnostic tests you want to do and why are what you'll be doing as a veterinarian. And we do them day 1 year 1. PBL is also such a great way to interact with the faculty. They get to know you and you them. Most are DVMs (vs just PhDs - though some of them make the BEST tutors). I know several other schools offer PBL with outside veterinarians. Our faculty tutors go through training and a learning year with another more experienced tutor. They meet once a week to discuss common problem areas, students that might be having trouble, and general how tutor groups are going. They have a list of learning objectives and concepts to cover so that each group gets the same information. The four main block 1 faculty also sit in on all your lectures! That provides a really great cohesiveness to the program that I think lacks at other schools. Hopefully that helps! Let me know if you have more questions!