Let me know if you guys have any questions about Penn in particular or just D1 year. I'll do my best to answer them.
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D1 Done @ Penn AMA
Started by Life of Pablo
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There is a lot of change coming to the clinical curriculum. I don't want to go into the rumored changes because nothing is set in stone yet, but essentially the dean is trying to get the dental students to be in clinic more. How he plans on doing it is yet to be seen. Not to toot our own horn but we did have a 95% pass rate on clinical boards exam this year.
Some pretty big changes that have happened is the dean shortened our summer between D2 and D3 year, and he cut down on externship time from 4 weeks to 2 weeks. Our summer after D2 used to be a month but he made it 2 weeks. However, he gave us an extra week for Christmas break and he gave us a week for spring break during D3 year (so I guess we didn't really lose any breaks?). The externship thing really pissed people off because now if we want to extern, we'll have to do it on our breaks if we plan on externing for more than 2 weeks.
There aren't any changes in didactics that I know about. We're still sticking to the 1 exam a week thing. I think each year definitely has it better than the previous year because administration hears everyone complaining about certain things and shifts exams/quizzes/practicals around to lighten the schedule for the following year's class.
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After D2. You assist D3/D4s once a week your first 2 years of dental school though.
What’s the daily life like at Penn State? Heard it’s a good school.
First congrats on your acceptance and completion of D1! I have read about a lot of students receiving scholarships here. Do you have any idea around how many are awarded, and if they are awarded on a need or merit basis?
The best is "oh you're a dental student? How long is that? Like 2 years?"
It's quite a few yeah but I think it changes every year. For example, apparently someone this past year got like a full tuition scholarship which my class didn't have. I know nothing about how they pick people for scholarships though.
How much loans did you take out for year 1?
I plead the fifth. Let's just say there's a good mix of people that have help from their parents, are doing HPSP (19 people in my class have HPSP + 2 are doing NHSC), and there are people taking out loans.
Are you a Kanye West fan?
I can answer this one 😏. Daily life at Penn State is phenomenal. Campus is absolutely beautiful. Rigorous academics. Huge party scene. Opportunities for networking are out of this world. The alumni network is the best in the world. With 140 chapters and 174,000 members, Penn State's is "the largest dues-paying alumni association in the world." THON, benefiting families affected by pediatric cancer, is the largest student run philanthropic event in the world. The Creamery has some of the best ice cream in the world, in fact, Ben and Jerry learned how to make ice cream at Penn State. The sports scene is second to none at Penn State. Between the fan base and the fact that Penn State remains one of only nine programs nationwide to have finished in the top 25 in all 25 Learfield Directors' Cup final standings (which ranks athletics as a whole based on National Championships and final rankings) you just cant beat it. Penn State is currently ranked 2nd for the year. All the women are beautiful. All the men are handsome. It's a win win at Penn State.
The only thing that must sting @Big Time Hoosier is your salty wound. Not everyone can be a part of such an elite institution 😆.
That being said the world's failure to recognize the difference between these two schools for everyone at Penn who didn't go to Penn State for undergrad must blow. Sucks to suck.
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HPSP is the best...
Nah Kanye West is a fan of me.
So his Pablo album was based on your life story? No wonder why that album suck lol
Lame
Whatever number you'd like me to say, I will edit my original post and insert that number in there for you.
BRO. NOT WAVY.
@Life of Pablo How much are your parents contributing? You shouldn't be embarrassed about getting help from them.
Are you guys in one building? I went there for a microsurgery course and I thought that the facilities were a nice mix of traditional architecture and more modern design in your clinical area.
Yeah so the school is really interesting because when they renovated it, they tried to keep a lot of the old architecture. Essentially the school is two buildings (a research building and then another one with clinics/classrooms) connected by a hallway/atrium thing that you enter the front entrance from. All of the clinics/classrooms are new, but the library and the area outside of the library still have like the 1800s architecture. I almost felt like I was in an old church when I first interviewed.
