midwestern glendale

[jellopie]

Hi

I might be going to midwestern glendale and I was just wondering how the current students like the campus and the curriculum. I tried looking up info on the school but i couldn't find much on it. If you go to midwestern glendale then hopefully you can tell me a little more about what you like or dont like about the school. PM me if you want

Thanks guys!

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[off2skl]

Plusses: Overall, we have some very good professors. The curriculum is intense, but doable. You just have to stay on top of things. The facilities are nice and the professors all have open door policies and are really willing to help you out and get to know you.

We have shadow rotations our first and second quarters (one in a retail setting and one in a hospital).Those are nice if you haven't been in those settings before; but if you have it can be rather, um, long!

You do several group projects; this can work out well if you have a good group, but if you don't it can make life pretty rough.

Downsides: Schedules can sometimes be rather messed up with lots of downtime (I'd rather be home to study)

Exams are twice a week your first few quarters. Some quarters they're spaced out well and others they're not.


Hope this helps. PM me if you want more details.

 

[bananaface]

Anything concerning school choice belongs in the pre-pharmacy forum.


Moving...

 

[ForgetMeNot]

Downsides: Schedules can sometimes be rather messed up with lots of downtime

I hate to say it, but you'll probably have to deal with the crappy scheduling of classes every quarter. I know my class complained about it and even offered suggestions, but it didn't seem to do much good. Hopefully your class has much better luck.

 

[Roxicet]

I have about the same view as off2skl....this is what I answered to this exact question in a PM to someone else recently:

I really love it here at MWU-CPG. It was the only school I applied to last year for 3 reasons:
1. the three-year program (it's only 2 years and 9 months, actually)
2. early rotation experiences (as opposed to having to wait 'till the last year of school at most schools)
3. location (excellent weather and not too far from my family in El Paso, TX)

I didn't want to go anywhere else. Now that I'm here, there's so many other things I love about it. The faculty is great. They have a complete open-door policy, and are willing to drop everything at any time to help you. Teaching comes first, not research (research comes first at many other schools). The campus is a small, beautiful, family-like atmoshpere. Students here are friendly, and everyone in my class is willing to help each other. Also, the exams are set up so that you never have more than 2 exams in one week. The week of finals is one exam every day of the week, which is not bad at all. The courseload is not too overwhelming; you might even find that you'll have time to work too. We got our intern license within the first two weeks of school, and the pay for a first year intern is ~$15/hr. I really enjoyed my introductory rotations; they were great! One was at a long-term care facility that serviced nursing homes, and the other was at the Luke Air Force Base outpatient/VA hospital facilities.

downside: I really dislike one course, called Interdisciplinary Health Care, that we have to take the first 3 quarters of our first year. We take it together with the D.O. students, PA, OT, podiatry, and (some other health care fields that I can't think of ), and we are "supposed" to learn how to better understand the other health care fields, and learn to work as a team, but all we really do is sit in a huge lecture hall, where we usually sit with familiar faces from our pharmacy class, and we listen to BORING presentations. It's already the end of 2nd quarter, and I've talked to a student in a different program ONCE during all this time in that class. It's not for a grade, but pass/fail, where attendance is mandatory to get credit.

And like off2skl mentioned, CPG is not for anyone who doesn't like to work in groups.

 

[Jeddevil]

Jellopie,

Overall, I like Midwestern. It has provided everything I expected from a professional school. The coursework comes at you fast, but we only have two tests a week. We get to participate in rotations first quarter which gives you some new perspectives on Pharmacy practice earlier than other schools. Tuition sucks, (27K+/yr) but is the tradeoff you make to get done in 2.75 years. I ran the numbers vs. UofAZ, which I was accepted into and is much cheaper than MWU (about 8K a year), and they worked out for MWU. You make money faster at an accelerated program, and living here is much better than Tucson. (We are going to make enough on our home appreciation alone to pay off all debt when finished, place has appreciated twice the cost of tuition for this year allready).

I read about a lot of competition between classmates on SDN, and I have not seen that at all here at MWU. Everyone I have met has been open to helping each other out with studying so we can all succeed. I really like that aspect of it.

Downsides: They really need to hire someone that can schedule classes better. They call it a block, but we always have a lot of downtime in the middle of the day that could be used better. They make it known to you the first week that they don't care about our worklife, that school needs to be #1 and we need to be willing to be here m-f, 8-5. They don't schedule us from 8-5 everyday, but they could still schedule better. An example: On friday we have tests from 8-10, then an hour for nothing, followed by a class, lunch and class. How hard would it have been to put the after lunch class in the 10-11 spot, and let us all be done on friday two hours earlier? I guess that since my biggest complaint is about the schedule, I have it pretty good here at MWU.

I also echo Roxi above and dislike Interdisciplinary studies course (or Inter-course, as they abbreviated it earlier this year on an email to everyone. It was corrected right within a day with a new email. An Inter-course wouldn't have been that bad) The class is supposed to get us knowledgable about the other programs in the school and interact with other students. We all just sit there with our normal friends waiting for the time to fill in the scantron to get credit for being there. The lectures have been very boring. (we had some spirituality guy last week relating healthcare to spirituality or something, I only caught parts between napping.) It is a pass-fail, only half a credit hour, but it is an hour I would rather spend doing anything else. The first quarter professors from other programs got up and introduces their programs, told us what to do to get in them, what pre-regs and stuff. I thought to myself "Isn't it a little late to be recruiting students now that we are allready here in other programs." Waste of time.

Overall, I am glad I picked MWU and enjoy my time here. I have a family and I never study friday or Sat, only some Sunday nights. I stick around at school and study each night for a couple hours, cram late on nights before tests, and that is it. My wife told me that our quality time together has actually gone up since MWU because the schedule is structured where I do have more time with my family than I did doing pre-regs. Good luck to you.

 

[ForgetMeNot]

I just wanted to throw in my two cents about the interdisciplinary course. I didn't get anything out of that class, except maybe some of the latest gossip from my classmates. I'm not sure I even had the chance to say 'hello' to students from the other programs. I've never been able to figure out the purpose of the course. I understand it sounds good on paper to get us all together and learn about the various topics. Maybe the other disciplines get something out of it that pharmacy students don't?

One day I hope suddenly the benefit for the course being in the curriculum appears to me. But for now, I just can't see its worth.

 

[Tai]

I heard that there is a lot of turnover of professors at CPG. Is that true? just wondering.

 

[ForgetMeNot]

I heard that there is a lot of turnover of professors at CPG. Is that true? just wondering.

I don't know what other schools are like as far as turnover, but yes there is a little change in professors. I'm not sure what constitutes as "a lot of turnover." The majority of professors I had are still there. At the moment I can only think of one professor that taught my class and has since left. She left for a position at another school of pharmacy that was higher up (some sort of director instead of being a professor). The only other person I can think of is our dean...and the rumors were rampant about why he left. But we got a new dean from another college of pharmacy and things seem to be running ok for the most part. I'm not on campus, though, so I can't say everything is smooth. One of the other students may be able to tell you more.

 

[pharmaz88]

I don't really have anything to add that hasn't been stated already, but just wanted to echo that the students at CPG are all friendly and supportive of each other. Sure, there are little cliques like you'd find anywhere, but even those people aren't snobbish or stand-off-ish (for the most part). ...the only complaint (if you could call it that) is that a fair number of students like to show up late for class day after day... gets to be distracting, especially when you sit towards the back by the door.

 

[Tai]

This thread has been great! Thanks for all the advice.

Forgetmenot, I didnt read your post till after i PM'd you. I think i asked u one question about the faculty turnover but u answered my question.

In regards to comparing it to CCP.....

I know there is no such thing as "comparison" per say because both prgms are different. However i was wondering if anyone was in the situation of picking btw the two schools? Are you all 100% happy that u picked an accelerated prgrm over a 4 year, even though its more intense?

 

[Glycerin]

This thread has been great! Thanks for all the advice.

Forgetmenot, I didnt read your post till after i PM'd you. I think i asked u one question about the faculty turnover but u answered my question.

In regards to comparing it to CCP.....

I know there is no such thing as "comparison" per say because both prgms are different. However i was wondering if anyone was in the situation of picking btw the two schools? Are you all 100% happy that u picked an accelerated prgrm over a 4 year, even though its more intense?

PM jdpharmd?. He was accepted at both MWU's a couple of years ago.

 

[jdpharmd?]

This thread has been great! Thanks for all the advice.

Forgetmenot, I didnt read your post till after i PM'd you. I think i asked u one question about the faculty turnover but u answered my question.

In regards to comparing it to CCP.....

I know there is no such thing as "comparison" per say because both prgms are different. However i was wondering if anyone was in the situation of picking btw the two schools? Are you all 100% happy that u picked an accelerated prgrm over a 4 year, even though its more intense?

I was accepted to both, and I picked CPG. Overall, I got a friendlier vibe from the CPG campus, and the possibility of being done a year sooner was just too much to resist. The class size is also smaller at CPG, so that was a deciding factor. Also, CPG had an actual "interview" as opposed to a "campus visit" at CCP. I felt like CPG was the tougher school to get into, so once I was accepted to both, I went with CPG. Do some of the tuition/salary math too.

CCP= -22k/year x 4 = -88k 4 years from now
CPG= -25k/year x 3 = -75k 3 years from now + one year of working (+100k) =
= +25k after 4 years

CPG students are technically "up" 25k after 4 years, while CCP students are about 90k in the hole. That one less year of classes (and therefore one more year of income) makes a difference.

JD

 

[Roxicet]

I was reminded of one other dislike (to say the least) that I have of a certain professor (who apparently, I hear, has been a problem since at least three years ago), as I was taking the Pharmaceutics II final exam this morning. Some of the multiple choice questions had no correct answer listed as a choice, and I worked on these problems for at least 20 minutes, trying to figure out why my answer was not correct, before he/she decided to tell us that he/she made a mistake. It would not be such a big deal to me, except he/she has made so MANY mistakes (wrong answers for in-class calculations examples, wrong numbers for practice questions, wrong directions for a lab practical patient order....administer ceftriaxone sodium IM over 30 minutes...what????...) throughout this and last quarter in Pharmaceutics I also, that it is no longer acceptable. He/she is a nice person, but as a professor, I feel that he/she needs to be more organized and prepared, and be absolutely 100% sure that his/her calculations are correct before he/she tries to teach it.

If you decide to attend CPG, pm me so that I can fill you in

But overall, I still love CPG!

 

[ForgetMeNot]

I was reminded of one other dislike (to say the least) that I have of a certain professor (who apparently, I hear, has been a problem since at least three years ago), as I was taking the Pharmaceutics II final exam this morning. Some of the multiple choice questions had no correct answer listed as a choice, and I worked on these problems for at least 20 minutes, trying to figure out why my answer was not correct, before he/she decided to tell us that he/she made a mistake. It would not be such a big deal to me, except he/she has made so MANY mistakes (wrong answers for in-class calculations examples, wrong numbers for practice questions, wrong directions for a lab practical patient order....administer ceftriaxone sodium IM over 30 minutes...what????...) throughout this and last quarter in Pharmaceutics I also, that it is no longer acceptable. He/she is a nice person, but as a professor, I feel that he/she needs to be more organized and prepared, and be absolutely 100% sure that his/her calculations are correct before he/she tries to teach it.

If you decide to attend CPG, pm me so that I can fill you in

But overall, I still love CPG!

Gee, I wonder who you're referring too..

She did the same thing with my class. We tried to chalk it up to her being inexperienced with teaching. I'm not sure that excuse works anymore. Oh well.

 

[off2skl]

As a former teacher I must say, 1st year you expect to make mistakes (even lots of mistakes), 2nd year should have fewer, by your fourth year you should be able to teach the class with your eyes closed.

 

[Vandykitten]

Hi

I might be going to midwestern glendale and I was just wondering how the current students like the campus and the curriculum. I tried looking up info on the school but i couldn't find much on it. If you go to midwestern glendale then hopefully you can tell me a little more about what you like or dont like about the school. PM me if you want

Thanks guys!

Hey! Are you going to interview there soon? I'll be interviewing on March 2nd so maybe I'll see you there