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I finally had the chance to visit NYU today. It's hard to access internet here. They won't let me enter the dental library because that is located in a federal VA building, and the only way to enter is with a NYU ID. I tried. I walked to New York Public Library to try to use internet, and they only allot me thirty minutes (someone was looking at porn), the time expired, and I walked across to the other NY Library branch, and will have to wait for an hour. Geez.
Anyway, my goal is just post some of my thoughts here.
* The myth/story that people fail out of school. Well. Amy Knowles, the assistant director give us a tour, and she mentioned that as a common question that people ask, she then goes on to say about a handful of people doesn't continues. Exactly what she meant is unclear, because I tend to be skeptical about these admission officers. Instead, I got the chance to do some investigation and talked to some students in the dental building. One student stated that that during posting of the grades, there were blanks showing people who didn't go to take the test, hence... they choose to leave the school. Now, from that, I have to believe that more than the usual amounts of students, one way or another, does not finish.
* Talking about the difficulty of the schools. I approached about 5 students, and they all say that it is hard and demanding. It is not difficult and impossibly hard to learn (like advanced physics), but it is just a lot of work that requires some real time management, and I suspect... emotional maturity and confidence.
* Plastination. They have no cadavers in their anatomy lab, instead there are these superbly finely dissected cadavers that has be carefully preserved in a compound which hardens the cadaver, thus feeling like plastic. The details are superb, especially the head and neck regions. Yes, the trigeminal nerve is finely articulated. Initially I thought this may lessen the actual learning experience of cutting the body, carving up the fats, sorting through the nerves, and learning of the actual dissection; and it does. The plastination does not allow the student to cut things up, which I like. However, it saves time, and the presetation is better than anything I can dissect.
* As people have mentioned about large class sizes. Yes. That is true, and it seems to be the complaint on everyone's mind. They all dislike the large class size 254!!! There was also this huge auditorium that fits everyone. Surely, this school is not for the meek who likes to just follow along.
*When you consider that all dental students are already a subset of go-getters, I imagine the competition may be fierce. I posed this question to some students, and they said that there are all sorts of students. Surely there are students who are meek, however there are definitely students who are competitive. If twenty-five percent is competitive, then you are looking at eighty other students in the auditorium that will compete with you for the higher grade. This reminds me of specialization.
*Amy Knowles stated that sixty-five percent goes on to specialize. Holy crap! To me that implies a highly competitive class. So with such competition, what kind of social life do they have?
* The social life seems available, from what I heard there are clubs of all sorts. With a school of 254, there has to be clubs.
* Definitely a diverse school. I see races of all kinds, young/old, tall/short, fat/skinny, hot/cold, you name it.
* Faculty to student ratio is questionable, Amy Knowles cited some nice statistics, but ultimately, I don't believe there is enough faculty to go around. You can not possibly, successfully teach 1000 DDS students in its student body (250 each class times four)
* Amy Knowles showed us a class in the auditorium. It is an anatomy course taught by Eichenhoff (I forgot), and it is so ridiculously boring. Oh my God. You expect me to sit through that professor. Of course, one class may not be representative.
* The students all seem to like the wide range of clinical cases that they have access to. Since the school has advanced post-doctoral programs in every specialty, they expose DDS students to all of it. The exact amount of exposure is unclear, but it is certainly more than a school that doesn't have a large post-doctoral program.
* Price is outrageous which all of you already know. If I remember right, the finanical aid officer, Tanya Cunnigham (?) (and to believe her or not is up to you), said that it is the third most expensive school in the country after UOP and UPenn. She also said that the living expense is what makes everyone feel that NYU is the most expensive. Bottomline, it is an expensive school, and I don't have that money to toss around, not even if I will be making 100,000 on my first year.
* The dorm is about 1700$ per month, I believe. Is it worth it?
*Scholarships. Tanya stated that it is based on merit, and not need. Certain people with high DAT, and 3.6+ GPA are somehow given scholarship. (Damn it!)
*It is one busy school, ten floors with patients coming in and going out. It is crazy I say.
* Safety. Security guards at every entrance that checks id. I don't think that is a problem.
* It is literally in midtown Manhattan and there is no nature like the one's I'm used to in Calfiornia. Ahhh... the beautiful Bay Area.
* The DVD with all the textbooks. A student pop in the DVD and show it to me, it is nice. It containts literally everything you will need for time being. I saw Netter's Anatomy in there, and that to me is certification of legitimacy. Also, as you read, if there are certain words you don't udnerstand, just do a search. You have the choice of looking it up in Dorland's, Steadman's, and some other medical dictionary. Holy smoke! It outright burns the days when I have to flip through the index to find what the oculomotor nerve do.
* Research. I don't have a sense that they do that much of research. There were about 6 room that does biochemistry, and they also had eight rooms for dental research.
* Regarding the dental/nursing merger. This question was bravely rasied by someone to Amy Knowles. Amy said something along the lines of... "exploration stage... appropriate integration of nursing who can measure blood pressures... an integrated profession." It didn't make much sense to me, and I decided not to contest by mentioning: "why not merge with school of business instead? Why not merge with medicine? Why not teach dental hygiene students to take blood pressure? What about the price savings?" You can tell I didn't trust her very much at all. Talking about dental hygiene...
* Their dental hygiene program is housed within the same building, and somehow Amy, nor Tanya ever mentioned it. Especially when Amy could have easily pointed it out as we climb through the floors. ummmph. Questionable.
Would I go? No. I really rather go to UCSF, or UCLA. Other excellent schools which ought to have plenty of patients and clinical experiences in large cities.
Here are my reasons:
*I think it is the price that is preventing me from wanting to go.
*I don't like large class sizes. Yeah, the class gets smaller, but how much smaller does it get? I imagine the average class of a third year is probably the same as the average class of a first year in any dental school across the country.
*I am a nature person. It invigorates me. I need to go for a jog through single dirt trails, hop over stomps, and hear nothing but silence. Central Park is way way too far. There is no nature man.
Anyway, my goal is just post some of my thoughts here.
* The myth/story that people fail out of school. Well. Amy Knowles, the assistant director give us a tour, and she mentioned that as a common question that people ask, she then goes on to say about a handful of people doesn't continues. Exactly what she meant is unclear, because I tend to be skeptical about these admission officers. Instead, I got the chance to do some investigation and talked to some students in the dental building. One student stated that that during posting of the grades, there were blanks showing people who didn't go to take the test, hence... they choose to leave the school. Now, from that, I have to believe that more than the usual amounts of students, one way or another, does not finish.
* Talking about the difficulty of the schools. I approached about 5 students, and they all say that it is hard and demanding. It is not difficult and impossibly hard to learn (like advanced physics), but it is just a lot of work that requires some real time management, and I suspect... emotional maturity and confidence.
* Plastination. They have no cadavers in their anatomy lab, instead there are these superbly finely dissected cadavers that has be carefully preserved in a compound which hardens the cadaver, thus feeling like plastic. The details are superb, especially the head and neck regions. Yes, the trigeminal nerve is finely articulated. Initially I thought this may lessen the actual learning experience of cutting the body, carving up the fats, sorting through the nerves, and learning of the actual dissection; and it does. The plastination does not allow the student to cut things up, which I like. However, it saves time, and the presetation is better than anything I can dissect.
* As people have mentioned about large class sizes. Yes. That is true, and it seems to be the complaint on everyone's mind. They all dislike the large class size 254!!! There was also this huge auditorium that fits everyone. Surely, this school is not for the meek who likes to just follow along.
*When you consider that all dental students are already a subset of go-getters, I imagine the competition may be fierce. I posed this question to some students, and they said that there are all sorts of students. Surely there are students who are meek, however there are definitely students who are competitive. If twenty-five percent is competitive, then you are looking at eighty other students in the auditorium that will compete with you for the higher grade. This reminds me of specialization.
*Amy Knowles stated that sixty-five percent goes on to specialize. Holy crap! To me that implies a highly competitive class. So with such competition, what kind of social life do they have?
* The social life seems available, from what I heard there are clubs of all sorts. With a school of 254, there has to be clubs.
* Definitely a diverse school. I see races of all kinds, young/old, tall/short, fat/skinny, hot/cold, you name it.
* Faculty to student ratio is questionable, Amy Knowles cited some nice statistics, but ultimately, I don't believe there is enough faculty to go around. You can not possibly, successfully teach 1000 DDS students in its student body (250 each class times four)
* Amy Knowles showed us a class in the auditorium. It is an anatomy course taught by Eichenhoff (I forgot), and it is so ridiculously boring. Oh my God. You expect me to sit through that professor. Of course, one class may not be representative.
* The students all seem to like the wide range of clinical cases that they have access to. Since the school has advanced post-doctoral programs in every specialty, they expose DDS students to all of it. The exact amount of exposure is unclear, but it is certainly more than a school that doesn't have a large post-doctoral program.
* Price is outrageous which all of you already know. If I remember right, the finanical aid officer, Tanya Cunnigham (?) (and to believe her or not is up to you), said that it is the third most expensive school in the country after UOP and UPenn. She also said that the living expense is what makes everyone feel that NYU is the most expensive. Bottomline, it is an expensive school, and I don't have that money to toss around, not even if I will be making 100,000 on my first year.
* The dorm is about 1700$ per month, I believe. Is it worth it?
*Scholarships. Tanya stated that it is based on merit, and not need. Certain people with high DAT, and 3.6+ GPA are somehow given scholarship. (Damn it!)
*It is one busy school, ten floors with patients coming in and going out. It is crazy I say.
* Safety. Security guards at every entrance that checks id. I don't think that is a problem.
* It is literally in midtown Manhattan and there is no nature like the one's I'm used to in Calfiornia. Ahhh... the beautiful Bay Area.
* The DVD with all the textbooks. A student pop in the DVD and show it to me, it is nice. It containts literally everything you will need for time being. I saw Netter's Anatomy in there, and that to me is certification of legitimacy. Also, as you read, if there are certain words you don't udnerstand, just do a search. You have the choice of looking it up in Dorland's, Steadman's, and some other medical dictionary. Holy smoke! It outright burns the days when I have to flip through the index to find what the oculomotor nerve do.
* Research. I don't have a sense that they do that much of research. There were about 6 room that does biochemistry, and they also had eight rooms for dental research.
* Regarding the dental/nursing merger. This question was bravely rasied by someone to Amy Knowles. Amy said something along the lines of... "exploration stage... appropriate integration of nursing who can measure blood pressures... an integrated profession." It didn't make much sense to me, and I decided not to contest by mentioning: "why not merge with school of business instead? Why not merge with medicine? Why not teach dental hygiene students to take blood pressure? What about the price savings?" You can tell I didn't trust her very much at all. Talking about dental hygiene...
* Their dental hygiene program is housed within the same building, and somehow Amy, nor Tanya ever mentioned it. Especially when Amy could have easily pointed it out as we climb through the floors. ummmph. Questionable.
Would I go? No. I really rather go to UCSF, or UCLA. Other excellent schools which ought to have plenty of patients and clinical experiences in large cities.
Here are my reasons:
*I think it is the price that is preventing me from wanting to go.
*I don't like large class sizes. Yeah, the class gets smaller, but how much smaller does it get? I imagine the average class of a third year is probably the same as the average class of a first year in any dental school across the country.
*I am a nature person. It invigorates me. I need to go for a jog through single dirt trails, hop over stomps, and hear nothing but silence. Central Park is way way too far. There is no nature man.
