I'll try to answer all the questions I can...
About jacket fitting
You aren't fitted for the jackets. A form will be coming, with a bunch of other stuff in a packet, that will describe what jacket size you would wear based on your chest size and arm length. You simply send it back with what size jacket you want and it'll be waiting for you at the White Coat Ceremony.
About crime around the school
The med center is in a surprisingly surburban part of town. The north central/west part of town is where I grew up and is where I'd classify the school as being. I live at I-10 and Wurzbach in a place called
Broadstone Colonnade which is about a fifteen minute drive during rush hour to the school. Of course I'm playing about a flat 700 for a one bedroom.
I really don't think the medical center area is very dangerous. That being said affluency generally rises the more distal you get from Loop 410. If crime is a major concern I would defintley stay outside of 410.
Below is a link to crime information from the SAPD. You need to click on the link "SAPD Uniformed Crime Reports website" and it'll take you to a map of the city and you can look at the location of a number of crimes in the city over the past month.
San Antonio Crime Map
Since I'm assuming you're unfamiliar with the layout of SA I tried really hard to save the map I created that showed the area around the medical center but it wouldn't let me.
The summary basically is I grew up around the medical center and moved back to this area after college, so I've spent most of my life in this area of San Antonio and I've never felt it was dangerous of anything like that.
About the curriculum
The school has the year broken up into modules which are 3 to 5 weeks long, after which you typically have a week of tests. Personally I enjoy this, you take lots of tests for each subject making each test worth less of your gade...so if you screw up on one... Although I can understand how some people can be stressed by a round of tests every month.
Not all classes run in every module. For instance Physiology ran from the second module to last module but we don't have it for the last two modules.
The first two modules are kind've basic stuff - you do stuff like cell physiology. However after that the modules are grouped by organ system. An example: In the cario-resp module while you're doing heart physiology, and looking at heart muscle in hisology, you'll also be dissecting the heart and lungs in anatomy.
UTHSCSA has a lot of lecture hours scheduled as compared to UTMB and maybe other schools. This was kind've alarming for me at first but actually I think it is one of our strengths. This is complete opinion but for a lot of classes the syllabi are incredibly detailed. For plenty of classes nothing new is presented in lecture. So, it gives you a lot of flexibility. If you learn better by spending that time in the library then you won't miss anything a lot of time and the concise resources are available for you to learn the stuff on your own. But, if you learn better by hearing someone else lecture on a subject, the school isn't short changing you on that either, and you can go to lectures.
About Parking
Here is a
map of UTHSCSA
Now we complain a lot but this isn't TMC. Now that place is a parking nightmare. Everyone at UTHSCSA, or virtually everyone, will have parking. It is just a far walk (or shuttle ride) to campus as a first year. However, you go on wait lists for better parking and eventually you'll move closer to the school...although probably not during first year.
In any case if you look at the map as a first year you'll be lucky to get a permit which allows you to park in Lot 11, all the way to the far left of the map. If you're unlucky you'll get a permit which allows you to park at Lot 17. If you can't find it on the map it is away from campus at the Allied Health building up at the top of the map.
You can certainly walk from Lot 17 although it is several blocks. I've never parked there personally but there is a shuttle from the lot back to the main campus...I'm not sure how often it runs.
It really is not that terrible of a parking situation.
I love this school and I know all of you will. Get ready
Really though, what apartments would current students recommend and which ones should we stay away from? (~$600-$800 for two bedroom). Thanks as always.
