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fa21212

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fa21212 said:
I have heard from many about the benefits of a true pass / fail system with no AOA or anything else. I haven't seen as much attention focused on mandatory lecture. During my post bac, I found the most efficient way to learn was to never go to lecture, never read the book, watch the lectures online, and then create Anki flashcards. This ended up working very well for me as I did extremely well in my classes and got a very high MCAT score. A lot of the elite schools have mandatory lecture (Harvard, Mayo, etc.). I'm wondering how I should think about this mandatory lecture aspect as I think about various schools. Any perspective of anyone with a similar learning style as me who went to a mandatory lecture school would be highly appreciated.
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This is news to me. If anything, more and more med med schools (including mine) are jumping on the TBL train. There's a difference between a TBL and a mandatory lecture.

I think CUSOM has mandatory lecs . Thoughts, @sb247? LECOM and ARCOM students?
 
It all depends on what you mean by mandatory attendance. If you mean I'm required to sit in an auditorium for 4 hours in the morning while there's a lecturer in front of me reading of a powerpoint presentation, that sounds awful. My school webcasts and I love watching lectures at 2x speed so I can spend the rest of my day doing whatever else I want to do. The flexibility is a godsend. However, I think some schools have mandatory attendance because the classes are PBL and small group discussions, where class participation is a big part of the learning. I can't comment on how good that format is, but I can see how at best, everyone is going to work together and contribute a little bit while at its worst, 2 or 3 people will dominate the discussion while others will either try but fail to chime in or be watching fortnite streams on twitch (aka probs me lol).

At the end of the day, don't worry about these things too much right now. Apply to all the schools you like and are competitive in. Then when you get on the interview trail, ask students how they think their curriculum is working for them and how effectively their classroom work contributes to their ability to learn the material and succeed in their exams. Then once you have a handful of acceptances, then you really worry and figure out if the mandatory lectures and the curriculum can work for your learning style.
 
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Goro said:
This is news to me. If anything, more and more med med schools (including mine) are jumping on the TBL train. There's a difference between a TBL and a mandatory lecture.

I think CUSOM has mandatory lecs . Thoughts, @sb247? LECOM and ARCOM students?
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Cusom was mandatory with 20% allowance for skipping

Mandatory should not be a deal breaker if all the other things work for you but mandatory should be viewed as a negative in the pro/con list
 
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For me mandatory attendance would be a deal breaker.
 
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Agreed with one of the posters above!!! I don't necessarily think mandatory lectures should be a completely dealbreaker (especially since you're likely only talking the first two years, and remember too that you'll want to consider the clinical training aspect of the second two years as well!), but I definitely think they warrant a placement on the pro/con list and should factor into your decision if you are fortunate to receive an offer from multiple schools.

I will add that for me, not having mandatory attendance has been 10000% clutch. We do have some labs and some TBLs every now and then that are mandatory, but our standard lectures are recorded and available online. I have loved being able to watch lectures from bed, in a coffee shop, etc - at my own pace, where I can pause and rewind as needed so I get the most out of them in my first pass. Some of my friends still chose to go to all of the lectures, so you still of course have that option if it works best for you even if it's not "required" -- and some people realized that even though they thought they didn't want to go to lectures, the material just piled up so fast that it ended up being best for them to go. Honestly, I do feel that this one was one of the factors that I didn't realize would be such a big deal for me once I was actually in med school.

The other thing I didn't realize I'd love as much as I do is that my school has P/F grading in our pre-clinical years, and it's a true pass/fail, meaning that we are not ranked against our peers (but we do have AOA and honors if you get above a certain average (so there's no limit to how many people can get honors)). This has also been 10000% clutch haha. It has allowed me to invest in other things that I think will make me a great physician (volunteering at our free clinic, spending more time with patients, etc) and not worry about getting a "perfect" score on an exam. Of course, I still work my hardest to learn the material because it will benefit my patients and I want to be the best I can, but I love not having that extra pressure to compete and be ranked against other students. This is another one of those factors that I'd say I've ended up loving but that shouldn't be a "deal-breaker" for you and would just be something to throw on the pro/con list if you're making a decision.

Good luck!
 
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sb247 said:
Cusom was mandatory with 20% allowance for skipping

Mandatory should not be a deal breaker if all the other things work for you but mandatory should be viewed as a negative in the pro/con list
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100% agree with my young colleague. A have a distaste for schools that require lecture attendance. You're adult learners and can best figure out your ideal way of learning.
 
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sb247 said:
Mandatory should not be a deal breaker if all the other things work for you but mandatory should be viewed as a negative in the pro/con list
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Came here to say this. I'd put it towards the bottom in a list of importance at this stage in the game. If you end up with multiple acceptances then it should move up that importance list.
 
If you have options- go with the ones that say no mandatory (and actually mean it)
Definitely ask students when you interview- I would be more than happy to tell candidates all the issue I have with the school but again I probably won’t be the student volunteering to do interview day stuff...

Our school started changing stuff on us 2nd year- made a bunch of stuff mandatory and it was terrible. I would rather have no lecture at all than have mandatory lectures.
The concept of mandatory lectures is just infuriating (can you tell I’m still bitter)
 
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I hardly showed my face on campus second year. It was awesome lol
 
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I think the pass fail grading is overemphasized. My school still does H/HP/P/F and there’s no competition among students or any of the things people talk about happening. I can say with certainty that it has not affected my life in any way, having finished preclinical completely. It depends a lot more on school culture than grading system, which I think is widely underemphasized as an important factor in making a decision.
 
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21Rush12 said:
I think the pass fail grading is overemphasized. My school still does H/HP/P/F and there’s no competition among students or any of the things people talk about happening. I can say with certainty that it has not affected my life in any way, having finished preclinical completely. It depends a lot more on school culture than grading system, which I think is widely underemphasized as an important factor in making a decision.
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It was quite nice not having to worry about getting honors in everything. I feel like my stress would have been much worse worrying about that. Our clerkships are on the honors system though, we’ll see if I up the ante lol
 
I’d like to add that there’s a large group of us, interestingly absent from these discussions on SDN, that love the idea of mandatory attendance; being forced to keep a schedule and show up somewhere every morning. For someone that needs structure, the option of skipping lecture might be a disaster. Bottom line, do whatever’s best for you and your learning style!!
 
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ciestar said:
I hardly showed my face on campus second year. It was awesome lol
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Goals. One of the schools where Im WL gives you extra credit if you make it to like 80% of the lectures tho. I would much rather have no pressure to go to class tho.
 
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dr.grenouille said:
I’d like to add that there’s a large group of us, interestingly absent from these discussions on SDN, that love the idea of mandatory attendance; being forced to keep a schedule and show up somewhere every morning. For someone that needs structure, the option of skipping lecture might be a disaster. Bottom line, do whatever’s best for you and your learning style!!
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I don’t really get this. Why would anyone need to be forced to keep a schedule at this level? Most of us are in our mid twenties and have been going to school for what feels like a gazillion years.
Saying that every single person in a class MUST attend a lecture is equivalent to saying that every person has the same learning style (and or needs someone to micromanage their schedule)

(Sorry it’s not personal, I just hate hate hate mandatory lectures)
 
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MerYangBey said:
I don’t really get this. Why would anyone need to be forced to keep a schedule at this level? Most of us are in our mid twenties and have been going to school for what feels like a gazillion years.
Saying that every single person in a class MUST attend a lecture is equivalent to saying that every person has the same learning style (and or needs someone to micromanage their schedule)

(Sorry it’s not personal, I just hate hate hate mandatory lectures)
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No I totally get that, I should have added that mandatory lecture is definitely not for those that would rather not go to lecture, since obviously in this case you have to go whereas when it’s not mandatory you have a choice. I do find it interesting though that medical school is one of the only professional schools that does this, or maybe I’m wrong? Attendance is expected in other graduate programs that I know of! Either way it’s definitely a personal choice and should be seriously considered when choosing a school!
 
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Med Ed said:
You walk a mile in our shoes
And then you'll know about singin' the blues
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Is your comment geared towards the length of time spent learning? (As in obviously a physician has an extra gazillion years on a measly med student)
Or is it about students being able to maintain a schedule.
 
MerYangBey said:
Is your comment geared towards the length of time spent learning? (As in obviously a physician has an extra gazillion years on a measly med student)
Or is it about students being able to maintain a schedule.
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The latter. While I wholeheartedly agree that adults with strong records of academic success should be able to keep a schedule without prodding, experience says otherwise. A persistent subset of medical students behave not unlike eighth graders, and we catch hell when they bumble into the wards with bad habits fully intact.
 
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Med Ed said:
The latter. While I wholeheartedly agree that adults with strong records of academic success should be able to keep a schedule without prodding, experience says otherwise. A persistent subset of medical students behave not unlike eighth graders, and we catch hell when they bumble into the wards with bad habits fully intact.
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I completely understand that. It comes down to the do we punish the majority to teach the few kind of argument.
 
MerYangBey said:
I completely understand that. It comes down to the do we punish the majority to teach the few kind of argument.
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I guess that comes down to whether one views sitting in a classroom while an expert tries to teach you something as punishment.

Don't get me wrong, I believe every mandatory session not designed around learner needs is a waste of everyone's time.
 
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Med Ed said:
I guess that comes down to whether one views sitting in a classroom while an expert tries to teach you something as punishment.

Don't get me wrong, I believe every mandatory session not designed around learner needs is a waste of everyone's time.
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One has to consider the quality of what’s being presented. Just because an expert shows up to a classroom doesn’t mean that effective teaching is taking place.
 
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