Question For Current UF - St. Petersburg Campus Students

[FSUJD]

Just a little background for you all. I got accepted into LECOM-Bradenton, and I have an interview at UF, for the St. Petersburg campus, in January.

I've visited LECOM-B and understand how they run their branch program; however, I am not 100% sure how the branch campus at UF works. I have read on their website that the students watch lectures on a computer that feed from the Gainesville campus.

My main questions/concerns are:
1. Are there actual lectures and class meeting times or is it all through the Gainesville campus?

2. I've read that exams are given at SPC, but is this the only time that you all meet up?

3. Do you wish that you had attended the main campus to attend live lectures or are you happy with the way everything is set up?

4. Overall, do you feel like you are getting the same 'learning experience/opportunites' that you would get at the main campus?

5. Is there anything that you would like changed at the St. Pete campus?

I am just trying to get a better idea of how the St. Pete campus operates compared to the Gainesville campus so that I can compare apples to apples (LECOM-B and UF-St. Pete).

Thank you so much,
JD

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[owlegrad]

Just a little background for you all. I got accepted into LECOM-Bradenton, and I have an interview at UF, for the St. Petersburg campus, in January.

I've visited LECOM-B and understand how they run their branch program; however, I am not 100% sure how the branch campus at UF works. I have read on their website that the students watch lectures on a computer that feed from the Gainesville campus.

My main questions/concerns are:
1. Are there actual lectures and class meeting times or is it all through the Gainesville campus?

2. I've read that exams are given at SPC, but is this the only time that you all meet up?

3. Do you wish that you had attended the main campus to attend live lectures or are you happy with the way everything is set up?

4. Overall, do you feel like you are getting the same 'learning experience/opportunites' that you would get at the main campus?

5. Is there anything that you would like changed at the St. Pete campus?

I am just trying to get a better idea of how the St. Pete campus operates compared to the Gainesville campus so that I can compare apples to apples (LECOM-B and UF-St. Pete).

Thank you so much,
JD

UF Orlando here. Close enough?

1. There is a campus specif schedule for every distance campus that states when you have to be on campus. There are no live lectures, but you will have to be on campus 3-5 days per week for group discussions, labs, presentations, quizzes, exams, etc.

2. Answered above, no that is not the only time.

3. Extremely happy with how things turned out. My class is very tight, gainesville not so much from what I have heard. The opportunities at distant sites are in many ways better. Would you rather compete with 300 pharmacy student in gainesville for internships and such or 100 students in St Pete? No comparison. Academically you have the same opportunities (honors, study abroad, etc.). I do miss attending lectures, but then I remember that I watch them at double spend, thus giving me much more free time. I have no doubt at all the I would still watch the lecture on my computer if I were a gainesville student.

4. Oops, answered this above.

5. Can't comment.

A few other things:

Be sure to ask these questions to the students while you are there. Get their feedback.

Comparing LECOM to UF is not fair at all. I believe the tuition at LECOM is your first born son, two fatted calves, a blemish-less goat, and a maiden whose virtue is intact. Approximately. Seriously going to LECOM over UF would lead me to believe that you don't understand what money is or how it works.

UF:
Top ten school, top instructors, been around forever, countless opportunities, so many pharmacists in FL are UF grads, etc.

Cheap tuition

LECOM:
Helps you get rid of all that extra money you have laying around?

 

[erin0522]

Random question: Did you get a confirmation email when you turned in all of your UF application parts (Supplemental, profile essays)?

 

[FSUJD]

Thank you so much for all of the insight!

About the tuition situation. It's really weird. According to LECOM-B's policy, I'm listed as a Florida resident; however, for UF, I am out-of-state. I've lived in FL for the past 5 years now, but my parents live out of state which leaves me as an out of state resident for UF. From what I've seen, this would make UF more expensive than LECOM-B.

UF Orlando here. Close enough?

1. There is a campus specif schedule for every distance campus that states when you have to be on campus. There are no live lectures, but you will have to be on campus 3-5 days per week for group discussions, labs, presentations, quizzes, exams, etc.

2. Answered above, no that is not the only time.

3. Extremely happy with how things turned out. My class is very tight, gainesville not so much from what I have heard. The opportunities at distant sites are in many ways better. Would you rather compete with 300 pharmacy student in gainesville for internships and such or 100 students in St Pete? No comparison. Academically you have the same opportunities (honors, study abroad, etc.). I do miss attending lectures, but then I remember that I watch them at double spend, thus giving me much more free time. I have no doubt at all the I would still watch the lecture on my computer if I were a gainesville student.

4. Oops, answered this above.

5. Can't comment.

A few other things:

Be sure to ask these questions to the students while you are there. Get their feedback.

Comparing LECOM to UF is not fair at all. I believe the tuition at LECOM is your first born son, two fatted calves, a blemish-less goat, and a maiden whose virtue is intact. Approximately. Seriously going to LECOM over UF would lead me to believe that you don't understand what money is or how it works.

UF:
Top ten school, top instructors, been around forever, countless opportunities, so many pharmacists in FL are UF grads, etc.

Cheap tuition

LECOM:
Helps you get rid of all that extra money you have laying around?

 

[FSUJD]

Random question: Did you get a confirmation email when you turned in all of your UF application parts (Supplemental, profile essays)?

No, you have to contact them to make sure.

 

[owlegrad]

Thank you so much for all of the insight!

About the tuition situation. It's really weird. According to LECOM-B's policy, I'm listed as a Florida resident; however, for UF, I am out-of-state. I've lived in FL for the past 5 years now, but my parents live out of state which leaves me as an out of state resident for UF. From what I've seen, this would make UF more expensive than LECOM-B.

You're welcome.

Do you know what a UF student and a LECOM student have in common? They were both accepted to LECOM.

 

[FSUJD]

Anybody else with feedback from the St. Pete or other UF branch campuses??

 

[leolanoles]

I'm a 1PD at the Jacksonville campus.

1. Are there actual lectures and class meeting times or is it all through the Gainesville campus?

As previously posted, every campus has a specific schedule as to when you need to be on campus for discussion groups, labs, quizzes, tests, presentations, etc. This semester, I think I've had to be on campus on average 2-3 times per week, but I've heard that it's more like 4-5 times per week in your second year. All of the lectures are recorded live in Gainesville. So the Gainesville students go to lectures, and those lectures are recorded and posted within a few hours.

2. I've read that exams are given at SPC, but is this the only time that you all meet up?

See above.

3. Do you wish that you had attended the main campus to attend live lectures or are you happy with the way everything is set up?

I actually ranked the Gainesville campus before the Jacksonville campus, but I was assigned to the Jacksonville campus. And I am so happy that I was. My class consists of 50 people. I know every one of them by name and could e-mail/text/call just about any one of them if I needed something. We all work together so much, that we're just all close. I've heard that it isn't like that at all on the Gainesville campus. If I attended the Gainesville campus, I think I would have done exactly what most of the students that attend the Gainesville campus did...go to lectures for the first few weeks, then start watching them online just like we do.

4. Overall, do you feel like you are getting the same 'learning experience/opportunites' that you would get at the main campus?

We watch the same lectures, do the same assignments, take the exact same tests/quizzes as the students at the Gainesville campus do. I feel that the learning experience is the same. I also think we have more opportunities because there are less of us.


5. Is there anything that you would like changed at the St. Pete campus?

I can't answer this.

All I can say is that UF did an amazing job at setting up the distance learning sites. It is an excellent school, and I can assure you that regardless of which campus you go to, you will get the exact same education as every other student. The NAPLEX passing rate for first time candidates was 98.01% in 2009 for students that graduated from UF. 50-55 students are accepted to each distance campus per cycle. 150 are accepted to Gainesville. If the distance education students did not receive as good of an education as the Gainesville students, that percentage would be much lower.

 

[owlegrad]

All I can say is that UF did an amazing job at setting up the distance learning sites. It is an excellent school, and I can assure you that regardless of which campus you go to, you will get the exact same education as every other student. The NAPLEX passing rate for first time candidates was 98.01% in 2009 for students that graduated from UF. 50-55 students are accepted to each distance campus per cycle. 150 are accepted to Gainesville. If the distance education students did not receive as good of an education as the Gainesville students, that percentage would be much lower.

Would you mind sharing where you got this info? I am UF COP as well (Orlando), but I didn't see the latest stats. Feel free to post here or PM me, which ever you prefer.

Thanks!

 

[leolanoles]

No problem. Here's the link. If you open the PDF it shows the rates from 2005-2009.

http://www.nabp.net/programs/examination/naplex/school-pass-rate/

 

[FSUJD]

Thank you for all of the great insight leolanoles! I really appreciate the in-depth answers. You have definitely reinforced what owlegrad has already said about the UF distant campuses. This is exactly what I was hoping to hear!

 

[Namishin]

Just to reiterate, I'm over at the ORL campus.

We're much more tight knit at the distance campuses, over in ORL most of us know each other by name and we regularly hang out outside of class. I've actually been to GNV to attend some of the live lectures and there were only about 10 students in class so obviously that's not a big selling point at GNV.

There are certain amenities we obviously give up on: no cafeteria, no school gym, no library, and no free flu shots to name a few. Also, students tend to live much more spread out than if we were all in GNV so it might be difficult to get everybody together at times.

The only thing we've missed out on this year compared to GNV was a community program that pairs you into a team with a med, dental, and nursing student. Instead we were placed into teams of 3/4 pharmacy students. All in all, I love it here

 

[FSUJD]

Namishin - That is really good to hear that the class, as a whole, is a tight knit group. Going to a large university for the past four years, this is definitely something that I have missed.

Thanks for your insight!

 

[owlegrad]

The only thing we've missed out on this year compared to GNV was a community program that pairs you into a team with a med, dental, and nursing student. Instead we were placed into teams of 3/4 pharmacists. All in all, I love it

This is just my opinion, but we are actually lucky compared to our gainsvillian counterparts. They have to coordinate their schedule with those other college's students. I was happy to be paired with classmates instead of those other students.



And this is very minor, but it would be better to say "teams of 3-4 pharmacy students". I am not sure what teams of 3/4 pharmacists are.