Hi everyone,
Again, I stopped receiving news from SDN that there were postings... I will reply soon!!!
Thanks for keeping this up everyone--and PLEASE COME TO ACCEPTED STUDENT WEEKEND, esp. Sunday!! =) If you have feedback on what you'd like to see on the Sunday Funday, let me kno. We have full control.
Heads up that Sat night (after the UCSF sponsored dinners), there'll be a mixer at one of my classmates' places so keep that time free.
UCSF v. UCLA---Arrgg. I will have to flesh this in more on Tuesday. My boyfriend is coming up Monday after our midterm so I promise I'll run everything by him.... Vader and souljah have been doing great. A few quick things
1) curriculum
-they're old curriculum, class 8-5... dissection, etc. they've been working on a new curriculum for quite a while now, and they keep saying they'll instate it soon. Iv'e heard that this year is going to be the year finally--like some have pointed out, it's awesome that UCLA will be putting in an integrated, organ-based curriculum, but it's not good for you to be the first class. Studies have shown that max benefit from new curriculums is reached 3-4 years out.
Now at UCSF, the second years were teh first class. The benefit was the staff was extremely nice and responsive to them, but there were tons of lumps and bumps... and I've heard more complaints about it recently since the "integration block," their last block before cramming for boards had a lot of "we're teaching you stuff we forgot to," rather than true integration... The second years also feel a lot of pressure because the whole world is watching to see how they'll do on their boards--a funny, but obj indication of "if the curriculum worked."
2) ranking
-UCLA does internal ranking all four years, they don't tell you this!
-they're pass, fail, letters of distinction their first two years---> likewise, there is much less cooper, teamwork, and true congeniality within the class. there's more of the "pre-med" mentalitiy and study habits (what's on the test). Here, at UCSF, since we're completely pass fail, we have more time to be invovled in the community, do clinical work, research, and learn what we want to learn that we think will help our training most--rather than what certain doctors want us to know. UCSF is much more liberal with its teaching and allows us freedom and independence
3) classmates
-I didn't want to go into this first, but it's what I feel most strongly about... the student population at UCLA is, on a whole, different from UCSF. I don't want to go into it too much because I'll risk offending and sounding overly bias, but I'd encourage individuals considering between the two schools to spend at least a full day or two with different groups of people, go to class and see how people interact, interact with the students yourself... As one can tell from my short blip, I didn't feel as home, nor as impressed with UCLA students--as a whole, as a whole!! they, of course, have some amazing amazing students... but the aver age is younger--more of the "premeds" in your science classes are there. The air is more, "me me me," then "how can I help the world." now there's a huge confounder in this, but I think it's another argument for why I liked UCSF (dep on if you like it too)--but it's very internationally oriented. So I'm guess what I'm saying ultim is that I felt like there was more variety with the UCSF kids =P (my boyfriend will fight to the death that his classmates are amazing too/even more amazing than mine--tho he hasn't been able to spend as much time up here because of rotation, but he agrees with the diversity)
-UCLA is a lot lot of people's first choice. the enthusiasm and energy is extremely invigorating, and with the youth of the class--it may be stronger than ours in a way... But it's not everyone's. I felt like at UCLA there was a little more of the "I love UCLA, but I'm here because I didn't get into X or Y."
4) location
-SF has true outdoors and culture and varity. it's more down to earth. I suppose to some, LA is a lot more fun--it's definately exciting and glitzy!
-UCLA does have an undergrad campus. but I've heard a lot fo people say, from both schools, that that is overrated because it's not like you interact much. I think since the UCLA med stud group is more homogenous, it's helpful. UCSF is so diverse, and we have so much free-time, I don't feel an imbalance. We have creative writing electives here!
Disclaimer: These observations are from living iwth three UCLA medical students and hanging out with various groups for two years. It's only opinion!! I can tell you that two of the three students I lived with, UCLA wasn't their first choice. One girl ended up loving it, partying all the time, still doing great academically--tho she wasn't sleeping much at all. I can't remember if she got a lot of letters either, but she wasn't too worried because she knows she isn't going into a competit speciality. The other girl hated it, studies all the time (and some of her classmates gave her **** for it--UCLA is one of those, and my boyfriend felt this on rotation too, you study hard but you can't let other know....), getting not too high scores, felt isolated from our classmates as a whole... and she was one of the best from her undergrad instit, defin not a "barely got in" sort of girl. UCLA was my boyfriend's first choice. He went to class only 5% of the time, but was very disciplined and learned everytihng on his own. He likes to poke fun at the classes where the people who didn't go to class did better than those who did, and the admins had to tweak curves so all that went to class would pass. He hasn't been too blown away by his rotation experiences, but that's probably a personal thing.
Also granted... every class has it's own personality. our class and the second years are SO different, and we're at the same school. what each class is, it's interactions, it's composition, it's goods and bads are all you SDNers!!
=) hope this helps. I did end up writing quite a bit!
😍 Bien
dinner w/med students at local restaurants
