Is this what you expected? As in is this what was explained to you at your interview?
I had no idea that they we going to change to this structure for our 2nd year -at least for the basic sciences. I don't know if any of the other students did either. I knew it was a system based learning model, that was really stressed during the interview and was one of the reasons I choose the school.
We first found out about this the end of our 1st year. Apparently they had been watching the progress of a few schools who also did this model. The vets at Western have been doing this model since the beginning and apparently they kill their boards. It was a shock to us that they were changing it, but I think it was mostly a welcome shock. They explained that the new method would get rid of the more "nice to know" material and focus on the "need to know" material.
Why are students unhappy? Is it because they for some reasons had other expectations?
Some students are not used to the "no lecture" idea. But I think the biggest complaint is that there seems to be a lack of direction on what to exactly study for the exam. Not only do we have the actual cases to study, but we are given readings in Harrison's, sometimes journal articles, and also most of the faculty members have a primer that goes along with the case. It's a lot of info to go through, especially if there is not direction on what to focus on. This also varies by system, as each system will have a different course director with a different style.
For example, we had a cardio exam that the director put out a study guide on what to focus on. We killed the exam -average in the high 80s. We just finished an exam in respiratory last week. Different course director, no hints as to what to focus on. The DO average was 68%! They usually nail around an 80%. I won't mention what our average was (we take the exact same exams).
Most students are used to just focusing on what was presented during the lecture. With those gone, we need something else for direction.
Things will change for the better though. It's as much as a learning curve for the faculty as it is for us. No teaching method is perfect and some students just like to complain no matter what. Personally, I like the new method as I find the stuff "sticks" more.
I think the majority of student also do like the "new" style, the biggest complaint is with the difficulty of the exams and lack of direction. It will change though, the shared curriculum faculty and the podiatry faculty are well aware of student concerns.
Will this cost us on the boards? I don't think so one bit. If anything it is over preparing us for the boards -especially for the NBPME (APMLE now). Myself and a few classmates went through the practice exam on the NBPME website and about died looking at the question style and content. Very basic style questions compared to what we see on our exams (mostly 2nd order, case based, some 3rd order).
Has administration changed anything for the 2nd overall class (2014)?
PMP has changed significantly, mostly due to our feedback. But that is about it. Basic science classes will be the same for them -1st year lecture style covering micro, immune, anatomy, etc, and 2nd year case based systems. Hopefully they will have better direction on study material though. However, the DO students (class of 2014) have switched to a pass/fail system. I don't think CPM has though -I know they have flirted with the idea.