Rush University Biotechnology Program Class 2020-2021

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JJroxit

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Hey! Starting this thread because the other threads are dated. I just got into the Masters program at Rush University! I was wondering if there is anyone out there that has got accepted too or has/plans on applying. Looking forward to connecting with you all!
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JJroxit said:
Hey! Starting this thread because the other threads are dated. I just got into the Masters program at Rush University! I was wondering if there is anyone out there that has got accepted too or has/plans on applying. Looking forward to connecting with you all!
Click to expand...
I was also accepted a few weeks ago! Are you planning on going?
 
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HEY Guys!
I am a recent grad from the biotechnology program. let me know if you have any questions!
 
veronica11290 said:
HEY Guys!
I am a recent grad from the biotechnology program. let me know if you have any questions!
Click to expand...
Hey! Thanks for reaching out on here. Did you enjoy your experience at Rush? Did you get into your desired professional school? If so, which one? Any tips or things to avoid for the new class entering the program?
 
Doc_DASH. said:
Hey!! I Got accepted and I plan on attending as well.
Click to expand...
Hey! Awesome congratulations! An alumni told me about the facebook group for the past and present students from the program. Just look up Rush University Biotechnology (it's a private group). See you in the fall 🙂
 
JJroxit said:
Hey! Thanks for re-aching out on here. Did you enjoy your experience at Rush? Did you get into your desired professional school? If so, which one? Any tips or things to avoid for the new class entering the program?
Click to expand...

I just graduated this year in April. I am currently in the process of applying to medical school.

I am glad I went to Rush for their program but their are some caveats. We were entering with a completely new administration which caused a few bumps in the road for us. I just hope that they are able to fix them for your class.

They do not recommend working during the program but I did anyways. Just be sure not to mention that to any of the staff or they will jump down your back. It is doable but I only worked about 4-10 hours per week. I know there were other students as well who worked.

In the second semester there is a capstone class that requires you to do research in a lab but you are required to find your own lab so just know that going in. In our class you could either pick a pre-professional class or the capstone. I didn't do the pre-professional but im glad i didnt because I heard some horror stories. The capstone was an easy A because all we had to do was write a 3page paper on the research. You can do both tho. it isn't one or the other.

They pick and design your whole schedule so if you plan on doing other activities make sure it is on weekends only. They will say it is a M-F 9-5p schedule but it is NOT. we had classes until 8p somedays. They use the teamup calendar to set the schedule up for you.
Also even though there may be times where you think you have free time aka make other plans for work, volunteer, research etc those are not open and free for you. Just wait to see how your labs end up going. We were required to come in outside of class time to finish up projects however we were never told that until day before because you weren't able to finish in the allotted time. There were days when the only class we had was lab in the morning but would take so long we wouldn't leave until 9pm.
They run on a weird half quarter half semester system. Some labs were 6weeks long. other classes were the full 12 weeks. others were 8 weeks. 2nd semester is easier than 1st semester in terms how big your workload is. All classes except lab, run on a curve. 85 is an A 70 is B.

If you don't live near Rush I highly suggest living within 30min of it (traffic time). the traffic is so insane in the mornings. classes start at 9am so you can only imagine what its like getting to downtown Chicago at that time. there were several students who would come in at 630am just to beat the traffic. The same goes for going back home during rush hour.
Parking is very reasonable at $40 per month and the gym membership on campus is $27 per month. I had both.

Food in the hospital cafeteria is insanely expensive but its good. study spaces are limited during the day but readily available at night. remember there is a nursing school, PA school and medical school there as well so those spaces can get packed. 24/7 study spaces. I don't say library because their library is very small. but they do have areas with desks and tables.

Try to make an effort to become friends with your cohort. I wish we would have done more outside activities together. I think it was because we were so overwhelmed with how the problems with administration were interfering with our studies. They are your support system and the friends I did make were essential for me to succeed. Work together!!

Make nice with the professors, these are the people you are going to ask letters of recommendations from!!!

Last but not least, stand up for yourself if you feel something isn't right say something. Don't be scared to confront admin when something isn't right. One of the main problems we had was that the admin were also the lab professor which is a huge conflict of interest. So if we had a problem there wasn't anyone to talk to about them because they were the higher ups. This changed immediately however, for second semester neither the dean or the assistant dean taught us again even though they were scheduled to.

I know this is long but I hope it helps. Dont be scared by what I said. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed several things based on our classes experience. If you have any more specific questions just ask. I don't regret going, I would do it again and I still recommend you push through it. In the end you have a master's in 9mos.
 
veronica11290 said:
I just graduated this year in April. I am currently in the process of applying to medical school.

I am glad I went to Rush for their program but their are some caveats. We were entering with a completely new administration which caused a few bumps in the road for us. I just hope that they are able to fix them for your class.

They do not recommend working during the program but I did anyways. Just be sure not to mention that to any of the staff or they will jump down your back. It is doable but I only worked about 4-10 hours per week. I know there were other students as well who worked.

In the second semester there is a capstone class that requires you to do research in a lab but you are required to find your own lab so just know that going in. In our class you could either pick a pre-professional class or the capstone. I didn't do the pre-professional but im glad i didnt because I heard some horror stories. The capstone was an easy A because all we had to do was write a 3page paper on the research. You can do both tho. it isn't one or the other.

They pick and design your whole schedule so if you plan on doing other activities make sure it is on weekends only. They will say it is a M-F 9-5p schedule but it is NOT. we had classes until 8p somedays. They use the teamup calendar to set the schedule up for you.
Also even though there may be times where you think you have free time aka make other plans for work, volunteer, research etc those are not open and free for you. Just wait to see how your labs end up going. We were required to come in outside of class time to finish up projects however we were never told that until day before because you weren't able to finish in the allotted time. There were days when the only class we had was lab in the morning but would take so long we wouldn't leave until 9pm.
They run on a weird half quarter half semester system. Some labs were 6weeks long. other classes were the full 12 weeks. others were 8 weeks. 2nd semester is easier than 1st semester in terms how big your workload is. All classes except lab, run on a curve. 85 is an A 70 is B.

If you don't live near Rush I highly suggest living within 30min of it (traffic time). the traffic is so insane in the mornings. classes start at 9am so you can only imagine what its like getting to downtown Chicago at that time. there were several students who would come in at 630am just to beat the traffic. The same goes for going back home during rush hour.
Parking is very reasonable at $40 per month and the gym membership on campus is $27 per month. I had both.

Food in the hospital cafeteria is insanely expensive but its good. study spaces are limited during the day but readily available at night. remember there is a nursing school, PA school and medical school there as well so those spaces can get packed. 24/7 study spaces. I don't say library because their library is very small. but they do have areas with desks and tables.

Try to make an effort to become friends with your cohort. I wish we would have done more outside activities together. I think it was because we were so overwhelmed with how the problems with administration were interfering with our studies. They are your support system and the friends I did make were essential for me to succeed. Work together!!

Make nice with the professors, these are the people you are going to ask letters of recommendations from!!!

Last but not least, stand up for yourself if you feel something isn't right say something. Don't be scared to confront admin when something isn't right. One of the main problems we had was that the admin were also the lab professor which is a huge conflict of interest. So if we had a problem there wasn't anyone to talk to about them because they were the higher ups. This changed immediately however, for second semester neither the dean or the assistant dean taught us again even though they were scheduled to.

I know this is long but I hope it helps. Dont be scared by what I said. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed several things based on our classes experience. If you have any more specific questions just ask. I don't regret going, I would do it again and I still recommend you push through it. In the end you have a master's in 9mos.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for the information! I going to message you privately cause I have some more specific questions. Good luck with your med school applications.
 
JJroxit said:
Thank you so much for the information! I going to message you privately cause I have some more specific questions. Good luck with your med school applications.
Click to expand...
veronica11290 said:
I just graduated this year in April. I am currently in the process of applying to medical school.

I am glad I went to Rush for their program but their are some caveats. We were entering with a completely new administration which caused a few bumps in the road for us. I just hope that they are able to fix them for your class.

They do not recommend working during the program but I did anyways. Just be sure not to mention that to any of the staff or they will jump down your back. It is doable but I only worked about 4-10 hours per week. I know there were other students as well who worked.

In the second semester there is a capstone class that requires you to do research in a lab but you are required to find your own lab so just know that going in. In our class you could either pick a pre-professional class or the capstone. I didn't do the pre-professional but im glad i didnt because I heard some horror stories. The capstone was an easy A because all we had to do was write a 3page paper on the research. You can do both tho. it isn't one or the other.

They pick and design your whole schedule so if you plan on doing other activities make sure it is on weekends only. They will say it is a M-F 9-5p schedule but it is NOT. we had classes until 8p somedays. They use the teamup calendar to set the schedule up for you.
Also even though there may be times where you think you have free time aka make other plans for work, volunteer, research etc those are not open and free for you. Just wait to see how your labs end up going. We were required to come in outside of class time to finish up projects however we were never told that until day before because you weren't able to finish in the allotted time. There were days when the only class we had was lab in the morning but would take so long we wouldn't leave until 9pm.
They run on a weird half quarter half semester system. Some labs were 6weeks long. other classes were the full 12 weeks. others were 8 weeks. 2nd semester is easier than 1st semester in terms how big your workload is. All classes except lab, run on a curve. 85 is an A 70 is B.

If you don't live near Rush I highly suggest living within 30min of it (traffic time). the traffic is so insane in the mornings. classes start at 9am so you can only imagine what its like getting to downtown Chicago at that time. there were several students who would come in at 630am just to beat the traffic. The same goes for going back home during rush hour.
Parking is very reasonable at $40 per month and the gym membership on campus is $27 per month. I had both.

Food in the hospital cafeteria is insanely expensive but its good. study spaces are limited during the day but readily available at night. remember there is a nursing school, PA school and medical school there as well so those spaces can get packed. 24/7 study spaces. I don't say library because their library is very small. but they do have areas with desks and tables.

Try to make an effort to become friends with your cohort. I wish we would have done more outside activities together. I think it was because we were so overwhelmed with how the problems with administration were interfering with our studies. They are your support system and the friends I did make were essential for me to succeed. Work together!!

Make nice with the professors, these are the people you are going to ask letters of recommendations from!!!

Last but not least, stand up for yourself if you feel something isn't right say something. Don't be scared to confront admin when something isn't right. One of the main problems we had was that the admin were also the lab professor which is a huge conflict of interest. So if we had a problem there wasn't anyone to talk to about them because they were the higher ups. This changed immediately however, for second semester neither the dean or the assistant dean taught us again even though they were scheduled to.

I know this is long but I hope it helps. Dont be scared by what I said. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed several things based on our classes experience. If you have any more specific questions just ask. I don't regret going, I would do it again and I still recommend you push through it. In the end you have a master's in 9mos.
Click to expand...
I tried to send you a message but it wouldn't let me. I think you have a privacy setting where I can't message you personally.
 
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Awesome! Congratulations! See you in August 🙂
 
Got accepted last week but am having second thoughts. 🙁

As much as I love Rush and what the school stands for, a part of me is reluctant to commit because I did not enjoy online classes for my last semester of undergrad (Spring 2020) and personally struggled a lot. The other part of me wants to accept that the virus is here to stay for a very long time, and I should just accept the fact that hybrid/online classes are the norm for the time being. It just sucks because I was super excited to start in the fall but some things are just lost in translation when classes are moved fully online. I personally love getting to know professors and going to office hours; I also feel that during this academic year it'll be especially hard to get to know professors and more specifically, letters of recommendations should I apply to medical school after.

Does anyone feel the same way or have any advice on these concerns?
 
fleetbender said:
Got accepted last week but am having second thoughts. 🙁

As much as I love Rush and what the school stands for, a part of me is reluctant to commit because I did not enjoy online classes for my last semester of undergrad (Spring 2020) and personally struggled a lot. The other part of me wants to accept that the virus is here to stay for a very long time, and I should just accept the fact that hybrid/online classes are the norm for the time being. It just sucks because I was super excited to start in the fall but some things are just lost in translation when classes are moved fully online. I personally love getting to know professors and going to office hours; I also feel that during this academic year it'll be especially hard to get to know professors and more specifically, letters of recommendations should I apply to medical school after.

Does anyone feel the same way or have any advice on these concerns?
Click to expand...
Hey there!

Former BTN Student- Class of 2020

The online learning did suck for me as well because I like going into the physical class. However, there are other ways to interact. You can always reach out to the professors with any questions or schedule a zoom meeting with them. Last semester that didn't really happen because it was so new and we didn't know it would last the whole semester.

If you are concerned about your grade, don't be. Every exam was take home, granted they may have changed things. I wouldn't waste another year to see if MAYBE things will go back to normal. I really wouldn't be too worried about it. The grading is already curved so it won't be difficult to get what you want. I heard labs are still in person, so those are the professors you want letters from anyways. They have many professors for each lecture class so it really wouldn't help you to get close to them when you only see some of them once or twice.

Hope this helps!
Veronica
 
fleetbender said:
Got accepted last week but am having second thoughts. 🙁

As much as I love Rush and what the school stands for, a part of me is reluctant to commit because I did not enjoy online classes for my last semester of undergrad (Spring 2020) and personally struggled a lot. The other part of me wants to accept that the virus is here to stay for a very long time, and I should just accept the fact that hybrid/online classes are the norm for the time being. It just sucks because I was super excited to start in the fall but some things are just lost in translation when classes are moved fully online. I personally love getting to know professors and going to office hours; I also feel that during this academic year it'll be especially hard to get to know professors and more specifically, letters of recommendations should I apply to medical school after.

Does anyone feel the same way or have any advice on these concerns?
Click to expand...
Oh I forgot to mention. You should get your id badges at orientation. So you will have access to the study areas. I currently go there to study and its open. If you have a problem studying at home or need a break you can always go to the school to get away. Remember its 24/7 with badge only access so its very safe and quiet.
Also I will be at Rush on a regular basis so if you or anyone needs someone to talk to or have questions I am available. I find it impossible to study at home so I need Rush to have a safe place to study.
 
Hi, is there a page for 2022-2023?? Also I have some questions for people who already finished the program if they are willing to answer pls 🙂
 
chonkycheeks said:
Hi, is there a page for 2022-2023?? Also I have some questions for people who already finished the program if they are willing to answer pls 🙂
Click to expand...

I got accepted and will be in the 2022-2023 cohort! Does anybody know if the classes will be in person or remote?
 
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