Mawell:
Yes, there are a surprising number of relationships going on. Three people are married, quite a number have boyfriends and girlfriends from before school started and -- get this -- seven couples have formed between classmates. That strikes me as alot for a class with 97 people in it!
As far as casual dating goes, Allied Health students are sometimes mentioned as a nice way of expanding one's horizons. The physical therapy students are considered especially desirable, from what I've heard. The proximity of UNC Chapel Hill also guarantees a steady supply of new faces for those who seek them.
psyc.lover:
From what I can tell, Duke's curriculum must hit the highlights rather than compress two academic years into eleven months -- otherwise we'd all be dead. It's hard to say, because I don't have a real basis for comparison. We do tend to move at a rather fast pace, but this seems to be the case at every other medical school as well. I was completely terrified of the pace before I started. I remained terrified for about two months, and then began to relax. From then on, everything was fine. Really.
The day-to-day pace is really not bad at all; the most tiring part is simply that it doesn't end: you cram for one exam, write it, and then have to start thinking about the next one. It's been a looooooooooooong year. What makes it worth it is being able to actually see how that knowledge works on the wards next year.
To answer mawell's earlier question about how much we study, it varies enormously. I tend to do little if any work during the week -- for me, going to class and paying attention is work enough. If we don't have a Monday exam, I'll spend maybe five hours over the weekend reading and making notes. If we do have a Monday exam, both days are devoted to studying, morning until night -- though I always take the end of Sunday evening off to take a bath, eat some ice cream, read a murder mystery...
Other people work harder during the week and then not so hard on the weekends, and there are plenty who never go to lecture at all but watch them on video later. I know someone who does most of his studying the night before a test (he stays up all night), but then again, some poor souls study all the time. It really depends on how you learn.
