I sit 2 rows behind ELBuccinator in class and agree It's really nice to be right in the middle of the undergrad/medical campus. Most dental schools are isolated from their affiliated universities and aren't in the most desirable parts of town. There's lots to do in Columbus, I wish I would have gone here for undergrad when I could have enjoyed it more.
More Pros...
I find it really nice that we have a very outgoing and cohesive class, even after 10 weeks of school everyone seems to know each other pretty well. For example, right after the 1st anatomy exam, 60 of us (out of 108) spent the afternoon at the Mad Mex happy hour. Classmates are more than willing to help each other. This may not seem like an important deciding factor, but right now we are in the middle of finals week and have realized its impossible to memorize every little piece of information. My classmates have posted several really good study guides for every final making this week much less stressful and more manageable.
Students are held to extremely high standards by faculty in preclinic classes and upperclassmen feel they have above average hand skills when entering the clinic. I guess every dental school will tell you that, but it does seem to be the case here. After only a few months in clinic, my housemate got to extract an impacted wisdom tooth in the OMS dept. Also, every specialty is represented including one of the only accredited dental anesthesiology programs in the country. It's pretty cool to be in the same building as one of the most respected medical and research facilities in the country (OSU hospital and James Cancer research center).
CONS
Dress code. It's just as stupid as their way of enforcing it. Even during summer, shorts aren't even allowed in class because the classrooms are technically part of the CoD. I feel like an undergrad freshman again constantly threatened with being "written up". But I think there are more important factors to consider than dress code when picking a school.
http://dent.osu.edu/OAA/student_affairs/dresscode_2010-2011.pdf
The basic science curriculum is outdated. Not so much what we are taught, but how it's presented. I'd prefer a block schedule or systems approach like what a lot of schools are adopting. This didn't factor into my decision to go here because it really only applies to non-dental classes.
The building is old. The preclinic labs and patient clinic are dated and sometimes stuff doesn't work. I don't believe that this affects the educational experience at all, it's just an inconvenience. We still have access to and can be familiar with high tech and modern equipment. Unfortunately, the new dean (who I'm not a huge fan of) wants to build a new dental school building, so they won't be doing any renovations. By the time he jumps through all the hoops to get that done, all of us will have graduated, but I'm pretty sure I can still be competent when I graduate without having had my own flat screen in a state of the art preclinic bay.
Feel free to message with any other questions. Overall, the good outweighs the bad. I'm just at the end of my first quarter so I'm sure I'll find many more reasons to love and hate this place.
Any questions -- feel free to message me!
