classssssss is it really this bad???? ahhhhh ur scaring meeee....... is there any positives to this school??????? geeeeezeeee i hope soooo.. they seemed nice when i visited.. i just dont understand.. is it that you all need to take dental labs on top of all the medical school classes, so it is like twice the work?
I just don't see why they would want to fail you.. isn't that not economically the best thing to do? I mean there must be a reason for all these comments.. please further explain because I was very interested in the school until i recently uncover all these negative comments..
Don't freak out. I'm just letting you know what you're getting yourself into. When we entered last year, they didn't mention that 7 people had to repeat until Orientation. It came as a huge shock and surprise. We didn't think that it was going to happen to our class. This is just a warning for caution.
When you graduate from UConn, the school's reputation will precede you. UConn is known as a great school, though there are many flaws to how things are being run at the moment. The administration is aware of these problems and from recent meetings etc, we have heard that they are working to undo some of the problems. Hopefully they will have made changes by the time you come in. Some of the difficulties come from not being able to continue PBL with material reinforcement, exam timing of dental classes and possibly a lack of proper evaluation of the BMS curricula.
To be honest, I don't think that the dental school wanted to fail 7 dental students. It was the medical committee that gave the decision, and the dental school doesn't have any faculty who are 'voting members' on this committee (which might be changing this year). Intuitively, you would think this system doesn't make any sense... which it doesn't.
These are just things that I wish I knew before I came here. Don't freak out though, because like I said before, there seems to be some talks about changing the way they do things because they're concerned about the school's reputation. When you enter, you can still pass... just be aware that it's going to be harder than you've been warned.
At times you may wonder why certain things are the way they are... for instance having PhD's who teach you tiny details that only are relevant to their research... makes you wonder how this will help you in the long run with a pass/fail board etc. You'll have moments when you really question the rules they've created, but just know that you're not alone and maybe they're working on it.
Coming into dental school I was slightly delusional about how wonderful everything was going to be. I thought if I worked hard, everything would be okay. In reality, you can make it though, but you have to play the game. Until you have your DMD, you're either at the mercy of the medical school or the dental school. They do want to help you, but sometimes it may seem like they don't... it could be because they have been so far removed from dental school (as most of the faculty are older white males), dental school was different in their day, the testing system was different in their day... they may not understand how students are now and all the different factors affecting the 'well rounded' student they like to recruit. Whatever it is, things are changing.
You need to be able to evaluate what the situation is, be fair in your evaluation and see if it's something you can deal with. You may not have a choice in the matter, usually... heh. Just remember that maybe 20 or 30 years ago, it was normal to give female students a hard time. Now there are more women than men in the our class. Things change and you're going to have to be careful and learn to adapt... and maybe help promote change (if it's not detrimental to you).
I hope this helps. I'm not trying to bash my school (I will eventually earn a degree from here and represent the school)... I'm just trying to inform students about some things I wish I knew before I came here.
