UMICH curriculum

[saycheese]

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Hello to all UMICH dental students.

Question: I was curious to know what your thoughts were on this IMS (Integrated Medical Science) curriculum based on your experience. I heard it was a recent POSITIVE change and I'm sure they cover all the essentials required. But has it been a good learning experience for you? Your opinions would definitely be better than from the faculty or even students from other schools. thanks for your input.

 

[ahH juliA]

Hello
I would say there are some pros & some cons...

Pros:
everything is integrated supposedly, so there shouldnt' be overlap in material (that means, less class time)
You can see how everything comes together in terms of biochem, micro, and basic sciences, & also see its application to dentistry

Cons:
Administration still working out kinks, so therefore not as organized as should be...
you get a different professor like every week. ( i guess this could be a pro).
We are one of the first years they've tried it on us, so i don't know how well we'll do on Boards & such... but we'll find out in 2 years! 😳)

Hello to all UMICH dental students.

Question: I was curious to know what your thoughts were on this IMS (Integrated Medical Science) curriculum based on your experience. I heard it was a recent POSITIVE change and I'm sure they cover all the essentials required. But has it been a good learning experience for you? Your opinions would definitely be better than from the faculty or even students from other schools. thanks for your input.

 

[Biogirl361]

I agree, I am personally not a fan of the IMS way of learning the material but it does have some theoretical advantages. instead of having 3 exams a week in 5 different classes, it is just one huge exam every 6 weeks or so (which i should be studying for right now!) so in that way it is nice that you aren't constantly studying for an exam. However I don't like it because there is just too much pressure riding on that one exam, for which you must memorize in detail over 1000 slides worth of pictures and information. You have to pass each exam with a 70 or above or else you have to retake it. To me having that much material all coming at you at once makes it extremely difficult to learn it, you just have to memorize and spit back as much as you can, and it's very difficult to remember all of that all at once to do well. In my opinion the questions on exams and quizzes have been quite detailed given the amount of information, not really concept oriented at all. And as was said having a new professor every week can be a little unbalancing at times, though the advantage to this could be that if you don't prefer one professor's way of teaching, you are not stuck with them for very long. It has not been very organized so far, but I think that that might just be an IMS-1 thing for the basic sciences and once we get into more advanced topics like physiology it might be better organized. so yeah, it depends on who you talk to but myself I think i would like the traditional individual classes better at least for the biochem, histology micro stuff like that. i definitly don't feel like i am learning the material as well this way. But I think IMS may be good for the physiology/anatomy stuff, we'll see.

 

[Cyclysm]

instead of having 3 exams a week in 5 different classes, it is just one huge exam every 6 weeks or so (which i should be studying for right now!)

by huge we mean 1100+ power point slides....

i will add one more thing, about exams. since we have six or more professors for any given "module" that means we have six or more people writing their own questions. usually you are able to get a feel for how the professors write their tests, but with so many professors it is tough to adjust, in my opinion. i think the IMS course decreases the overall stress because you dont have as many exams; however, right now everyone in the class is probably pulling their hair out, while pounding liters of coffee or moutain dew.

 

[saycheese]

thanks you guys for your valuable input. :0)