DIsclaimer: I'm coming at this from the perspective of a current student with a wealth of anecdotes of 2021-2023 along with some direct information from repeats of 2023.
This program has gone severely downhill with resourcing issues with an inability to adapt to realistically any best practices. Let me do a few Pros/Cons so you can determine. The Pros are self-explainatory. Cons I'll get in-depth on.
Pros:
Competitive Program
Relatively Low Cost for In-State (Florida)
Fairly Open Instructors for Office Hours
Good for Independent Study
Cons:
Forced Attendance - While they don't say that you have to attend, they've apparently reverted from having their TA/Class Sessions available online to essentially forcing students to appear. It has only been one "semester" so far, but there have been more than a dozen incidents where sound/slides are cut off. For TA sessions, they do actually force you to appear as they don't allow for online sessions- any quizzes, questions, etc that the TA may come up with are not allowed to be shared to the students. When the TAs were asked, Management specifically told them they were not allowed to- students were also told not to share information with other students.
Untested Professors - Instructors are a mixed bag. I was informed that in previous years, a prosthetics product engineer (note, not medical professional) was trying to teach the anatomy of the eye. This year had a professor who had clearly not been tested- no show once, unclear lectures/slides, and disconnected prioritization. Why you would hire a brand new professor who openly and vocally dislikes Management is really beyond me. On the other side, you have some professors who clearly have a long history/love for teaching, but are religated to a condensed timeline. Very odd.
Changing Priorities - This goes into the forced attendance bit, but some of the professors, when asked about why they say certain things outside of the set recording times or privately when the other students watching from home can't see/hear- shrugged their shoulders. Some professors are openly vindictive about students who do study online. Apparently this was not how things were a year or two ago.
Astroturfed Issues - We're currently in the middle of the final exam period for the semester. They wanted a full evaluation of all their classes so far... a day before exams? If improving the program was really what management wanted, they would maybe ask after everything is done. Clearly, people didn't respond, and those that did weren't in the mindspace to provide detailed reviews.
Disjunction - This is possibly the weirdest bit for me. TAs are allowed to do whatever they want- but they're supposed to not interact with the Professor in any way that may hint them on what might be tested on. While I understand the sentiment, it creates a weird issue where TAs are supposed to lead students, but have no core idea of what the many different Professors for each subject (note, some subjects have 4 different instructors) and rely on their own experience. While many of the TAs are great and are trying as well as they can, it really is the blind leading the blind. Why management wants to create TA positions for students, but then proverbially leg-sweep them by preventing them from truly understanding, for a fact, what the salient points are is absurd.
Apparently, in previous years, TAs would provide a list of fake questions that they would ask the instructors about. That got shut down because it gave students too much of a hand... by fake testing them- when that's literally all we do for UWorld. TAs still try doing it, but as mentioned way above, TAs are not allowed to provide answers unless you show up in person- and even then, you're told not to share with the others.
I would avoid this program for the near future as many other programs are popping up these days. Pass on this.
This program has gone severely downhill with resourcing issues with an inability to adapt to realistically any best practices. Let me do a few Pros/Cons so you can determine. The Pros are self-explainatory. Cons I'll get in-depth on.
Pros:
Competitive Program
Relatively Low Cost for In-State (Florida)
Fairly Open Instructors for Office Hours
Good for Independent Study
Cons:
Forced Attendance - While they don't say that you have to attend, they've apparently reverted from having their TA/Class Sessions available online to essentially forcing students to appear. It has only been one "semester" so far, but there have been more than a dozen incidents where sound/slides are cut off. For TA sessions, they do actually force you to appear as they don't allow for online sessions- any quizzes, questions, etc that the TA may come up with are not allowed to be shared to the students. When the TAs were asked, Management specifically told them they were not allowed to- students were also told not to share information with other students.
Untested Professors - Instructors are a mixed bag. I was informed that in previous years, a prosthetics product engineer (note, not medical professional) was trying to teach the anatomy of the eye. This year had a professor who had clearly not been tested- no show once, unclear lectures/slides, and disconnected prioritization. Why you would hire a brand new professor who openly and vocally dislikes Management is really beyond me. On the other side, you have some professors who clearly have a long history/love for teaching, but are religated to a condensed timeline. Very odd.
Changing Priorities - This goes into the forced attendance bit, but some of the professors, when asked about why they say certain things outside of the set recording times or privately when the other students watching from home can't see/hear- shrugged their shoulders. Some professors are openly vindictive about students who do study online. Apparently this was not how things were a year or two ago.
Astroturfed Issues - We're currently in the middle of the final exam period for the semester. They wanted a full evaluation of all their classes so far... a day before exams? If improving the program was really what management wanted, they would maybe ask after everything is done. Clearly, people didn't respond, and those that did weren't in the mindspace to provide detailed reviews.
Disjunction - This is possibly the weirdest bit for me. TAs are allowed to do whatever they want- but they're supposed to not interact with the Professor in any way that may hint them on what might be tested on. While I understand the sentiment, it creates a weird issue where TAs are supposed to lead students, but have no core idea of what the many different Professors for each subject (note, some subjects have 4 different instructors) and rely on their own experience. While many of the TAs are great and are trying as well as they can, it really is the blind leading the blind. Why management wants to create TA positions for students, but then proverbially leg-sweep them by preventing them from truly understanding, for a fact, what the salient points are is absurd.
Apparently, in previous years, TAs would provide a list of fake questions that they would ask the instructors about. That got shut down because it gave students too much of a hand... by fake testing them- when that's literally all we do for UWorld. TAs still try doing it, but as mentioned way above, TAs are not allowed to provide answers unless you show up in person- and even then, you're told not to share with the others.
I would avoid this program for the near future as many other programs are popping up these days. Pass on this.
