more information on schools?

[post-bac premed]

I feel I have a pretty good handle on what a lot of the schools have to offer as far as academics and facilities. My question for those of you who have visited or attend is what about your lives outside of school? I suppose I'm wondering about outdoor activities, social "scenes", athletics, the city/town in general.
So, if you know anything about UMDNJ, WUHS, NSUCOM, AZCOM I'd love to hear! Sell me on your school!
To give you an idea of what I might be looking for: matriculate at 28; SWF; like the culture cities have to offer (lived in Pittsburgh, Madison, Boston, Charlottesville, London); very active; love the outdoors (run, bike, crew, kayak); not big into really LOUD and smokey clubs/bars.
Also, can someone tell me about Touro? Talk about location, WOW! But then I research online and it seems like it is littered with some frightening chemicals!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the advice/information!!!!

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[ez073323]

Touro and Western are the bomb even though they both waitlisted me...

I will elaborate on my opinion this evening...

Brian
[email protected]
AIM: ez073323

 

[maysqrd]

Don't misintrepret what I posted about the lead at Touro. The school is NOT littered with chemicals. The school is located on Mare Island which was a government military base for the last 100+ years. This means that some of the buildings on the island (not necessarily the ones that the school uses) are VERY OLD. The last time they were painted, many of them had lead in the paint. The island developer knows which areas have this and which areas don't. They (meaning the island developer, not the school) knew the lead levels in the Farragut housing was too high for children and they should have never let anyone move into them if they knew they were just going to tear them down. If you don't know a lot about lead paint than basically it comes down to this: clean it up and it costs $$$$$$, do not disturb it and you are usually fine but people can't rely on children to leave it alone so that is why no children were not supposed to be in these houses. It was cheaper to tear down the houses than to fix them and the island developer could make more money by building new houses and selling them.

As to the soil, again ONLY CERTAIN AREAS have any issues but the island is BIG (bigger than the town that I currently live in as far as square miles) and it would be impossible for them to police what everyone does or where everyone goes so they simply made a mandate that no one disturb the soil in order to cover their behinds from law suits. The school itself does not have any of these issues in the school buildings, they have all been remodeled and the reason for even testing the dorms was to make sure that there was not any problems with lead paint left because that place has been remodeled probably 20 times or more over the last 100+years!

 

[post-bac premed]

My comment was actually not in direct response to anything you had said, maysqrd, but information I found online.

"Over 140 years of operations, various activities at Mare Island NSY generated hazardous wastes including: metal plating; lead acid battery repair; oil handling and reclamation; abrasive blasting; discharge of contaminated waste water to Mare Island Strait; landfill disposal of solvents, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contaminated fluids, asbestos, and other hazardous wastes; disposal of contraband and miscellaneous ordnance, and murcuric substances; the detonation of projectiles, war-heads, and high explosives; and overhauling nuclear powered submarines. "
http://www.fas.org/man/company/shipyard/mare_island.htm

I would certainly hope that no one would construct a medical school anywhere that was deamed unhealthy, to say the least. However, seeing information like that which I posted above makes me at least want to find out a little more.

From reading other posts, it seems that many students only go to the island for class and avoid it otherwise. Vallejo was described as being a pretty "rough" city. So where do you all go for FUN? San Fran seems too far to venture all that often.

Thank you for your opinion! Keep it coming!

 

[LukeWhite]

Postbac,

Of the schools you mentioned, I was most impressed with AZCOM (which I'll matriculate at this fall.) Most of my knowledge has to do with that gem of Glendale, AZ (just barely beating out the International Bead Museum) and Nova.

I live about five minutes from Nova at the moment. As a lifelong midwesterner, I haven't been impressed by the area. I suppose South Florida is attractive to some, but the traffic is awful and the city rather homogenous. If you thrive on the beach I suppose it would be a lovely place, but otherwise leaves something to be desired. The school seems lovely, though.

I was thrilled by AZCOM. Phoenix is a spectacular city...very modern, very clean, with straight roads surrounded by mountains and desert. Complete solitude and vibrant city life are in close proximity. Glendale is a fairly nondescript suburb, but quite close to Phoenix proper. It's a great city for the young, which certainly was a draw for me.

I wish I had more to say about Phoenix. Though I haven't had the pleasure to live there yet, I've been very impressed by my visits. Where else can you find a mountain to hike in the middle of town? The overall geography is great also. It's a reasonable distance from skiing in the mountains, Las Vegas in the north, Los Angeles the west, and nearly daytrip-distance from Mexico. There are quite a few big telescopes in Arizona too; while I can count all the stars here near Nova within two minutes, it's a different story once you're an hour outside of Phoenix.

Probably not too much new information, but I hope it helps!

 

[ez073323]

Originally posted by post-bac premed
From reading other posts, it seems that many students only go to the island for class and avoid it otherwise. Vallejo was described as being a pretty "rough" city. So where do you all go for FUN? San Fran seems too far to venture all that often.

Postbac,

From my research, the students that live off campus only go to the island for class/studying... there basically is nothing else on the island other than the school... SF is definitely not too far away to visit often... it is only a 20 min drive sans traffic, and I live an hour and a half from SF and I roll out there all the time... With respect to where one would go to have fun, a better question is where wouldn't you go... Drive north on I-80 and you will hit the slopes with plenty of rivers and camping along the way. Drive south some and you can enjoy an evening at Dave and Busters...

You should come out and visit Nor Cal... you will never want to leave!

Brian

 

[luckystar]

D & B!!! Now that's a fun place...

 

[post-bac premed]

Wow! I love this forum... The information I'm able to gather here is so much more practical than anything the school sanctioned websites offer.

Thanks Lukealfredwhite for sharing. And contrary to what you said, it IS new information to me--And really helpful! I have never been (yet!) to Arizona, so anything to help create an image is appreciated! It is probably the lack of water (no kayaking?!) and heat (guess no mid afternoon runs...) that scare me a bit.

As far as TUCOM is concerned, you definitely put things into perspective for me, Brian. I do agree that there are lots of possibilites around Vallejo, but being unfamiliar with the geography I wasn't sure if you all had enough time as students to really access these places on the weekends. I do love SF! Nice to know that you get there as often as you do.

Again, keep the info coming!

 

[LukeWhite]

I'd been worried about the lack of water also. Being in the middle of the desert just has that...dry...sound to it. If kayaking's your thing, though, Arizona's definitely tolerable, though it's no Carolinas. The Grand Canyon is fairly close to Phoenix, and there are a few other decent runs:

http://www.nationalrivers.org/states/az-view.htm

The frontier feel of the place once you get outside of Phoenix is great. What other website would warn caution by saying, "Much of the area is controlled by Apaches"?

Midday runs would seem to be a casualty of the area, though every time I've gone to Phoenix I've been amazed by how fit people were. I've never seen a city with so many people exercising so regularly.