I am currently accepted to Penn State and waitlisted at USUHS, but I’m trying to decide between them now so I know if I should move forward with housing, etc. I love both of them and need some outside opinions.
Penn state is my alma mater. I love the aesthetics of the hershey campus, the pbl component (I don’t do great with just lecture), and the strong humanities emphasis. Plus I will likely see a greater volume and scope of patients than I would at any military treatment facility. Cost isn’t a significant issue because I will be HPSP. Hershey is overall much cheaper than Bethesda, but I’ll be 2 hours away from my spouse (not a terrible commute but also not ideal).
USUHS is less flashy but still has solid facilities, good sim center, and really cool operational medicine experiences/rotations that I’d definitely miss being at a civilian school. It’s traditional lecture, which kinda sucks, and cost of living is higher. The big pros are that my spouse will be going to USUHS so we’d obviously go to school together and live together, and I would get paid about 40,000 more at USUHS then I would be making at Penn State.
Long-term we plan to have a career in military medicine and leave whenever we feel the time is right to pursue civilian medicine. I’ve always dreamed of being in the military and serving operationally (not just be a doctor in uniform). However, the medical curriculum at Penn state just seems so much better suited for my little adhd brain. Ugh
Penn state is my alma mater. I love the aesthetics of the hershey campus, the pbl component (I don’t do great with just lecture), and the strong humanities emphasis. Plus I will likely see a greater volume and scope of patients than I would at any military treatment facility. Cost isn’t a significant issue because I will be HPSP. Hershey is overall much cheaper than Bethesda, but I’ll be 2 hours away from my spouse (not a terrible commute but also not ideal).
USUHS is less flashy but still has solid facilities, good sim center, and really cool operational medicine experiences/rotations that I’d definitely miss being at a civilian school. It’s traditional lecture, which kinda sucks, and cost of living is higher. The big pros are that my spouse will be going to USUHS so we’d obviously go to school together and live together, and I would get paid about 40,000 more at USUHS then I would be making at Penn State.
Long-term we plan to have a career in military medicine and leave whenever we feel the time is right to pursue civilian medicine. I’ve always dreamed of being in the military and serving operationally (not just be a doctor in uniform). However, the medical curriculum at Penn state just seems so much better suited for my little adhd brain. Ugh
