UT Southwestern Class of 2012

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midn said:
Anyone here know about the international rotations during fourth year? I want to do something in India, but preferably in Uttar Pradesh. The current elective available for India is in Bangalore which is too far from the family I want to be close to. Apparently there are independent programs that you can apply to in order to get international rotations, but I haven't found a good source for them. Anyone know?
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Whoa talk about planning ahead. :eek: I wouldn't give whether UTSW has this sort of program any weight in calculating where to go to med school of that's what you're trying to do.

There's a large interest in starting an organized international program to answer questions like that so if your interests haven't changed by then you'll definitely have answers.
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finality333 said:
Most Las Colinas apartments are not >$1000, i have visited a few. The price range i saw for 1 bedroom, 600-700 sq ft., was $650-$800. The deal is good but the distance is not....:(:mad::mad::thumbdown:

I went on rounds the other day and the students felt that med park was satisfactory. Better deals existed elsewhere, but nothing could beat medpark in convenience, especially 3rd year. However, only about half had lived or currently live in medpark. One of the students lived 25-30 minutes away and didnt seem to mind it too much. Another student had moved into medpark, moved out, and moved back in for 3rd year. When i asked about medpark none of the students seemed to have negative facial reactions or comments.

So, obviously as you can tell because i didn't really take a side: I AM STILL CONFUSED, MORE THEN I WAS ON SOME OF MY MCAT VERBAL PASSAGES:confused::boom::banana::boom::boom:
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Hahaha o no! I personally wouldn't live in med park because I like feeling like a normal person and not a student. If you don't mind living within blocks of the school and around hospital staff and students you'll like it. For some people those things are the big pros. I'd say maybe 30% of the first year class lives there. There's not a whole lot to say about it really, it's a pretty typical apartment complex. No real stigmas or raves.
 
sprinkibrio said:
Whoa talk about planning ahead. :eek: I wouldn't give whether UTSW has this sort of program any weight in calculating where to go to med school of that's what you're trying to do.

There's a large interest in starting an organized international program to answer questions like that so if your interests haven't changed by then you'll definitely have answers.
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I'm just trying to look forward to something :). I know by the time I start 1st year, I'll have forgotten all these things and just be busy with trying to do well.
 
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Anyone get registration info for the MS0 program yet?
 
TheLesPaul said:
Not yet. Prolly they'll do it after match.
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I havent heard anything either, but I bought my ticket for it already. I figured itd be cheaper that way. I'm coming a little further than most of you, though, and waiting a few weeks would have been a couple hundred dollars in price increase.

Just food for thought if you're definitely going.
 
i'm an ms1 at utsw. all this studying the past few weeks has made me reminisce about being a pre-med, so i thought i'd contribute my two cents in the form of some mildly-relevant impressions. i used this site a ton, so i guess it's my duty :)

first the two big pros: cost and the college system. i'm an out of state student and i turned down some private schools and my own - more expensive! - state school to come here. the amount of tuition we pay is absurdly low, and i think it will give us a lot of flexibility when it comes time to choose a career path. this is such a huge pro. don't discount it. cost DOES matter.

the college system is also really great. my group mentor is very good about emphasizing the big picture, and that's really important when bogged down in the nitty-gritty of taking tests and grinding out one low grade after another :) he is an amazing guy, and it's a real privilege to have two hours of his time every week.

now, the cons. utsw is very, very traditional. we go to lecture (well, some do, i don't :)), study, and take multiple choice exams. it's great in allowing me to choose how i want to study, but i'm not really sure i'm getting any "added value" or something special compared to other schools. most of the faculty really don't seem to care (anatomy is a big exception) - very poorly written syllabi, inane lectures, etc. i've compared what we've learned to what my friends back home have learned, and it's very similar. i guess i knew that medical school curriculums were highly standardized, but it's something else to see it in action - "high ranking" really only matters in terms of research opportunities, imo. parkland was also a selling point for me, but as an ms1 i'm not really in a position to judge whether that was a valid sentiment.

this traditional approach extends to grades. i work pretty dang hard and i have not even come close to sniffing an A. i consider myself a reasonably talented person with pretty good test taking skills, and it's been a new experience for me to walk into the testing room and know that even though i've mastered the majority of the material, i have no chance of scoring well. my friends at home work about as hard and have pretty close to straight As. i have no idea how this impacts residency applications - the admin here of course says it doesn't, for various reasons - but we'll see.

and now for something i really don't have any complaints about - the student body. this is not a bunch of gunners, really and truly. no one will cut you down. they may - and probably will - outwork you, but they will not cut you down.

well anyway, i don't know if the anonymous observations of someone you don't know will affect your decisions, but i know that these sorts of subjective comments - taken as a whole - did help me last year making a choice. i hope they help you a little.

i'll check back for questions i guess. back to physio!

cheers.
 
Great post biggoron! Just out of curiosity, biggoron...like the sword?
 
biggoron42 said:
this traditional approach extends to grades. i work pretty dang hard and i have not even come close to sniffing an A. i consider myself a reasonably talented person with pretty good test taking skills, and it's been a new experience for me to walk into the testing room and know that even though i've mastered the majority of the material, i have no chance of scoring well. my friends at home work about as hard and have pretty close to straight As. i have no idea how this impacts residency applications - the admin here of course says it doesn't, for various reasons - but we'll see.
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I'm curious, but why is that? Do the tests scrape for the nitty-gritty details? Is lots of reading outside the syllabi expected/required? Is the Biochemistry curve that steep? Or is it just that you thought you had mastered the material, but not really? It just seems a bit unfair (and has me a bit concerned,) the way you describe it.
 
You can rsvp for the MS0 day from the check inteview status page: here is the link

https://sws002.swmed.edu/medapp/index.asp

Not sure why they didn't tell us about this...maybe i discovered this a little bit earlier then they wanted me too lol :D:D But i went ahead and rsvp'd yesterday night
 
Monarch Kong said:
Great post biggoron! Just out of curiosity, biggoron...like the sword?
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hahah, once upon a time, a boy in 8th grade decided to come up with a screen name, and after much deliberation, settled on the name of one of his favorite characters from his favorite game evAr. fast forward 6, 7 years, that boy still hadn't grown up, and picked the same lame sn for an online pre-med message board.

nice avatar, btw :)
 
Sol Rosenberg said:
I'm curious, but why is that? Do the tests scrape for the nitty-gritty details? Is lots of reading outside the syllabi expected/required? Is the Biochemistry curve that steep? Or is it just that you thought you had mastered the material, but not really? It just seems a bit unfair (and has me a bit concerned,) the way you describe it.
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well, let me first say that yes, some of it probably is that i think i've "mastered" it and haven't really; obviously some people are getting As with regularity.

the biochem curve was pretty tough, but that isn't the hardest class we've had this year. even the non-curved classes, the faculty here know how hard to make the tests and where to place the break-points such that the grades do approach a curved distribution.

i've heard that dr. gilman, the dean, is a big proponent of this grade distribution, and i guess this indirectly means that the tests must cover minutiae - otherwise how can hard-working, relatively smart students be separated from one another? i know that was the complaint that people had about our cell bio test last week. we'll see how that turns out!

but again, i don't know if this sort of tough grading hurts that much. something i didn't know that was covered in a talk we were given is that histograms depicting the grade distribution of each class are included in all medical school transcripts right next to the grade you got. now whether residency programs actually take the time to look through all that crap, i don't know.

and no, no reading outside the syllabus, what's in it is plenty! :)
 
biggoron42 said:
well anyway, i don't know if the anonymous observations of someone you don't know will affect your decisions, but i know that these sorts of subjective comments - taken as a whole - did help me last year making a choice. i hope they help you a little.
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wait...i thought that the school preference rankings were already due? if we've been accepted into SW and put it as our first choice, doesn't that automatically mean we've declined any other acceptances (both pre-match and post-match)?

god i hate this system. so freaking confusing.
 
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newsnsareapain said:
wait...i thought that the school preference rankings were already due? if we've been accepted into SW and put it as our first choice, doesn't that automatically mean we've declined any other acceptances (both pre-match and post-match)?

god i hate this system. so freaking confusing.
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Yes, but that's only for TMDSAS acceptances.
 
I'm trying to plan a trip abroad for the month of July. Does anyone know when our classes will start in August? I know the saturday/sunday before there is orientation.

Last year it was 8/16, I'm wondering if they historically stick to this date (as in start officially on the 2nd week of August).
 
biggoron42 said:
now, the cons. utsw is very, very traditional. we go to lecture (well, some do, i don't :)), study, and take multiple choice exams. it's great in allowing me to choose how i want to study, but i'm not really sure i'm getting any "added value" or something special compared to other schools. most of the faculty really don't seem to care (anatomy is a big exception) - very poorly written syllabi, inane lectures, etc.
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I'm an MS4 that recently matched in neurosurgery. I'm actually a California transplant but I must say that I'm very proud to have gone here for med school. I actually found the MS1/MS2 lectures and syllabi to be very good overall (with a few exceptions). At the very least, they are structured; this is something you will not find when you start wards and go beyond because later tests will demand a much broader knowledge-base that is not concisely summarized in a book. The shelf exams, despite being standardized, are a whole new world of frustration and unpredictability. On the other hand, MS1/MS2 exams here have almost always been based solely on the content in the syllabi (and in the cases where there were extraneous questions, they're usually thrown out). You get lectured by some real top-notch experts in the biomedical sciences and Parkland clinicians. It's difficult to appreciate it until you realize how prominent the lecturers are in their respective fields (if you have a question, they WILL be able to answer it to the best that any other leading authority can).

Bottom line, I think the MS1/2 didactic years are very well-done here. They get continuously audited and improved each year. I know most of you are probably attracted here for the Parkland experience but I would argue that the first 2 years here are also appreciable in their own rights. Congrats to those of you who choose to come here; I think you're lucky and you'll have a great time here. I probably met some of you who came to do 2nd looks on medicine wards; I don't remember your names but I wish you well nonetheless.
 
Thank you for the positive note, i can come out from under my bed now. lol seriously all this talk is was freeking me out, but others have done it and so will we. Common guys it can be done...well neurosurgery is a longshot lol...but we can do this....yeah!!! now i feel a little better.:D:D:D:eek: Any more MS opinions and advice would really be appreciated!
 
finality333 said:
Thank you for the positive note, i can come out from under my bed now. lol seriously all this talk is was freeking me out, but others have done it and so will we. Common guys it can be done...well neurosurgery is a longshot lol...but we can do this....yeah!!! now i feel a little better.:D:D:D:eek: Any more MS opinions and advice would really be appreciated!
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Hmm.. my best advice on doing well would be to ask MS2s what the tests are like and what is emphasized. Some classes focus more on memorization (cell bio) others on problem solving (genetics) and others on concepts and equations (physiology). Some classes will be relatively easy and some extremely hard depending on your strengths and background. Hard work usually pays off as does solving the puzzle of what's going to be most important.

Biochem was hardest for me because I hadn't had much college biochem and because I was still generally adjusting to med school.

The other thing you'll have to do is weigh free time to school time. Sometimes taking the time to workout, hang out with friends, and make yourself happy will be more important than boosting your grade... I'm talking do you want to devote 8 hrs/day to school time or 10. It's probably hard to grasp right now, but those two hours of personal time could be worth getting a B over a B+. Sometimes you don't have a choice anyway, your brain will just decide to quit for you! LOL.

Make it a goal to do as well as you can, but also to stay true to yourself. Maybe the person who can't study 10 hrs/day because they hate it so much shouldn't be a neurosurgeon because working 12 hrs/day will make them unhappy, ya know?
 
:D:DI've known for a while and I'm pretty sure most of you guys too because utsw doesn't really do the match but I had that great tingly feeling reading the official match results. anyway it'll be great to get to know you guys for the next four years.
 
Have any of y'all RSVPed for the MS0 event yet? I have and I am stoked. I'm excited to meet possible classmates and learn a little more. The start date is so damn far away this will be a nice weekend to tide me over until August.
 
I'm going. Lookin forward to it and meeting y'all. Maybe even find a roommate. And an apartment. :D
 
I'm definitely going. Can't miss the free food.
 
cybersushi27 said:
I'm an MS4 that recently matched in neurosurgery. I'm actually a California transplant but I must say that I'm very proud to have gone here for med school. I actually found the MS1/MS2 lectures and syllabi to be very good overall (with a few exceptions). At the very least, they are structured; this is something you will not find when you start wards and go beyond because later tests will demand a much broader knowledge-base that is not concisely summarized in a book. The shelf exams, despite being standardized, are a whole new world of frustration and unpredictability. On the other hand, MS1/MS2 exams here have almost always been based solely on the content in the syllabi (and in the cases where there were extraneous questions, they're usually thrown out). You get lectured by some real top-notch experts in the biomedical sciences and Parkland clinicians. It's difficult to appreciate it until you realize how prominent the lecturers are in their respective fields (if you have a question, they WILL be able to answer it to the best that any other leading authority can).

Bottom line, I think the MS1/2 didactic years are very well-done here. They get continuously audited and improved each year. I know most of you are probably attracted here for the Parkland experience but I would argue that the first 2 years here are also appreciable in their own rights. Congrats to those of you who choose to come here; I think you're lucky and you'll have a great time here. I probably met some of you who came to do 2nd looks on medicine wards; I don't remember your names but I wish you well nonetheless.
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you make a lot of good points. at the very least you have way more knowledge of the place than i do, and a better appreciation of what gets evaluated when applying for residencies :)

i'd just make a quick point:
there is no doubt that the teaching faculty is renowned - they've won medals and awards and probably have very impressive diplomas hanging on their walls - but i don't think renown is a good measure of a person's ability to teach. i think teaching is more about inspiring students, being excited about the subject, etc. and i don't think i saw much excitement from the lectures i went to (granted, i've stopped going :)) my best teachers in undergrad probably weren't considered to be renowned in much of anything, but they really seemed to live their subjects, and in turn got me really excited to be in class each day. maybe people will say that's not the role of teaching and learning in medical school, that it's more about just having vast loads of information thrown out, and maybe that's true. if it is, i think it's a sad state of affairs and a bad comment on the culture of medical school. i've found some subjects we've studied to be very interesting, but unfortunately the excitement i feel learning about these subjects seem to be in spite of the faculty rather than because of them. i guess time will tell.

there have been exceptions - the anatomy faculty, several biochem professors - but why can't excitement be the rule? i guess that's what happens when seemingly the entire department is forced to be a part of each course. the syllabi - i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. but the cell bio syllabus was one of the worst things i've read in the english language :)

ok, that wasn't a "quick" point, but maybe the people reading this thread will find something of interest in that mess :)

p.s. i hope i don't come off as someone bitterly denouncing the school. i'm a bad student, granted, but i just want to lay out some of the concerns about the environment here in a reasonable way ;) i'm still happy to be at a place as famous as this one at a price as low as the one i'm paying.
 
I'm tentatively going to MS0! Is anyone else driving there the day before? 9am is so early...I'd probably end up falling asleep if I drove the morning of haha :p

also, i need some advice. for those of you who've done research before, what do you do if you get more than one response / invites to a mini-interview after requesting to work in their lab? i emailed about 10 professors, not really expecting a response, but 2 of them responded that they wanted to meet / talk to me about the research. If I talk to one, does that mean I'm committing to his/her lab? Should I reject the one I'm less interested in before talking to him, or after? And when I do have to choose, wth do i say?

i don't know about you guys, but a more refined version of "oh uhhh thanks for spending the time to talk to me and stuff about your lab, but i actually said yes to another one even though i requested to be in your lab in the first place" feels reaaally awkward to me. Would it be rude to tell them that I'm also looking into other labs at the time, and ask for a couple of weeks before I make a decision?

advice, plz?! thanks :)
 
newsnsareapain said:
I'm tentatively going to MS0! Is anyone else driving there the day before? 9am is so early...I'd probably end up falling asleep if I drove the morning of haha :p

also, i need some advice. for those of you who've done research before, what do you do if you get more than one response / invites to a mini-interview after requesting to work in their lab? i emailed about 10 professors, not really expecting a response, but 2 of them responded that they wanted to meet / talk to me about the research. If I talk to one, does that mean I'm committing to his/her lab? Should I reject the one I'm less interested in before talking to him, or after? And when I do have to choose, wth do i say?

i don't know about you guys, but a more refined version of "oh uhhh thanks for spending the time to talk to me and stuff about your lab, but i actually said yes to another one even though i requested to be in your lab in the first place" feels reaaally awkward to me. Would it be rude to tell them that I'm also looking into other labs at the time, and ask for a couple of weeks before I make a decision?

advice, plz?! thanks :)
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I have the same question. :)
 
I'm not going to the MS0 since I got a last-minute interview invite to St. Louis. I can't miss two weekends in a row.

Tell me if there are any hotties :).
 
newsnsareapain said:
I'm tentatively going to MS0! Is anyone else driving there the day before? 9am is so early...I'd probably end up falling asleep if I drove the morning of haha :p

also, i need some advice. for those of you who've done research before, what do you do if you get more than one response / invites to a mini-interview after requesting to work in their lab? i emailed about 10 professors, not really expecting a response, but 2 of them responded that they wanted to meet / talk to me about the research. If I talk to one, does that mean I'm committing to his/her lab? Should I reject the one I'm less interested in before talking to him, or after? And when I do have to choose, wth do i say?

i don't know about you guys, but a more refined version of "oh uhhh thanks for spending the time to talk to me and stuff about your lab, but i actually said yes to another one even though i requested to be in your lab in the first place" feels reaaally awkward to me. Would it be rude to tell them that I'm also looking into other labs at the time, and ask for a couple of weeks before I make a decision?

advice, plz?! thanks :)
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If you got any Medical School rejection letters, you can use one of them as a template:

"I interviewed with many qualified labs and it was very tough to pick from a pool of such qualified professors, but I regret to inform you that I have no space for your lab in my life...."

Something like that?
 
Sol Rosenberg said:
If you got any Medical School rejection letters, you can use one of them as a template:

"I interviewed with many qualified labs and it was very tough to pick from a pool of such qualified professors, but I regret to inform you that I have no space for your lab in my life...."

Something like that?
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that would be so frickin' hilarious. you should definitely go for it. of course, i wouldnt be the one alienating professors i might be working with in the future. so i guess its up to you.
 
Anyone else get an email from someone at UTSW asking about MS0 day housing situation?
 
skyes said:
Anyone else get an email from someone at UTSW asking about MS0 day housing situation?
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No, I didn't. Most likely because I live in the DFW area already. Did the email give you housing options for the weekend?
 
I think that one of the questions on the second look invitation (where you had to select an answer) was whether you will require housing accomodations. If you selected yes, you probably got a follow up email.
 
theunremarkable said:
No, I didn't. Most likely because I live in the DFW area already. Did the email give you housing options for the weekend?
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It wasn't so much options as it was asking about which nights, allergies, gender preference, etc.
 
Congrats to all the newbies at UTSW. Just wondering if they told you last year's USMLE Step 1 Score average for the class. Thanks for any info.
 
Tentatively MS0. Now I can legitimately post here... or not, because I definitely won't be in the class of 2012 anywhere I go:(

Would appreciate info regarding step one average as well:)
 
about research; PI's here are pretty used to students rotating in and out of their labs, i would definitely not feel indebted to any lab just because they took time to talk with you. it's a pretty friendly atmosphere here; just do what you want. ms0 day has a research panel session where you can hear more about this kind of stuff from current students.

also, to address a previous poster, i agree that some but not all the syllabi here could use some work (i.e. cell bio, maybe path) but what i really wanted to stress was that i think coming to class is a generally good experience that you can't replicate; just the whole concept of a standardized didactic experience is something that will deteriorate as you get to your clerkships
 
Sol Rosenberg said:
If you got any Medical School rejection letters, you can use one of them as a template:

"I interviewed with many qualified labs and it was very tough to pick from a pool of such qualified professors, but I regret to inform you that I have no space for your lab in my life...."

Something like that?
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haha that would be so pimp. "The alienation stays with her all day. It's great."
 
If you guys have down time during MS0 weekend, definitely ask about Whirlyball
 
For any MS 3/4's who are kind enough to venture a reply... I'd like to know a little about this experience, I would appreciate any details... especially how intense the night call is (are you heavily sleep deprived? :sleep:)

Thanks!
 
Hi guys, I'm a MSII and will give you a couple of my thoughts. I thought all of the first year sylabus' were fine except genetics. Some were perhaps overly verbose but, I did not do any outside reading; though wikipedia will be your new friend. For me biochem was very easy. A matter of memorizing and applying. However, others did not like it. I worked harder in anatomy. Second year is more difficult in the sense that you are held responsable for larger amounts of information and the tests require you to pull together ideas more often (like the boards, supposedly). As for last years step score I heard we were higher than everyone but Baylor and above UTMB by two points (and UTSW encourages everyone to take the step on time and doesn't tell people to postpone the boards because they are concerned that they may not perform well and thus pull down the average like another school in the state does...this other school is NOT BCM). Also live someone where you are going to be happy even if it cost marginally more. Uptown is 10 minutes from campus with traffic compared to 5 from med-park where i lived last year.
 
Hey guys hows it going. Quick/maybe stupid question about MSO day. Is it a casual kind of thing, semi-formal, or what. My ability to always be over/under dressed at events demands that I ask this question. Thanks.
 
Hey Guys,

I am having a hard time to decide on my living situation wheter to get my own place or stay at home to save money. I will be going to UTSW next year and my family live about 30-40 mins away depend on traffic. My parents are going to let me convert the study in my house into my own study. Any advice would be much appreciated
 
abesha said:
Hey guys hows it going. Quick/maybe stupid question about MSO day. Is it a casual kind of thing, semi-formal, or what. My ability to always be over/under dressed at events demands that I ask this question. Thanks.
Click to expand...

seriously, go as casually as you want.

realmadridstorm said:
Hey Guys,

I am having a hard time to decide on my living situation wheter to get my own place or stay at home to save money. I will be going to UTSW next year and my family live about 30-40 mins away depend on traffic. My parents are going to let me convert the study in my house into my own study. Any advice would be much appreciated
Click to expand...

I'd say try it out first and if it doesn't work out you can always move. Much of the first year doesn't require attendance anyway so it's not like you'll need to be close to school. I know a lot of people who commute from that distance everyday and seem to okay with it.
 
realmadridstorm said:
Hey Guys,

I am having a hard time to decide on my living situation wheter to get my own place or stay at home to save money. I will be going to UTSW next year and my family live about 30-40 mins away depend on traffic. My parents are going to let me convert the study in my house into my own study. Any advice would be much appreciated
Click to expand...

Current MS4 here.
This question really depends on how crazy traffic makes you. I couldn't stand having to drive that far in every day, so I'm glad I live really close. If you think the drive wouldn't add more stress than it's worth, then that's fine. But I would strongly discourage staying at home into your clinical years. Driving that far home after a call night (if they haven't cut those out for students completely by the time you get there--this place is getting weak) would be more dangerous than driving home drunk.
 
MedGoatTX said:
Driving that far home after a call night (if they haven't cut those out for students completely by the time you get there--this place is getting weak) would be more dangerous than driving home drunk.
Click to expand...

Has this been a topic of discussion at UTSW? Just wishful thinking or has there been talks of cutting this?
 
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