Can you talk about your experience in the program a little more?
Absolutely!
There's lots of questions on the application process, but I'm sure many are interested in what your average day looks like. Things like courseload, military demands while in school, time spent studying, resources available to you from the program, working with your shipmates in the program, MCAT preparation, shadowing time, PT, GMT requirements (annual turkey fryer training
), brag sheets/midterms/evals (since many PO1's just received theirs), CoC for the Navy (are you 5 your own division? Or are all Navy from both cohorts in the same division? LPO/LCPO/DIVO/DH? Are you all considered TAD to GMU from USU for muster purposes?) Support from the CoC while on the program?
1. Courseload starts out light and ramps up. First semester, we have cell structure (which is a bio course mixed with biochem geared towards the MCAT) and lab, physics and lab, and gen chem I with lab. We are on campus every day, but we are only required to be on campus for class. We email muster by responding to a muster email three days per week.
Next semester we have genetics and lab, physics and lab, gen chem II and lab, calc I, and an in person Kaplan MCAT course.
The summer is 8 weeks long with 4 weeks each of orgo I and II.
For breaks, it depends on the break, but we just had a 5 day weekend for thanksgiving.
2. Time spent studying depends on the individual. We are a large cohort (24), so rather than study all together, we have formed smaller groups that study together.
As far as resources, we have office hours with the profs, recitation hours with the graduate TAs, and a tutor who is on campus 2 days per week that we can use. Some people go to all these things, some people don’t go to any. None of it is mandatory.
3. Military stuff: we have to wear our uniform once per week, and otherwise we just have to look like we aren’t homeless and shave.
No mandatory PT, but you still have to pass your prt.
Chain of command is an actual thing, but once you start class, you never see any of them. They have come down here like twice, and they were both announced, planned visits. No one drops in to check up on you, as you’re like 60-90 mins from them.
Your chain of command day to day is your service leader (the highest ranking person in your branch) and your class leader. That’s it.
Only annual training is IA and I think one other NKO, but they give you a laptop with CAC access so that you can do them from home. No safety standdowns or anything.
You do have to do evals. You will get a P. But it doesn’t matter, because they all go away when you commission.
I will say that the CoC from USUHS is as helpful as they can be, but you are far away, and there’s only so much they can do. We’ve had a couple people with issues that took a while to resolve.
4. As far as cohesion, we all work great together mostly. You will find the couple people you can’t stand and the couple people you super click with, and the rest will be people you get along with.
At the end of the day, you are getting paid to be a student. It’s awesome. I’m getting paid E-6 pay with all the benefits to go to school 30 hours per week, and I am going to be a doctor.
The professors do a LOT to make sure everyone is doing well. The program makes it really hard to fail, and essentially the only thing you’re on your own for is the MCAT.
I think cohort 3 had a 100% success rate in officially being accepted to USUHS. We are hoping for the same, but it’s really on you. If you take it seriously and put in the time to study, you will make it.
Those are just a few that popped into my head (sorry if some are silly). But if there is more you'd like to share, I'm sure the many looking into this awesome program would be very interested to read about how the program is structured and what their expectations should be in the event they are selected.
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Let me know if I missed anything!