Hi all,
Although the administrators of WesternU may show you guys about how good the program, there are many issues and discontent among fellow classmates about certain policies.
Dress Code:
Although there were tons of discontent in not wanting a dress code and being able to be comfortable studying for 8-10 hours at school or whatever time, Dean Adams has already made up his mind and is set on enforcing a dress code no matter how much the student body fights back. At our town hall meeting (where students meet with the dean to talk about policies), the dean did not give us student a choice of whether we like the idea of a dress code, but gave us an ultimatum that we either enforce the current dress code (with slacks, collar shirt, etc.) or dress like professionals (tie, slacks, etc.). The agenda was already set by the Dean. Although nothing is "set in stone", it pretty much is set. The dean already made up his mind and is just "listening to our concerns" and doing nothing about it.
Curriculum change:
This raises a ton of controversy among the students. This is the first time WesternU has is going to do problem-based learning (PBL). On paper, it looks really good. Good memory retention for students, more full-time faculity, more time to study for boards, less class time, etc. There are a lot of pros for changing it to PBL.
On the flip side, what worries students the most is the fact that this is the FIRST time WesternU is going PBL. USC dentistry went PBL and their students did worse than previous years on boards. With that in mind, Interprofessional education (IPE) currculum was a new course which was based off PBL and that was A COMPLETE FAIL. It was okay if IPE course was a failure because that didn't affect board scores. However, if our PBL curriculum turns out to be what happened to USC dentistry and IPE course, you'll see a lot of pissed off students especially since the old system help results in good board scores. The faculity assures us that the new curriculum is not like IPE. Our faculity also told us the same thing for IPE. To add to this fire, we were told this MAY that we will be seeing a whole new curriculum NEVER done before. This has been a huge shock to the student body, seeing that this is so sudden. However, the administrators assure us that they have been planning to change the curriculum 2 years ago. This raises another question. If they were planning to change the curriculum 2 years ago, then why were the students not informed before they made a commitment to study at WesternU and why tell us in May? Many of the DO2013 class feel like guinia pigs being tested on and majority feel that this is WesternU trying to cut back on their cost by reducing faculity and decreasing class time. However, each year, the tuition is raised by 5%. It is glaring obvious that our tuition is going towards us.
Class size:
For those who expected a class size to be 220 students per professor, think again. The DO2014 class will share classrooms with dentistry, DPM, and Optometry for majority of their classes with some exceptions. So you are looking at a student to teacher ratio of 500:1. Feels like college when it shouldn't be. Good luck trying to study w/ that ratio. However, this ratio holds up till anatomy. When you begin MCBM, the class size will die down because most students will not show up to class. But however, that can definitely affect how well you do in anatomy and in the long run, it can affect how you do in other courses since anatomy is like the fundamentals to medicine. Recommendation: DO THE ISAC PROGRAM!
I apologize if I offended anyone in any matter, but this is the real deal, not sugar-coated in anyway that students DO2013 at COMP is facing. These are JUST A FEW issues, there are WAY MORE.
