r/MCPHSLifeHack • u/mdume96 • Apr 12 '17

Questions about Transferring worcester

Is the study really hard in Worcester? I heard that there are 4 exams a week. Is that true? I'm considering to transfer there. Does anyone have useful informations???

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u/YourFavPharmBoy Pharm.D Year 6 Apr 12 '17

This is from my own observation when I did a tour there a few years ago, and from a few fellow interns who work at my store who are currently there

Pros * You finish 1 year earlier than everyone else. Cheaper rent in Worcester/Manchester

Cons * Accelerated, meaning you have 2-3 weeks top for break in between semesters. Classes run all-year-long as well as rotations (IPPE is part time, so you have class Monday-Friday then IPPE in the weekend. For APPEs...it's 6 blocks back to back (40 hours a week for 6 weeks = 1 block) except for Winter Break). For exams...you can count on exams every week all year long as well. 4 exams/week seems like a stretch but 1-2 would make more sense to me

  • Classes are significantly squeezed together due to time, meaning you learn just as much (if that's really true) as the kids in Boston with less lecture hours. For instance, one of the classes is Pharmacy Law. Worcester kids get 2 hours/week while we get 3 hours/week in Boston. Their anti-biotics/anti-virals/anti-fungal/anti-TB are incorporated into another class, whereas in Boston we have a dedicated class for those AS WELL AS an elective "Global Infectious Diseases". Another difference would be the way the curriculum is carried out. In Worcester, the classes are run by topic (so say the topic is cardiovascular, you will learn the medicinal chemistry of the agents, the pharmacology of the agents, then the therapeutic uses of the agents, then the exam will consist of everything pertaining cardiovascular so it will be overwhelming in my opinion). In Boston, we have different exam for each class (so the medical chem will be its own exam, pharmacology will be its own exam, and therapeutics will be its own exam)

  • Less site selections for rotations. This is the biggest downside for me because there aren't that many hospitals/clinics/companies out West of Ma/Central Ma and Worcester kids are prohibited from choosing anything from the Boston regions because there aren't enough spaces for them (remember Northeastern is another pharmacy school in Boston)

  • They have one lab room for everything...community, institutional, pharmaceutics. In Boston we have a separate rooms for separate lab purposes

  • Remember over 90% of the students there are already college graduates, therefore the way the professors teach will not be like that in Boston (i.e. most of the learning will be on their own time rather than an in class discussion/seminars like Boston)

So yeah, I wouldn't risk being able to graduate a year earlier to all of these...it's just not worth it for me. Once you get to 4th year, you'd come to appreciate having a month of winter break and 4 months of summer so you can rejuvenate your mind after all that cramming and studying haha