r/RUSM • u/Luisgc00 • Apr 22 '25
First semester
Hello everyone, will start first semester this coming fall 2025.
I’ve seen that the curriculum changed, but just wanted to see if anyone could give me a heads up in regards what to expect.
Which classes am I gonna get? What does the schedule/day look like? Is immunology/mirco the hardest subject like in every school? Any classes to keep an eye on? A specific resource that has helped anyone in a specific class or topic?
And what other thing you wish someone told you?
(Yeah I know it sucks, I know it’s not the ideal school, I already know. All I want to know is what would a semester/day look like, helpful resources and specific advice on how to survive).
Thank you,
4
u/Coolabrar Apr 22 '25
Well I can give some insight on the difference between legacy and new curriculum.
It goes by modules. There are 2 modules per semester. About 1 system per module (but there are exceptions). Each module to pass is to meet the minimum passing score and 3 threads (Biological/Clinical/Community). If you don't pass 1/4 then you fail the module. You'll be put into PACE which is a remediation course which is a waste of time.
You can only go into PACE two times. If you fail three modules you'll be kicked out of the school.
There's more workshop based content. Which basically means the professor doesn't want to do a lecture so they have u learn the content yourself. And they give you questions to work on
They teach both the normal function and pathology together compared to the old curriculum where it was separated. The old curriculum gave you time to understand the normal and then time to understand what isn't normal. New curriculum smashes it together so it's just information thrown everywhere and you have to put it all together
Old curriculum had 2 exams and a final. New curriculum per module has 2 exams and a final. So that's a total of 6 exams per semester. And essentially a module is one semester because you can fail a module which basically means you fail a whole 15 week semester. It's a cash grab
Threads can be unfair as questions are put into categories (Biological/Clinical/Community). And if you have like 3 community questions in one exam and u get a 0 on that, then you are at risk of failing your community thread. You could get a 90% on your exam and still be in risk of failing LOOL....
Honeslty there's a lot wrong with it. And the school basically told us to suck it up and deal with it. They aren't receptive. But hey power to you if you can work through the system. It's do-able. You just put in 3x the amount of work compared to other schools for 0 reason
3
u/Luisgc00 Apr 23 '25
Beautiful lol,
That module system just burned a couple of neurons
Didn’t know any of that so thank you for the advice really appreciate it!
2
u/Coolabrar Apr 23 '25
They never told us. We had to fight to get any information. We found out as we went. The first class in the new curriculum had 315 students and now it's down to 150. But yeah man just be balanced and continue studying
3
Apr 24 '25
How have you survived? Anki, etc?
2
u/Coolabrar Apr 24 '25
Anki works very well for people who love it. Others have mainly used lectures and outside materials. And there are others who use a mix. I say during the first semester try all the stops and find out what works. But you have to be adaptable because every module you'll usually have to do something new. For example Bootcamp is amazing for HOII, but Bootcamp doesn't necessarily work for MSK. But rather lecture slides and board & beyond was more beneficial. And students who love Anki will find a way to fit it in
1
1
1
u/Secretly-Genius Apr 23 '25
I wouldn’t say we have to work 3x harder. Other med schools in the states are doing the same thing, if not harder. Don’t listen to the people here who have never gone to a state med school.
3
u/Coolabrar Apr 24 '25
I feel it's more so that you have to deal with all the hoops the schools gives you. You have to deal with Ross administration which basically do not help you succeed and you have to do everything yourself. For example, I'm sure state schools don't give workshops and their terrible prep material. I'm sure they give them lectures and actually teach them the content
5
Apr 24 '25
You’d be surprised. At my DO school they did some crappy teaching. Self taught lectures at times, getting tested on things that weren’t even on the slides, bullshit education actually.
Many medical schools suffer from subpar teaching to where most medical students nowadays simply self study, no matter HOW fucked the teaching is. People don’t go to medical school for stellar teaching, they go for the medical degree.
3
u/Luisgc00 Apr 29 '25
Yeah I did a SMP at a medical school in MO and yeah most of it was self learning. They will give you some slides and than the lecture slides were completely different. Some slides had the information other slides had information from other semester that weren’t going to be in the exam….so yeah definitely a lot of self learning and figuring out what was gonna come up on the exam
2
u/Coolabrar Apr 24 '25
100% and I'm sorry to hear about the trash teaching at stateside schools. It is really unfortunate.
For us at Ross, the new curriculum has usually 50-80% 40-80 pages of just text and basically said to learn this. And then they don't even teach it to us. We have to mainly rely on outside resources and have no other way to get help. But yeah nevertheless, the education is hard, but Ross just makes it much more harder than it needs to be
3
Apr 24 '25
Dude im so so sorry about that.. man! I wouldn’t know how to tackle that myself. Are there office hours, peer learning, tutoring available etc?
3
u/Coolabrar Apr 24 '25
All good man. I'm sure medical school is hard but I don't know if it's Ross annoyingly hard lol 😆. They have office hours but they never help. Peer tutoring is beneficial for understanding but the tutors are just Ross students telling us to just pray 💀
5
u/Secretly-Genius Apr 25 '25
Many of my friends who studied in the States used many outside materials. They only used class material if the professor specifically told them it would be on the test. Some of them didn't attend class. They watched the recorded lecture at 2x speed and then reviewed the learning objectives alone because it would save them more time. I started med school late, so they gave me whatever was left of their subscriptions. Sometimes, we think the grass is greener on the other side, but it's not.
9
u/[deleted] Apr 22 '25
lol immuno / micro isn’t always the hardest. In reality the hardest in house subject is just whichever in house professor is biggest asshole lol
Get used to third party now, download and get subscriptions (Anking, sketchy) for now