Saturday, August 05, 2006

FAQ #3: Is It Too Claustrophobic Having Such a Small Class?

What I think this question is getting at is whether a class of 32 is too small to have a good social life. I'd have to say that overall, no, I don't think that this is a major problem. In terms of finding good social opportunities, that is entirely up to you. There are some people who spend a lot of time hanging out with fellow classmates, and some people who don't. Some people hang out with the UP students, and there are a bunch of them. If you want to find friends from outside the CCLCM program, it's pretty easy to do that. The Case medical school building is only about a mile away from the LRI. And there are lots of other graduate and professional students around; Case has a law school and a dental school too.

What tends to happen is that people just kind of gravitate toward others with like interests. There are a ton of student groups on both campuses, and it's easy to find like-minded people just by joining one or two of those groups. And then a lot of times a few people decide to do something and invite everyone else. A lot of us eat lunch together in the CCLCM student lounge, and there are plenty of parties and impromptu get-togethers. Actually, I think that the hard part is having to turn down some activities that sound fun because I just don't have time to do them all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

First off, I just want to say that as a wannabe CCLCM student, I am really enjoying reading your blog. I hope you keep finding time to post occasionally once things kick into high gear in September.

As a suggestion for a future FAQ, perhaps you could discuss what your typical day looks like. It's clear that you spend 2 hours in the mornings of M, W, & F in PSSs, F has a one hour journal club, and T seems to have been a didactic seminar thus far (though the booklet I have from CCLM indicates it's going to become labs at some point). It's not so clear what you do with the rest of your time. How much is spend doing research? How much reviewing PSS and seminar material? How much doing readings and studying? How much is spent doing assignments?

You might want to wait a while before answering that sort of question since you're only 3 weeks in. And I imagine that in September everything will change so maybe you'll want to do a comparison.

Otherwise, I hope that your weekend was enjoyable!

- Who M.D.

CCLCM Student said...

You've got the general gist of the schedule for the summer research block, but I will post a more detailed schedule for you soon, and then I will do it again after the next block starts. I'm glad you're enjoying the blog, and good luck with applying! We were sent an email about hosting interviewees last week---they're going to start interviewing next month.