Guest Tousie Posted May 31, 2004 Report Share Posted May 31, 2004 Hi there, I was wondering if anyone would be willing to give me a little insight on what curriculum is like at UBC. I am thinking of buying a laptop (a little splurge I've been wanting to do for a while) but was hoping for some advice. Would it even be useful to lug a laptop around at school or is it mostly textbooks and lecture notes? Another reason I am looking at a laptop is because I will be going back and forth between Vic and Van on weekends. Will I always be using my computer when studying and are there lots of electronic references, either software or web-based, that I'd be able to take advantage of? Finally, Mac vs. PC (and I mean in the context of med school life, not in terms of which may or may not be superior to the other... ) Thanks! Tousie:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest depump Posted June 1, 2004 Report Share Posted June 1, 2004 Hi everyone, I thought I'd pop an e-mail to the med students here too considering I will be a fellow dent student for next year with you fine folks, we share many of the course work together. I was mainly curious for the amount of time we spend at the VGH in our first year and what kinda commute time we are looking at. Thanks, and congrats to all of you that have been accepted!! :smokin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted June 1, 2004 Report Share Posted June 1, 2004 Hi there, A laptop is not really necessary. You'll have access to computers and high-speed internet at both UBC and VGH. A cool perk to having a laptop is that most of the UBC campus is now WiFi-enabled, and free for UBC students. So, if you have a laptop, you just throw in your WiFi card, and you have wireless high-speed internet access from your laptop. With that said, there's no need for a laptop during PBL, and paper lecture note handouts are provided at the start of every class, so you don't need the laptops during lecture either. Where I do think a laptop is absolutely invaluable is during clinical electives away, and during residency interviews (because you can use your laptop with a dial-up account to get internet access from anywhere, thereby allowing you to: book flights, check weather reports, check email, book interview dates and times, keep in touch with friends and family, find and book hotels and shuttles, get car rentals/taxis, etc). Of course, none of those happen until either Med 3 or Med 4. I did fine without a laptop during the first 3 years of med school. I did have a desktop, and would consider computer access of some sort essential. If you don't already have a desktop, and see yourself commuting back and forth a lot, a laptop might work as a desktop-replacement. Your classmates will probably receive CD's of lots of textbooks (ie. Harrison's, Merck Manual, Up To Date, etc) from upperclassmen, which you can, ahem, take advantage of. UBC also assembles a list of online resources pertinent to each PBL week, although I never used them, preferring to use and find my own set of online resources. We don't use Macs at all at UBC, so get a PC, unless you're one of those wierd Macintosh freaks that thinks they're too good to use a PC. Med 1's are minimally-based at VGH. In fact, as dental students, the only two times you should ever be at VGH is for Clinical Skills, which is only one afternoon a week, and for the occasional Pathology lab, which might be once a month. Usually, you can car-pool with other med/dental students, since you'll all be heading there simultaneously from UBC. Also, when I did Med 1, Clinical Skills only started in January (there's something else called Communication Skills, which runs from Sept.-Dec, but is held at UBC), and Pathology labs also start in January-Feb, once you hit the organ-systems months in PBL. So, your total time spent at VGH is probably no more than an afternoon a week, starting in January. In Med 2, PBL and lectures are held at VGH, so you'll be there a lot. Commute time from UBC to VGH is around 10-15 minutes, depending on traffic. There's also free shuttles running back and forth, although they have limited capacity. The 99 B-Line bus drops you off right outside VGH on Broadway, and will be free since all you Med 1/Dent 1's will have a UPass. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tousie Posted June 2, 2004 Report Share Posted June 2, 2004 Hi Ian, Thanks so much for all the info!!! It was really helpful! Since getting my letter I feel like my mind has gone into over-drive with all these questions! Good to have the Mac vs. PC question answered! My bf is rather... "dedicated" to his ibook, so he keeps trying to lure me down that path!:lol Tousie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest depump Posted June 2, 2004 Report Share Posted June 2, 2004 Hi, thanks for the info as well! Ian, you are so helpful to all of us. I just have another few questions for anyone out there to answer. We all know how expensive it is for books and how useful some of them are. So I was wondering, do professors who do end up asking us to reference material from text provide reference pages from old editions as well? How available are the course text at the UBC campus library? And finally, with the tuition being so high, I'm sure many of us would love to know the photocopying services provided by the campus. So yea, just basically, is it possible for us to be thrifty? =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeff Douglas Posted June 2, 2004 Report Share Posted June 2, 2004 Does it apply that med students will also only be at VGH for 1 afternoon a week? In Med 2 how many days do med students spend at VGH? How much time is spent away from campus for Family Practice in Med 1? Will we need a car to get to the offices? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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