Alright friends, I’m going to try to reply to what everyone said/asked in order. If I forget something just remind me:
@ang
so I was looking at the course map and apparently lots of things have changed. You have to take a statistics and a civic discourse class your fourth year? Are you serious? What the hell is that even.
So when I started school, it used to be that if you were a biology major then you automatically had to have fall campus year 4 for the whole micro lab thing. Which @UMKCRoosMD, I had no idea that they take the regular micro now for biology major. We had to take 300 level micro and micro lab. Oh how I wished I didn’t have to take micro 300, that class was so tedious.
Anyways, I guess things are different now so you are not guaranteed anything in terms of of choosing a major anymore. Also remember, not everyone can get summer or spring campus, we still had BLA people get fall campus because they have to divide it up evenly: 1/3 do summer, 1/3 do fall, and the other 1/3 do spring.
What I would do, if were you, is this: you have to play tricks with UMKC to get what you want, but it totally works.
- Minimize the number of credits you need to take year 4: I came in with chem credit (5 on AP chem got me out of chem 211 and 212 and both labs), apparently you can now get credit for bio 108? That was not a rule for us, might wanna look into that, cuz just taking bio 109 will free up a science slot for one of the semesters. I took AP US history in high school and got a 5 on that test so I got to credit out the constitution requirement, and I studied for a weekend and took a CLEP test for Psych and got out of that requirement as well.
- After you have maxed out all of your requirements, see what you have remaining before you enter the program or after your first semester. Then start taking classes that are supposed to be taken in year 4 ,early so you can minimize what requirements you have left for year 4. Summer campus is reserved for students who only have 3-5 max credit hours left. (this is an unstated rule not published anywhere). If you have more, they try to give you fall or spring campus.
- Here is when the trick comes in: take they classes that are ONLY offered in fall campus early and leave classes are only offered in either spring campus. Also make sure that the requirements that you have left for year 4 are offered during the summer. You can search all of this stuff on pathway, just do it for the current academic year. That way you will have a couple things going for you when they are deciding who gets summer campus: A. Minimum credits left to graduate. B. courses only offered in fall are already done. C. everything that you have left is either offered in summer or spring.
- Don't be afraid to max out all of your credit hours early in your enrollment. I took 22 credit hours each semester in fall and spring of year 1 and fall of year 2. It was hell but if you get summer campus, totally worth it.
- Honestly this sounds stupid, but students in my class who were more proactive about getting summer campus from the beginning did actually get it. So don't be obnoxious and ask your ETC, hey lets work on this starting right now. Just research stuff on your own and then start requesting your ETC to take things early and stuff. It helps a lot, trust me. Especially since you wanna do international electives.
Again this is just a observed method and trick. Please don’t blame me if you don’t get summer or spring campus.
International electives. So if you want to do the school of medicine ones…there are only a few options that I know of:
- Graz austria music and medicine class - everyone who goes says its amazing as eff. You can’t be in summer pharm, again so it helps not having fall campus, but basically you are take it when you are on either semester. Spring campus it is easier to take because its treated like an elective during the summer, if you are on summer campus, the ETCs help figure out some way for it to count as one of your undergrad humanities credit.
- Honduras medical mission trip - global medical bridgades, this is a week long and they first ask everyone who wants to go, and then they pick the week everyone is on vacation, so its not that big of a deal.
All the other international electives you have to set up on your own. We have lots of people go to india, some cool students who set up their own electives in haiti, in south america, in kenya. You just have to figure it out for yourself, and find the month where you can go and UMKC will accommodate that into your schedule. You just need to make sure that you have lots of electives Year 5. Which again, having summer campus helps.
Basically if you don’t get it by now: summer campus is the answer to all of your problems. They get to go to the best electives, they have greatest number of elective months and all around the best schedule. If it sounds like i’m super jelly of them, that’s because I am. But only 1/3 of the class gets its, and there is no set way to get around it so be proactive about it.
Top 3 things you need to know
- Be savvy and proactive early: take classes strategically to get yourself summer campus. As an older year, have a plan of exactly what you want and request to your ETC when they plan to place you in your year 3 teams that you wish to not have doro during the summer because you want to do the international elective (make sure it is in the summer, it was for us).
- get involved early: its easy to be like I have 23 credit hours, I go to class like all the time, I want my weekends, but the med school has clubs that are super undergrad heavy: APAMSA comes to mind. Its probably too early for you to go to interest groups, mainly cuz if I saw you there as a year 1 I would be like wtf, too soon bro. Start as a third year or when you are in HSF to explore the interest groups. But start volunteering at Sojourner Free health clinic. They have a clinic every sunday except holidays, so going once a month is enough. If you don’t like them, go to the Kansas City Free Eye Clinic. Both are great community service clinics, and the earlier you get involved the higher your officer position will be when you are a fifth year and want to apply. Get involved with GlobeMed on UMKC campus, that is also full of younger students.
- Study hard and don’t get lazy: the more As you have earlier, the easier it becomes if you mess up a later class to still have a decent GPA. But don’t go crazy, do work that you need to do to get an A, but don’t kill yourself to get a 100. Relax and enjoy the relatively easy going attitude at the program. Most of the students in your class will be people who work hard and play hard.
Support staff:
They are excellent and will try to help you as much as they can. Yes a lot of times they won’t be the ones who are like: yes lets get you that summer campus. You have to be more proactive and tell them what you want, if they say I don’t think anyone has ever done that before, find examples of older years who have so they can make it happen for you, etc. Also don’t be annoying and piss them off, be nice even if you don’t get what you want. UMKC is a small community at the medical school, and they all know you. Being cross with someone early means, not getting elected for AOA later when they choose 4 out of your class to nominate because they don’t like you.