Like, if a first-year medical student’s schedule at This University Medical School has 8:00 Gross Anatomy, 9:00 Pharmacology… and so on, would her peers at the same school all have the exact same schedule? Would it be the same schedule at That University Medical School as well?
What about law? Like does every first-year law student take 8:00 Constitutional Law, 9:00 Contract Law, etc. in the same order as overy other first-year law student?
–Obviously things will be different in later years as the students focus on specific specialties.
In my law school, we all took the same courses in first year, but not all at the same time. We had six “small sections” which re-combined with the other small sections for different courses.
My small section was taught contracts on our own, another small section learnt torts, and so on. Other courses we were in a group with one other small section, in our case criminal, civ pro, public law and torts. Property for some reason was taught in two classes only, composed of three small sections.
Overall, in first year I was with the others in my small section every day on the same schedule, but each small section had its own unique schedule.
We gradually realised that there was one small section that we had absolutely no overlap with, so we invited them to a wine and cheese to get to know them.
In second and third year, everybody chose their own classes, so we all had our own unique schedule.
I’m far, far removed from med school, but I know my med school schedules were quite different from those of my friends who went to other medical schools. Certainly all med schools required anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and more. But the timing of when those were offered varied widely. Some schools had some things first year that others didn’t until 2nd year and vice versa.
I looked at the two law schools here. Allowing for the different names for the same course, it looks like one requires a first year course in Negotiations, while the other requires two semesters in Research.
Dad taught Anatomy at UW-Madison’s Medical School and I remember him saying sometimes he’d get students from other Medical Schools who wanted to take Anatomy sooner than their Medical School offered it.
Also one summer he had a student from some West Coast Medical School who was not happy that their Anatomy class had no dissection lab and could he take it in the summer and dad said sure.
Schools probably differ. The first year of medical school involves various basic science courses applicable to medicine. In second year the courses have a stronger medical focus, “applied science”. After that there are lectures and exams on more specialized clinical medical topics and being a clerk on several subspecialty hospital rotations, followed by general national exams written by all medical students. The details change every few years to adjust for educational trends, such as focusing on patient care and evidence, or incorporating some things earlier in the program, or other changes.
While many classes tend to include most students of that year, there usually are also smaller groups for certain classes and projects, and for teaching clinical skills. I would say experiences differ but not by much in the first two years. However, during clerkship experiences differ because students have different long term goals. Also many students do different electives to learn more about specialties, meet mentors and help decide which residencies they may wish to pursue, and these electives differ substantially.
Not when I was in law school. There were core subjects that every first year law student took, but each lecture was typically given twice a week (one day lecture and one evening lecture) so it was not the same bunch at each lecture, then on top of that each student typically took one to two electives which didn’t necessarily have anything in common with anyone else.
And then there were tutorials for some subjects, which were small groups, so naturally not everyone could go to the same ones, leading to further randomisation of the timetable.
My law school education was much like Northern Piper’s also.
Core subjects in first year, covering the general areas of law (contracts, torts, criminal, etc.), plus a class in legal philosophy and a course in legal research.
There were still a few required courses that could be done in the upper years, as well as electives.
More succinctly, first year medical students would likely have the same schedule for many, but not all, of the classes. Of course this may differ for various reasons including number of teachers, labs and projects, learning clinical skills and small group sessions.
Should mention that my first post was about classes at a Canadian common law school.
At the other law school I went to in Quebec, the law degree is an undergrad degree, and it was just like other undergrad programs. There were required classes in first year, but there were generally two or three options for each of the required classes, so students just chose the class they wanted to take based on scheduling, the prof who was teaching it, and so on.
For example, I originally signed up for a class in Biens (property) with one prof, but switched to the Biens class taught by a different prof. Both were the 100 level mandatory class, just taught by a different prof at a different time.
In that system, there were no small sections and every student in first year had their own schedule of classes.
Georgetown’s law school offers two options for the first year: Curriculum A (a traditional lineup of Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, etc.) or Curriculum B (an interdisciplinary approach where the courses have names like “Bargain, Exchange and Liability” and “Democracy and Coercion”).
Law school at U of Illinois in mid-80s. First year class was divided into 3 sections, and you took all of your courses with your section. Each 1st year took the same classes: Torts, Contracts, Civ Pro, Property…, but not on the same schedule. For example, our Torts prof taught 2 sections. (She regularly told us we were her “bad” class! ) All classes were large lecture format taught by professors, except for Legal Writing and Research, which was taught by TAs in small sections. Because of the arrangement, you got to know folk in your 1/3 of the class much better than the other 2/3.
Our year there was a visiting Contracts prof, and he taught a small section of maybe 30 students chosen randomly from my section. I and my wife were both in that section, which was taught in more of a discussion format.
This was basically my experience. Every 1L took Property, Torts, Contracts, and Civil Procedure in the Fall Semester. One of those was just your small section. The others were a combination of two or three sections. Spring Semester, you took Criminal Law and Constitutional Law (in a combination of small sections) as well as two or three electives (these were open to the entire law school; many people – myself included – took Evidence, but there were no rules other than prereqs). There was also a year-long Legal Writing class with just your small section.
So, I guess my answer to the OP is “not really”. While every 1L took the same courses first semester, they did not take them at the same time or in the same order (or with the same faculty or in classes the same size).
Yeah, it occurred to me after I wrote the thread that the idea of every medical/law student at any one medical school, taking the same classes in the same order, would be impossible. If the entire group of first-year students took Gross Anatomy, taught by Professor Nakamura, at 8:00, what would the other professors be doing with their time?
Research, seeing patients, going to committee meetings, grading papers, mentoring Ph.D students, and more.
At my med school, everyone in the class had the same Gross Anatomy class and lab, all 120 of us. Same for molecular biology, histology, microbiology, etc.
This. It was the same at UTMB during my first two years of medical school (fall of ‘99 through spring of ‘01). We all started with gross anatomy and went on from there.
) All classes were large lecture format taught by professors, except for Legal Writing and Research, which was taught by TAs in small sections. Because of the arrangement, you got to know folk in your 1/3 of the class much better than the other 2/3.