After a post about Pritzker being in a bad area, I was just curious as to how far away from school one could live and it not affect classes? I’m sure the first 2 years are a different story than the last two as well. Thanks!
No takers?
This was a question my husband asked since we live within 1.5 hours of 8 medical schools and 2-2.5 hours from 2 others.
Obviously I’m not in the application process this year, but will be next, and we like to see what our options could be.
Thanks.
Although “some” folks do it (living anywhere from 45-2 hrs away) I would assume that it is extremely difficult to live a long distance away. Of course this will be better or worse depending on IF you have classes ALL day (8-5) or not…so if you are only going to have class for 4 hrs/day then it might be more doable…it will also depend on how FAST you pick up material and this will vary individually. Some folks only need minimal time and others need a lot and you will not know which category you fall into until you hit medical school because how you fared in undergrad will not have much bearing in you assesing this…the material in medical school is very voluminous and most of it is pure rote memorization…
Because Washington is a big metropolitan area with horrible traffic, I considered myself to live about an hour from my campus at GWU. In fact, I timed it - if I took the Metrorail, it was an hour door-to-door. For classes, I thought this was fine. I could study on the train OR I could use that as my “down time” and read the paper or a book, as long as I was using all my other “free” time to study.
For my clinical years, the commute actually was sometimes shorter, and sometimes longer, for two reasons. First of all, rotations were at several different locations throughout the area. This meant that some were just 20 minutes away. Others were even MORE than an hour, which I have to tell you pretty much sucked, but what are you gonna do? However, the “good” thing was that you have to be at the hospital so dang early that you weren’t in rush hour traffic and therefore the hour to GWU that I experienced to get to an 8am or 9am class, was 25 minutes at 4:30am.
I think an hour and a half from school is too far. You will want to be more efficient with your time than that.
Mary
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After a post about Pritzker being in a bad area, I was just curious as to how far away from school one could live and it not affect classes? I’m sure the first 2 years are a different story than the last two as well. Thanks!
My brother lived pretty close to his medical school, close enough that he could pop home on a whim. It saved him a lot of time. He even went home to use the bathroom sometimes, so he wouldn’t have to “listen to some other guy’s problems”. Hmm maybe you didn’t want to know about that
It does seem like lots of med schools end up being in “bad” areas. Once you’re in, you may want to consider moving closer to school or perhaps rent a room.
I used to commute 90 minutes each way and it permanently cured me of wanting to drive long distances. It’s hard to imagine such a long commute in med school; as Mary says you can study if you’re on public transportation, but otherwise you’re just eating into your sleep time cause you still gotta study!
Sorry to ramble; I just finished a Kaplan full length MCAT practice and I’m kinda punchy!
I live about 40 miles (~hour commuting time door to door) from my med school and I have a couple of classmates who are commuting even farther than that. In my case, I am driving, not using public transportation, so I don’t get to use that time to study. Sometimes, however, the drive serves as valuable “decompression” time. I also occasionally pick up an sudio book - its a way to enjoy my favorite past-time reading without feeling guilty.
I would investigate closely the schedule of the school you are commuting to before committing to driving more than an hour and a half one way. Like someone else mentioned - if you have classes to be at from 8-5, having to spend another 3 hours a day commuting is going to severely limit your study time. There is also the financial strain of gasoline and wear and tear on your car.
If you do decide to commute a large distance, you will want to make plans for places to stay if the weather is bad, you have a late night/early morning combo or even just to stay the night before a test, so you can be better rested and not take any chances on not making your test ontime.
Tough decisions, I know.
We have a fair amount of (optional) class time but all lectures recorded as MP3s, so many of our student parents just stay home to study and save the commute time. Really depends on the class schedule and whether you can do this “correspondence” thing.
The people who are OK with longer commutes tend to be people who are really OK with getting up at 4-5 a.m. to get to school in a snowstorm for an 8 a.m. exam or mandatory class. I would be very unhappy trying to do that. I did a long, early commute in a previous life and learned that I am miserable doing that.
The closer the better, in my opinion. It’s only 2 years of classes.
These are all interesting views. I already drive an exhorbitant amount for work every day, so commute isn’t a problem. It would be nice though to have a cheap place rented for those “just in case” times such as exams, storms, etc. Your answers give us a little perspective!
THANKS!
The long-distance commuters for MS1 and MS2 had the hardest time with 1st-year anatomy, where most people have to physically be in lab for many extra hours in order to learn the material. You can get by with a photo cadaver atlas only if you’re a particular kind of learner. Planning ahead for those long days in first semester is really helpful, and having the option to not have to spend 1-2 hours driving when you really need the study time.
Also, if you’re looking at a curriculum with a lot of PBL/small group sessions, expect many more mandatory hours at school. This can also shove your commute right into the worst parts of rush hour.
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The long-distance commuters for MS1 and MS2 had the hardest time with 1st-year anatomy, where most people have to physically be in lab for many extra hours in order to learn the material. You can get by with a photo cadaver atlas only if you’re a particular kind of learner.
I agree with the anatomy thing. I think I ended up going to campus only once on a weekend for TA hours in the lab. It sounded like a great idea, but when I thought of the two hours I would spend driving, it ended up not being the best use of my time. Instead, I planned any extra time in lab around when I was already going to be on campus, in the afternoon or evening after classes.
It definitely depends on the learner, though. I spent very little time outside of scheduled lab times in the anatomy lab and did fairly well on the practical exams. The practical exam I did best on, I didn’t spend any extra time in the lab. For me the key was learning the relationships of structures. I used three key online resources that have actual pictures of cadavers - UMichigan’s anatomy website, SUNY Downstate’s anatomy website, and Netanatomy.
With those three resources and my atlas, I got really comfortable at being able to identify structures on cadavers as they would most likely be presented on the practical. I didn’t really find the practice practicals we did to be all that helpful because the structures were often poorly laid out. I also didn’t find spending much additional time in lab helpful, because instead of learning/memorizing structures, I would get caught up in dissecting things out better. But - to each their own. Some of my classmates would spend all night in the lab close to an exam.
Ill add a comment for the “live close by” camp:
Another important thing to consider is the social aspect of school! Living far away may automatically (but not always) exclude you from some fun and/or study activities with your classmates, IMHO. Med school can be an isolating experience in terms of the people you are friends with now. For example,It’s hard to joke and talk about anatomy with people who are not doing it with you. Additionally, developing relationships with faculty and mentors and extracurricular activities also takes valuable time. Also, the time spent commuting could be spent taking care of YOU, like working out, going to the doctor, getting a hair cut, etc. These little things you take for granted until you don’t have an ounce of time to take care of them. While all of these things are still doable with a long commute, living close by will make it easier. And Im not even mentioning the time it takes to maintain a relationship with your SO, taking care of your finances, and running your home.
Just some aspects to think about 
DRD
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Another important thing to consider is the social aspect of school! Living far away may automatically (but not always) exclude you from some fun and/or study activities with your classmates, IMHO.
I’m not sure that as a parent the “fun” aspect of living closer to school makes that much difference. When I was in grad school, my commute was an hour door step to door step. So while it did prevent me from participting in most of the “after hour” activites, I can’t say that my education/student interactions suffered much because of it. Honestly, for folks with kids its hard for me to see the great value of regularily socializing with your classmates when that time could be spent with your family.
I do see value in meeting occasionally with classmates for academic pursuits. So schools that do NOT have class all day are extremely attractive since the time between say 1-5 could be spent in study groups.
As far as socializing with classmates, I’ve found it important to spend time with others to help prevent feeling isolated; whether you classify that as study time or social time, it helps build community and it’s good for all of us. Many students with families feel that when they study at home, they miss developing that community at school. It’s important when you’re agonizing about an exam and your significant other is having a hard time understanding exactly why you’re so worried; sometimes you need a more directed kind of support than your partner’s “you’re brilliant and of course you will be a great doctor.” With classmates, it’s good to build those relationships before you’re in crisis and suddenly need a friend at school.
Plus, our families are just not as excited as we are to hear about every detail of performing our first digital rectal exams, for example. 
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Plus, our families are just not as excited as we are to hear about every detail of performing our first digital rectal exams, for example.
I’d be curious to how much current medical students with children socialize or even study with their classmates especially those with infants. And I fully expect the OPM member with 5 kids to post about how they study with their med school classmates!
Of course, I also expect to see some gender differences. I’d bet male med students w/kids socialize/study on campus a LOT more then female students.
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I’d be curious to how much current medical students with children socialize or even study with their classmates especially those with infants. And I fully expect the OPM member with 5 kids to post about how they study with their med school classmates! Of course, I also expect to see some gender differences. I’d bet male med students w/kids socialize/study on campus a LOT more then female students.
Personally, I have never been much of a group study kind of person. During anatomy, however, I probably got together with a classmate or two to study or go over objectives once a week. I didn’t make any special trips to campus to study, but I would stay on campus until 7 or 8 at night.
Since I’m now in the Independent Study Program, I only go to campus about twice a week on average. It’s a little bit more difficult to study with people now, because most people in the ISP program are at slightly different spots in their studies. I do, however, have two fellow classmates that I talk to, usually on a daily basis, or several times a day, online. One of them lives farther away from campus than I do. We occasionally set up a chat room and discuss material/quiz each other that way. Instant messaging is a great way to shoot questions back and forth to your classmates when you aren’t on campus to ask them in person.
As for socializing - I make it a point to try and have lunch with some of my classmates once a week (Indian yesterday - yum!) or hang out for a little bit over a coffee. I don’t do much evening socializing, but if there is an evening presentation that sounds particularly appealing to me (the Christian Medical Association has montly dinner meetings), I stay for those. Most of my younger, single classmates are still into going out to the bars/clubs or movies on weekends. Personally, I’d rather spend free time in the evening/weekend with my husband than go out with classmates, anyways, but that’s just me. I doubt that I would socialize with my classmates much more than I currently do even if I lived closer.
My thoughts . . .
Amy