I have a bit of a dilemma that I was hoping to get some insight on if anyone has any similar experiences.
I am currently an Army Officer and I recently found out that I will be stationed in Germany for the next 3 years. I was planning on taking the next couple years to strengthen my GPA and prepping for the MCAT before applying to Med school but I think that moving to Germany will provide another set of challenges. There are US universities available on base but they don’t have any of the higher level science classes that I need to take. I’m willing to take online science courses but I know many Med Schools don’t hold those classes in the same regards.
Does anyone have any advice or experience trying to work on pre regs while stationed/ living in Germany? Any help would be great!
I was a USAF officer (11 years prior to med school) and took some online classes while at home and deployed. What kind of “high level” classes are you talking about, and what is the ultimate goal of said classes (grades or MCAT prep)? When did you complete undergrad and rough gpa? And how did you manage to get stationed in Germany, you lucky bastard… Okay, you don’t have to answer the last one. I’ll give you a more detailed response as to what I did when I have a little more time, but can tailor it more with that info.
I have time now, so I’ll give a generic answer for the initial question. For reference: I did fine in undergrad but had to take some classes to finish up the prereqs as a DIY post-bacc that I spread out over a few years when I had time. Never lived in Germany but did spend a fair amount of time there while transiting back and forth across the pond. I took Orgo 1, 2, and Biochem through UNE online and took Bio 2 through a local university via distance learning (testing on campus). I believe I took Orgo 1 while deployed to a sandy location, and the school let me have my local supervisor proctor the exam. I think UNE now strictly uses an online proctoring service that you should theoretically be able to access on any internet connection. I took the other orgo class while constantly going TDY CONUS and OCONUS for on average 10-15 days per month. The other 2 I was relatively stable but not necessarily home throughout the whole course period.
For online courses, my take:
Pros - on your schedule, any location, relatively decent learning if you’re self-motivated
Cons - expensive, not all medical schools accept online courses or value them the same (highly school-dependent), lack of personal interaction
If you’re taking courses beyond your basic prereqs that aren’t contributing to any sort of degree, then it really shouldn’t matter for you where or how you take the classes. Worst case is that a school won’t directly accept them, but they’ll still be on your transcript as courses completed. Those courses likely won’t contribute much to your MCAT studies. That being said, any “advanced” classes you take to “prepare” you for medical school will, at best, be only modestly useful. Medical school will cram an undergrad-semester’s worth of information into a few weeks, and the knowledge you’re expected to know for medicine is different from the stuff you’ll typically learn in undergrad equivalent courses. You may have a good baseline, but your classmates will quickly close the knowledge gap during the different blocks of instruction in medical school. For example, people that used to literally teach undergrad students anatomy were not necessarily the top performers in our anatomy course…
For what it’s worth, you could take classes that interest you for the sake of taking them. It would demonstrate continued academic interest/performance but that’s probably the extent of it. If it has been a few years, I would invest in an MCAT prep course vs trying to do it all yourself. The tips and strategies go a long way; it’s not just about what you know, it’s about learning how to apply it specifically for the MCAT.
If you’re really concerned about it, look at the website for schools that you’re interested in applying to. Every school is different, which makes prepping for applications really painful to plan in other-than-traditional situations. Even with online prereqs, I found at least 15 schools that would accept my classes and got multiple interviews, including to a state school as an out-of-state applicant. Online classes (prereqs anyway) are a speed bump but definitely won’t be a primary reason to not get into medical school. And I would bet that things may be more online-friendly since I applied 5 years ago.
Thanks for your input! To answer your earlier questions: I have a 2.96 GPA after graduating with a BS in Biology in 2010. So not good. Long story short I’m more focused and I know how I need to study to retain info now. I want to use the time I’m in Germany to show that I am capable of handling the rigors of Med school and demonstrate some version of an upward trend. I also think i may need to retake some classes (orgo II and Physics II) since i really did very poorly (D and C- respectively). At the end of my 2-3 year tour in Germany I want to be able to PCS back to the states and begin school (ideally). My other concern pertains to letters of recommendation. I’m sure my professors don’t remember me especially not well enough for letters. I was hoping to try and shadow our Brigade Surgeon and get a letter from him but I know many schools want letters from professors and online courses don’t really provide that opportunity. I’m looking at New England area schools (lots of family there) and some of my top schools have a strict policy against online courses.
As far as how I got the assignment…I guess I’m just lucky. When my boss found out I was planning to get out to try and go to medical school he showed me the list of available jobs and asked what I wanted to finish out my time (I’ll also be at 11 years of service at the end of this assignment). It was either some pretty miserable locations or Germany. The choice for me was obvious, haha.