English IV Zarko Popovic: 5. Changes to my study programme

Hello everyone!!, I hope you are well and that this end of the semester is not being so difficult for each of you. As you can see in the title, today I will talk about something very interesting that corresponds to what changes I would make in my study program.

Throughout this blog I will address several others regarding this topic. First of all I will refer to the curriculum or the materials to study, where I think there are some classes that contain many topics within them and what they could do is distribute each of them by semester. For example, there is a course called Scientific and clinical bases for diagnosis that corresponds to a semester course, that is, we take it both the first and second semesters, which deals with different topics such as biochemistry, microbiology, physiology, pathology, surgery, among others. My proposal for change would be that it would not include all these topics in a single branch, and that each topic would become a branch that would teach half of them one semester and half of the other contents the other semester.

And in relation to other courses, such as evidence-based dentistry (which is also a semester course) I would personally change it for another topic, however I also understand why the university teaches this course, since the area of research is quite relevant. In fact, several professors who teach classes are developing research processes in different areas.

Regarding the workload and duration of the studies, at first I felt as a student that the load was heavy, and obviously I compared it with the academic load of the school, which was less and different, since there were more courses, however in the university is the other way around, there are fewer courses but the academic load is greater. Despite that, I got used to it, so to speak, and it is also understood that at the beginning of the semester the academic load is lower compared to the end of the semester. In spite of all this, the classes still try to organize themselves as much as possible so that we do not have so many evaluations in a week, and in cases where that is not the case, we talk with the teacher in charge in order to change the date once evaluation or extend the deadline in the case of a job. Basically, I wouldn't make any major changes around this topic, maybe because I'm already used to it.

Regarding the facilities of the faculty, I can say that I would make big changes, for example I would build more classrooms, because basically for 6 generations in total, having 6 classrooms (in which I have been at least) is very little for all this amount of people, to the point of having to change rooms because we ran into schedules with another generation. I would also make changes around the casino, since at lunchtime basically between officials, teachers and students we have to fight to sit down and sit at a table, since the number of people is much greater than the capacity that the casino can accommodate, therefore this should be expanded. I would also (and lastly, since I could elaborate on this point) I would be making changes to the dental student center space, which we were informed of a few months ago that a remodel was underway in conjunction with Colgate for this location, which It is quite necessary since the place is not in optimal conditions.

Regarding the use of technology, the university leaves a lot to say, especially in preclinical, where the facilities compared to other universities are much less technological. For example, our simulated patients correspond to wooden heads...which is quite far from what we will face when we are already in the clinic, which I have also heard leaves a lot to be desired. In addition, whenever we are in preclinical it happens that some work station fails and we have to be calling the technician to repair this. Therefore, I feel that the university should innovate regarding the use of technology, since in general it is quite far behind on this point.

Finally, regarding the teaching method in the vast majority of classes, it is usually the same, which is quite standard, that is, classes are given and we have to study them. However, in a course called simulations for professional practice, which is also a semester course, the teaching method around the practical that they give you depends to a large extent on which teacher is your tutor, since some have more didactics to teach you, however others do not have it, or also some have more experience than others. As a student I have noticed that some are governed a lot around a guideline, while others do not, and that is still based on the personality of each one. Although personally, I would like everyone to be given a teaching method, the truth is that this is quite difficult due to what has been explained above.