How did I choose WesternU?

The topic for this week is how you chose your school and what you like or dislike about the location.

Oh man, WesternU... I feel like I'm one of the few people at this school that didn't have them ranked at the bottom of their list. When I applied to WesternU, I had no idea about the controversy surrounding the school, how it had just received accreditation and how so many people were unhappy with it. A lot of the students here are constantly talking about how they're only going here because they didn't get into UC Davis or some other school... there's a lot of bitter rejects from UC Davis. It's funny because, talking to them, they only applied to Davis and WesternU, and now they're upset they're "stuck" at WesternU! I think regardless of where you are, you should be so happy and so excited that you're even in any vet school.
I originally applied to WesternU because I was intrigued about their PBL curriculum. I applied to Guelph as well, who uses a similar curriculum, although they adopted it earlier than WesternU and do not use it as extensively. I thought the PBL program was an interesting way to learn and, honestly, I was kind of sick of the same old same old. I skipped a lot of classes while pursuing my BS because the professors just read off of their Powerpoint slides. If they posted the slides, and I had a textbook, why go to class? I got a lot of crap from people for the very reasons I just stated. "So, you're going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach yourself?" "You know you can't just teach yourself vet med. That doesn't work." "Why don't you go to a real university?" It was pretty disheartening to hear all these comments when I was so excited to tell people that I was going to be a vet! That being said, WesternU does not just allow you to teach yourself. They have a structured curriculum, using the systems approach. Every 4-8 weeks is a new system that we're learning and while PBL makes up most of our curriculum, we do have standard lectures as well. Vet Issues has lectures, MCB is seminar style so lecture and discussion, and then BSL can be either lecture or lab just like clinical skills.
I absolutely love that I don't have to sit in lecture from 8-5 every single day. I love that I get clinical experience so early in the curriculum. I'm not even done with my first year and I already feel comfortable in performing a routine physical exam, picking up on abnormalities, performing an ophthalmic exam, neurological exam, and otoscopic exam, I've been able to suture on live tissue and scrub in on a surgery! How many other first years can say that?
The thing that sucks about WesternU? The location. Coming all the way from the east coast, I knew absolutely nothing in the area and I would quite often find myself in a sketchy looking area without knowing how I got there. Pomona on it's own, where WesternU is located, is not bad. There are very nice parts of Pomona and I wouldn't be too worried about living there. However, a lot of Pomona is bad. They're trying to build it up, which is awesome. I can see where it used to be great, and where they're working on improving it but the problem is that the bad parts of Pomona are really bad. Holt Ave? Yeah, that's bad... It honestly doesn't affect my life all that much because I'm smart about it. I lock my doors, I don't go walking down the street after dark; school even has security officers that will walk you to and from your car and I make ample use of that just like I did in undergrad.
The best part about the location? I'm 45 minutes away from mountains and snow in one direction, and I'm 45 minutes from the beach in the other! I really want to get to the beach soon because I went whale watching but I haven't visited the actual beach and stepped in the sand. I was planning on going this weekend but I had foal watch this morning (up at 2 AM!) and then two exams, now I have the suture removal from the enucleation tomorrow, and Catnippers all day Sunday. I'll get there eventually! I love the mountains though, and I love that I always have a great view no matter where I am or where I'm headed.