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Learn what you can do to prepare for your future employment [Show Summary]Diana Economy, former Head of Admissions at Michigan Ross and Senior Talent Acquisition Manager at Vail Resorts, offers her unique perspective on how students can prepare for future employment even while applying to or completing an MBA program. Interview with Diana Economy, former Head of Admissions at Michigan Ross and Senior Talent Acquisition Manager at Vail Resorts [Show Notes]Welcome to the 501st episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. I hope you tuned into our very special 500th episode last week. If not, you can still catch it.You've seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment, but what about you? Are you going to see that kind of return? How much will it be? How much can you anticipate? We've created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is going to be a good investment for you. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the brief questionnaire, and you'll not only get an assessment but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it's all free. It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Diana Economy, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager - Programs and International for Vail Resorts, and formerly the Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions at Michigan Ross. After graduating with a BA in Organization Studies from the University of Michigan, Diana worked in talent management for companies like Kearney and Kirkland & Ellis. She returned to Ross and earned her MBA in 2010, and then again worked for Kirkland & Ellis and BCG before returning to Ross as Associate Director of Admissions. She was the Director of Admissions for the Michigan Ross Full-Time MBA program from 2017 until just this past July when Diana joined Vail Resort. Before we get into the interview, I have to ask how's the skiing? [2:35]Oh my gosh, Linda, I have never thought so much about snow. It's going well so far. It's always kind of fun to hear as the resorts are beginning to get the snow and opening. Especially in the work that we do with talent acquisition, a lot of folks are starting over the course of the next month. It's a really exciting time in the industry.What is the common thread between recruiting MBA students and recruiting talent for Vail Resorts? [3:16]It's really interesting, given the cyclical nature of the admissions cycle and, of course, the cyclical nature of the ski season. A lot of our resorts are open through the summer as well, but no question that we're hitting the Super Bowl timeframe of the operations. As I think about what I learned from my time in admissions, as well as working in talent acquisition and the kinds of things that we look for in our employees, I really find that people who have a good sense of who they are and how they can contribute, those qualities translate both to admissions committees and to our guests.If any of you have been to ski resorts or resorts in general and you think about the people that you interact with, whether it's somebody who's running the lift or doing these other things, they're very engaging, they're very natural in doing that. Of course, an MBA is doing a very different type of work and a different skill set is required to get into the MBA program. But there's something to be said about those who thrive in an MBA program and their ability to build those connections and have the ability to impact and influence those around them that I see as very fluid between both the MBA admissions and recruiting that I did and what we look for in great talent at Vail Resorts.I find your focus on contribution very interesting, especially when you talk about networking, because networking has such a strong connotation of “what's in it for me.” [4:46]You're right. When we're reading applications and admissions, one of the things you're thinking about is “Who is this person going to be ..

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Invaluable insights into all aspects of the graduate admissions process [Show Summary]In celebration of Admissions Straight Talk’s 500th episode, Linda Abraham invites Accepted consultants to pose and answer the questions that students should be asking – and frequently don’t ask. This conversation is filled with invaluable insights that will benefit anybody preparing for graduate school. Accepted consultants share invaluable insights into the questions that students should be asking [Show Notes]Welcome to the 500th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. This is a very special episode. It's the 500th, and I am very proud of that. We've been working hard to present a particularly informative show. I've invited different Accepted consultants over the course of the past few weeks to respond to one question that each one believes applicants should ask and know the answer to. And they frequently don't ask and, therefore, never learn the answer. So this is a collection of clips with different consultants – all experienced experts in their area of admissions – addressing different issues. I think you'll find it invaluable as you apply. I've been finding it very interesting to hear what they're asking and also what they're answering.I'm going to start with a question right now. What is the paradox at the heart of graduate admissions? I'll tell you, you need to fit in and stand out. You can learn how to master that paradox by downloading Accepted’s free guide, Fitting In and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions.____________________________________________Let's start with our first guest, Cydney Foote, who is one of Accepted’s most experienced and, consequently, most beloved consultants. Before joining Accepted in 2001, Cydney was an administrator at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She has also written three ebooks on med school admissions, and she's guided hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants to acceptance, mostly in the healthcare field. The question for Cydney is: What's a useful tool that applicants can and should use no matter what stage of the application process they're in? [2:57][Cydney Foote] I think one of the most useful things that someone can do before they even start to write their application materials is to keep a journal. It sounds very simple. It sounds like something a little kid would do, but so many people will sit down to write their first question and they don't know what to write about. If you keep a journal for the months, or even the years, before you start writing [applications], you can flip back through it and see what you've done. Often, you'll see patterns arising from things that you enjoyed and things that you did well. It’s kind of the way that the universe is nudging you towards a certain area. A lot of that can just slip by you in your daily life as you're running from one event to the next. If you'll write it down just five minutes a day, then you'll have a whole wealth of material to go back on and look through later. Another really good reason to journal is that it helps you support your claims. This is one of the most severe flaws that I see in a lot of people's writing in their first drafts is they will make claims about things that they did like, “I am a great team player,” “I'm a great leader,” or “I am a great communicator,” but without the examples to support that, there's nothing that will help the person who's reading the application believe that you are that. It's not that they necessarily disbelieve you, but they don't have anything to reference. If you have something written down, those examples can be used to support your claims, and it will just make your application process so much more powerful, compelling, and convincing.There's also a final reason for doing this. When you start to write your application, especially for medical school, but for any field,

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Find out the latest admissions news and what it all means [Show Summary]It was a very newsy November and in this episode, Linda Abraham is covering the most notable updates in the graduate admissions world: law school test waivers, top school withdrawals from US News rankings, accommodations for laid-off workers, and more!In this bonus episode, Linda Abraham, Accepted founder and CEO, talks about the latest admissions news and what impact this can have on applicants [Show Notes]Thanks for joining me for this bonus episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Last month was indeed a very newsy November. It was full of admissions news and I just decided I'd be remiss if I didn’t touch on it for Admission Straight Talk listeners. Hence this bonus episode.In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or feedback for me on this episode or any other episode, feel free to email me at [email protected] Bar Association Ceases Requiring Admissions Tests From Law Schools [0:55]All right, the first news item that I'd like to touch on is the American Bar Association. It looks like it will cease requiring that law schools require admissions tests which would mostly be the LSAT and the GRE. (A couple of schools accept the GMAT) And they're going to do that as of 2025. If this change is finally approved, as is very likely, law schools can individually choose whether to require an admissions test or not. Based on the experience of business schools that have gone with a lot of test optionality, most law schools will either require it of all incoming applicants, or they will require the test, but offer applicants the opportunity to apply for a waiver. Or they might say, "Those who meet certain requirements can automatically get a waiver."How will this apply to you? If you have good grades and tend not to test well, optionality is fantastic news for you, because you won't have to take the test if you apply to schools where the test is optional after 2025. However, schools do want to know that you can do the work. If your academic record leaves something to be desired or doesn't convey your abilities adequately, it would probably still be wise to prepare for and take the test so that it will better show your abilities.It's too early to tell, but in the business school realm, I think it's true that a high test score can enhance somebody's chances of getting a scholarship. As I indicated, it's my gut feeling in the B-school world, and it may become true in the law school world as well.If a scholarship is important to you, even if you have the grades, and particularly if you test well, it may make sense for you to take the test, even if it is optional. Whatever it is, just keep in mind that schools want to admit people they believe can thrive in their programs. Make sure that somehow, you're providing them that confidence.Top Schools Withdrawing From US News Rankings [3:08]Newsy November item number two is that top-15 law schools are withdrawing, with two exceptions, from the US News rankings. It all started when Yale and Harvard withdrew from the US News rankings on November 16th. They were followed by Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Columbia, Penn, University of Michigan, Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown, UC Davis, and UC Irvine. Today I read about the University of Washington, and there may be more by the time we get this recording posted. The University of Chicago and Cornell Law announced that they currently intend to stay in the rankings.For the schools that decided to withdraw, what's their motivation? They say that the rankings simply don't jive with their values. They've discouraged diversity and they've discouraged schools from accepting applicants who are more interested in public interest law which pays less than corporate law. You might have noticed that it was mostly the top 15 or so schools that withdrew from the rankings. Top schools don't need the publicity they get from the rankings as ..

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Discover the differences between and how to get accepted to common healthcare admissions tracks [Show Summary]Accepted consultant Dr. Valerie Wherley has an impressive and extensive background in pre-health, having advised thousands of students to acceptance at their dream schools and programs. In this highly informative podcast interview, she distinguishes the differences between common healthcare admissions tracks and shares how to craft a compelling application for each one.Interview with Dr. Valerie Wherley, Accepted admissions consultant and former post-bac program director & pre-health advisor [Show Notes]Welcome to the 499th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. We have lots of resources, articles, guides, and podcast episodes that can help you get accepted to the graduate healthcare programs of your choice. Go to accepted.com/healthcare to explore the library of free resources there.Today is all about healthcare, and our guest is Dr. Valerie Wherley, an Accepted consultant. Dr. Wherley earned her BS and MS at the University of Maine in Kinesiology and her Ph.D. in Higher Education/Higher Education Administration from the University of Connecticut. Over the last 20 years, she has served as the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and Career Development at William Beaumont School of Medicine, Director of the Pre-Health Post-bac Certification program at Sacred Heart University, and the Director of Pre-health Advisement Sacred Heart University.In those roles, and before joining Accepted earlier this year, she advised thousands of students in the following pre-health tracks: pre-med, pre-PA, pre-vet, pre-dental, pre-pharmacy, pre-PT, pre-OT, pre-accelerated nursing, and pre-optometry as well as applicants to master's programs in Exercise Science, Biomedical Sciences, Occupational Therapy, Speech-Language Pathology, Athletic Training, Public Health, and Applied Nutrition. Let's tap into that amazingly broad and notable experience.What should all applicants in healthcare fields have if they want to apply successfully? What are the common requirements? [2:27]Great question. As you said, I have worked with a variety of pre-health fields during the time I worked at Sacred Heart and at the Beaumont School of Medicine. The commonality that students need to have in their academics is a demonstration of mastery of those prerequisite courses. They need a very strong academic transcript and whatever those prerequisite courses are for their intended path. Typically, that's the sciences. A lot of those pre-health tracks have common courses such as biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, and anatomy, with some nuances depending on the track. There's just no way around saying you have to demonstrate competency and mastery of those foundational concepts on your academic transcript. You have to be strong there.From an experience perspective, my suggestion is to demonstrate that you have exposure to your intended career path. Exposure comes from observing, shadowing, and interviewing the people who are doing the work you want to be doing in the future. It's not enough if you have a family member who has said to you, "You'll make a great dentist one day," that's lovely. However, you have to have been in the trenches seeing the work and still know that it is your calling. You can demonstrate that in your personal statement and in your interview when you are applying to graduate school.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXTzQJw5PqcIs shadowing enough? [4:31]Shadowing is the first place to start. When I worked with undergraduate students, I always said shadowing is step one to really see if this is the place where you want to be. Shadowing is a great place to understand what you do and what you don't like. I would have pre-PT students, for example, who would shadow a physical therapist for a few weeks and walk away from that experience and say,

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Discover all you need to know about MIT Sloan's MBA program [Show Summary]MIT Sloan is one of the magic M7 MBA programs, and its Assistant Dean, Dawna Levenson, shares everything applicants aiming for acceptance should know. Interview with Dawna Levenson, Assistant Dean at MIT Sloan School of Management [Show Notes]Welcome to the 498th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted's podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at your target schools? Accepted's MBA admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/mbaquiz, complete the quiz, and you'll not only get an assessment, but also tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus, it's all free. It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Dawna Levenson, Assistant Dean at MIT Sloan School of Management. Dawna earned her bachelor's and master's in Management Science at MIT Sloan, became a partner at Accenture, and then returned to MIT Sloan in 2007 as Associate Director of Academic Programs. She moved into Admissions in 2012 and became Director of Admissions in 2013 and Assistant Dean in 2018. Can you give us an overview of the MIT Sloan Full-Time MBA program for those listeners who aren't that familiar with it? [2:07]Absolutely. I think I would begin with class size. Our two-year MBA has a class size of roughly 410. You may have some friends who just graduated in the past year or so, and their class size was slightly bigger. That’s a result of the pandemic when there was a fair amount of uncertainty, and we actually grew the class size in 2020. However, it was never intended for that to be permanent, and so we have slowly worked our way back down. Fundamentally, the class that just matriculated, and moving forward, will be approximately 410. We have a one-semester core and then three semesters to really shape the curriculum as you see fit based on your interests. As much as you as a student have flexibility in terms of your classes and shaping that, our faculty have a lot of flexibility, too, in terms of how they teach. Your classes will be a combination of traditional lectures and problem sets, as well as a lot of project-based classes.We have a subset of these project-based classes that are called our Action Learning labs, where you are either on a particular subject matter or focused on a certain geography and working as part of a team to solve a real problem for a real company and make recommendations to them at the end of the project. hbspt.cta.load(58291, '9bb31be0-3cf6-45f0-be3d-3791cc1bd9bd', {}); Are you seeing any trends in terms of hiring? Where do MIT Sloan MBA grads get jobs? [3:42]We just recently published our 2022-2023 employment report, so these numbers are right off of that. For students who graduated in 2022 seeking employment, 31.2% of them went into consulting, 22.6% went into finance, and 22.6% went into technology. An additional 6.8% went into pharma, healthcare, and biotech. It’s a good spread.What's a little misleading is some may have gone into consulting, but they’re focused on the tech industry. So, keep that in mind.Can you explain the optional core electives? [5:02]Our two-year MBA students spend their first semester taking core classes. You’re actually part of a cohort of somewhere between 65 and 70 students who you're taking all of your classes with. You're also assigned to be part of a core team of six or seven people where you're actually doing all of your work together. In addition to your core set of classes, you also have the option to take one additional elective. You can choose from marketing, finance, strategy, or operations for that additional elective.What are the core requirements? [5:48]They include microeconomics, DMD, which is data models and decisions, accounting, and communications. What are the tracks and certificates that MIT Sloan offers?

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Welcome to the 497th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me.It’s Thanksgiving week! I want to take this opportunity to thank you again for joining me. Because of the holiday I decided to air one of the most popular shows of 2022: An Interview With the Temple Katz School of Medicine Admissions DeanI chose this interview with Dr. Jacob Ufberg not only because of its popularity, but because Dean Ufberg gave wonderful insight into Temple Katz’ medical school, its integrated approach to teaching medicine and its tight ties to the community that it serves. If you haven’t tuned in for this interview, please do so. And if you listened already, it might be worth a second listen.Also a quick announcement. If you have parents who are curious about the medical school application process or maybe a little anxious about it. Tell them about the Parents of Preprofessional Applicant Facebook group. They can join at https://www.facebook.com/groups/preprofessionalparents/.If you like this episode and want to test out whether you are competitive at your target medical schools, take the free Medical School Admissions Quiz at accepted.com/medquiz. It’s a brief assessment that will give you valuable information into your competitiveness as well as suggestions for improving your qualifications and competitiveness. Take it today at accepted.com/medquiz.Thanks as always for listening to Admissions Straight Talk.Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’ll talk to you again next week! In the meantime, here is An Interview with the Temple Katz School of Medicine Admissions Dean.For the complete show notes, check out the original blog post.Related links:Temple University – Lewis Katz School of MedicineMed School Essentials Video CourseTemple Katz Secondary Essay TipsAccepted’s Medical School Admissions ConsultingRelated shows:NYMC: How to Get InDeep Dive into Penn Perelman School of Medicine: An Interview with Dr. Neha Vapiwala, Dean for AdmissionsTulane School of Medicine: How to Get InAll You Want to Know About Georgetown Medical School’s AdmissionsTemple University’s Postbac Programs: A Plethora of Possibilities4 Steps for Showing Fit in Your Application hbspt.cta.load(58291, '6f21f36c-c988-4e9c-b947-0b9d4af1557f', {"region":"na1"});

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Discover all you need to know about UNC Kenan-Flagler's MBA program [Show Summary]UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School is a leading MBA program located in North Carolina, an emerging business hotspot. Danielle Richie, UNC’s MBA Admissions Director, describes the qualities that make up the dynamic student body and shares her tips on how to get in.Interview with Danielle Richie, Dir. of Full-Time MBA Admissions and Student Recruitment at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School [Show Notes]Welcome to the 496th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. Before we get to our wonderful guest, you're invited to take the free six-question quiz at accepted.com/mapmba to see how prepared you are to actually apply. You'll also gain access to relevant other resources, both free and paid, that can help you develop an application strategy for acceptance. It gives me great pleasure to have for the first time on Admissions Straight Talk Danielle Richie, Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions and Student Recruitment at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Danielle earned her Bachelor's in Public Relations at Oswego and her Master's in Communications at Syracuse University. She has worked in higher ed admissions and administration at Utica College, Syracuse University, Bentley University, and of course, UNC Kenan-Flagler, where she moved to in 2018 as Senior Associate Director for MBA Admissions and Recruiting. In November 2021, almost exactly a year ago, she became Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions and Recruiting. Can you give an overview of UNC Kenan-Flagler's full-time MBA program, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:27]UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We are a two-year MBA program at 62 credits. There are 15 core classes where candidates get the breadth of business. We have 12 concentrations that students can select from to gain more in-depth knowledge. These vary from business analytics to consulting, marketing, healthcare, real estate, and so on and so forth. You really get to create your own journey, if you will, with an MBA from Kenan-Flagler. We are STEM-designated, and it does not matter which concentration you pursue. You actually don't even have to, and about 20% of our students will just do a general MBA and they'll pick and choose from over 125 different electives to make up their program. We do require an internship between year one and year two. A lot of our students will do a "traditional internship" where they will apply and go on to work six to eight weeks in the summer with a company.What's new at Kenan-Flagler? [3:41]There are a lot of exciting things going on at Kenan-Flagler. We had our groundbreaking ceremony in September for a new building that will open up in 2024. We're very excited about that. We're not looking to expand the MBA program, but the building that we're in currently was opened in 1997. We do want to grow our undergrad business program by doubling it, so we are building that facility. Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan Chase came and was one of our guest speakers. We also just launched our Charlotte MBA Executive Program, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's about two hours from Chapel Hill and is an executive format that working professionals can use to earn their MBA. That’s in-person and is targeted to applicants from North Carolina as well as South Carolina because Charlotte is close to the South Carolina border. As Charlotte continues to grow, especially in the financial space, we saw that it was a great opportunity to offer the Charlotte MBA, as well as some executive development opportunities off campus.Can you highlight the modular system? [5:31]We call them mods and prospective students always ask, "What's a mod?" A mod is essentially seven to eight weeks of classes that you take. You're in Mod 1 when you start class. By October break, you'll be taking your final exams,

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Find out how you can benefit from Stride Funding [Show Summary]Tess Michaels shares what’s new at Stride Funding, the innovative educational financing company she founded, and reflects on the impact that her Harvard Business School MBA has had on her impressive success today.Interview with Tess Michaels, Founder and CEO of Stride Funding [Show Notes]Welcome to the 495th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. I don't usually plug Accepted services on this podcast, but Accepted is having a fantastic special, the last one of 2022, and I would be remiss if I didn't share this news with Admissions Straight Talk's listeners. You can save up to $1,000 on Accepted services between now and November 14th. You premeds looking to next year, now is your opportunity to lock in a package at this very special rate AND start your application early. For those of you with December and January deadlines interested in a few hours of invaluable editing and advising, you too can save. Go to accepted.com, choose the type of service that's best for you, and use coupon code SAVENOW. This special ends November 14th. I'd like to welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk Tess Michaels, Founder and CEO of Stride Funding. Tess graduated from Penn with a Bachelor's in Applied Science and another Bachelor's from the Wharton School in Global Impact Investing and Operations Management. While at Penn, she founded SOCEANA, a platform to democratize giving and promote corporate volunteerism, which was acquired in 2018. After graduating and being accepted to Harvard's 2+2 program, she worked at Goldman Sachs as an analyst for two years, and then at Vista Equity Partners as a private equity associate. As soon as she arrived at Harvard Business School, she founded Stride Funding, which we're going to learn a lot more about in today’s show. Can you give us an overview of Stride Funding's approach to student financing and how it differs from traditional student loans? [2:20]Absolutely. As you mentioned, I was actually inspired by my own experience as a student when founding Stride. I was part of the 2+2 program at Harvard. I knew I was going to pursue my MBA, and candidly went through the back and forth of the question, “Is it worth it to go back to school?” That sticker price is just so hefty, and I realized a lot of my peers were in the same boat. I was even asking everyone, "If you could solve one thing, what would it be?" and everyone kept saying, "I want to go back to school, but the costs are prohibitive and I have no guarantee around the outcomes." I became really fascinated with two concepts. One, how do we actually structure products to align incentives and naturally tie into the outcomes that students receive?And secondly, how do we increase access? I found it so backward that despite going to a great school and great program, almost every lender asks for students to have co-signers. In fact, 92% of private loans require a co-signer which really just means being backed up by a wealthy parent or family member who has a clean credit score and can guarantee your loan. To me, that felt like such a backward system because the whole point of going to school is to do better than your family and to create future potential in your growth. I'm happy to walk through the ways that we've addressed this with Stride's products, but that was really where we started.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoM2kAG-fMCan you describe Stride Funding's three products? [4:08]We have three products on the market and are continuing to grow our product set. They range on the spectrum of product differentiation and then differentiation on access. Each of our products is non-co-signer based. Anytime you come to Stride, you know that you are going to be evaluated based on your future potential, not your historical background. That's a core belief at Stride. With that being said, we have products that are more traditional,

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All About UVM’s Larner School of Medicine [Show Summary]The University of Vermont’s Larner School of Medicine’s new Associate Dean for Admissions, Leila Amiri, shares the hallmarks of the program, including its active learning curriculum and mission centered around respect, kindness, and cultural humility.Interview with Dr. Leila Amiri, Associate Dean for Admissions at UVM Larner School of Medicine [Show Notes]Welcome to the 494th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. Are you ready to apply to your dream medical schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted's medical school admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/medquiz and complete the quiz, and you'll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus, it's all free. Dr. Leila Amiri, UVM Larner's new, as of June 2022, Associate Dean for Admissions, comes to Larner from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, where she was Associate Dean for Admissions and Recruitment. Previously, she was Director of Admissions and Financial Aid for the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She holds a Ph.D. from North Central University and an MA and BS degree from the University of South Florida. Amiri is a member of the Association of American Colleges Advancing Holistic Review and Alignment Working Group, National Chair of the AAMC BA/MD Affiliate Group and National Chair for the Committee on AAMC Professional Development Initiative. Dr. Amiri was also a guest last year in her previous role, and it's a pleasure to have her back on Admissions Straight Talk.Can you give us an overview of UVM Larner's College of Medicine's program focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:12]I'll be happy to. At Larner College of Medicine, we have a big history of training medical students. We're actually celebrating our bicentennial, so the class that's meeting for 2023 will be the 200th class that we've seated. We've come a long way in terms of the educational model. We're most known for our active learning model. Students are really at the center of our learning model and its active, student-centered learning all based on educational pedagogy and adult learning principles. There’s a lot of community engagement with our students here and at our clinical sites which are in Vermont and in Connecticut.What does active learning mean in practical terms? [3:11]When you look at educational philosophy and pedagogy, adult learners need to really be invested in what they're learning. Not only do they need to be invested in what they're learning, but they also have to find meaning and value in it. They have to be at the center of constructing the information. There's very little lecturing that happens here for our students. There's time that they spend on their own before they come to class. Think of a flipped classroom model. They spend a lot of time on their own looking at basic information and then when they join us in the classroom setting, there’s a lot of group activity, engaging with their peers, and working through problems. It's not completely problem-based learning, but there's problem-based learning, case-based learning, and team-based learning. We have all of these different models where students are not sitting there just as recipients of information, but really they're constructing the information with each other as they're going through the different phases of their learning.They're getting cases, they're getting problems, and they're working in teams. When you think about the way these things look, they become progressively more complex and progressively more sophisticated in terms of the case that they're engaging with. For example, they might not receive all of the information that they need, which is typical in a clinical setting. They will get a patient scenario and there'll be some gaps in that knowledge.

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ER Physician, filmmaker, popular speaker and travel company founder. Here how it all comes together [Show Summary]Dr. Calvin Sun is an emergency room physician, known for his blog-turned-travel company. During the pandemic, his travel content quickly shifted to real-time COVID updates as he chronicled his experience as an emergency room doctor in Manhattan. He has gathered all of these experiences into his newly released book, The Monsoon Diaries: A Doctor’s Journey of Hope and Healing from the ER Frontlines to the Far Reaches of the World.Interview with Dr. Calvin Sun, Founder and CEO, The Monsoon Diaries [Show Notes]Welcome for the 493rd episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted's podcast. Thanks for joining me. Given the time of year, I'd like to highlight for today's listeners a wonderful resource if and when you're invited to a medical school interview, Accepted’s free download called The Ultimate Guide to Medical School Interview Success. In the guide, you learn how to prepare for interviews, including the difficult questions, how to make sure your body language matches your intent, and what is proper follow-up after your interview. Grab your free copy at accepted.com/ultimatemediv and enhance your chance of acceptance.It's really hard to summarize Dr. Calvin Sun's bio, but I'll try anyway. Calvin graduated from Columbia in 2008 and in 2014, he graduated from SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and then began his residency in emergency medicine at Montefiore and Jacobi Medical Centers. He also was the director of Resident Wellness at Jacobi.In his non-existent spare time during medical school, he somehow managed to found and now runs The Monsoon Diaries, which he describes as a blog-turned-travel company. The Monsoon Diaries organizes flexible budget trips and has gone to over 128 countries in the past six years. He's also a filmmaker, popular speaker and activist in the Asian American community emergency room physician, and, at one time at least, was a clinical assistant professor of Emergency Medicine.Listeners, I invite you to listen to accepted.com/254 for the incredible story of how Calvin Sun became Dr. Sun, founded Monsoon Diaries, the travel company, and portrays his experience as an emergency room physician in Manhattan, the corona pandemic’s epicenter in 2020.To start, I'd like to ask you how you came to write your just-released book, The Monsoon Diaries: A Doctor’s Journey of Hope and Healing from the ER Frontlines to the Far Reaches of the World. What's the story behind the book? [3:12]The story is my life in a nutshell, in a show-don't-tell fashion. It can also be seen as a love letter of gratitude because it's being released at the tail end of what we hope to be the worst or the end of the pandemic. I was approached by a literary agent two years ago. It was a totally cold approach in January 2021, and they asked if I'd be interested in writing a book. I think I had mentioned to you in our prior podcast, episode 254, that I have this habit of writing, which is what caused my Monsoon Diaries blog to turn into a community. I was writing live and blogging live on my travels while I was a full-time medical student. People started following along and it turned itself into a community. During the pandemic, I did the same thing. We couldn't travel during the pandemic. It was not ethical, so I worked all the time, and I blogged about it in the same way I would on a trip because it was all new territory and new frontiers. That's the only thing I knew how to do to keep myself alive when I couldn't travel. It was the next best thing. People followed along, one of whom was a literary agent who then wanted to turn it into a book so I said, "Sure." One thing led to another, and two years later we now have a book published by Harper Collins in bookstores since September 27th.What do you hope people take away from The Monsoon Diaries? [4:57]

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