Do all PA schools require attendance?

[allthingspa]

I’ve been accepted to PA school and will be attending a few other interviews but I have a concern. Some of my friends in med school say that some lectures are recorded or that they use podcasts at home. Are any PA schools allowing students to view material from home (aside from online PA schools)? 

 

I have very good grades (nearly a 4.0 sGPA) in hard sciences from university and I actually credit some of that to skipping classes and studying on my own (depending on the course, once I get a feel for the exams). 

 

I’m wondering if some schools will allow this. I learned in university that I tend to zone out after a few hours (depending on the material and teacher). If the course required attendance I would suffer through and waste my time in class then do all the hard work at home. And I’m not talking skipping sociology.. I’m talking about skipping upper level biology and organic and still pulling A’s. 

 

Can anyone relate to this? I haven’t heard of PA schools allowing it. 

[allthingspa]

I’m re-reading this and it sounds slightly bratty. I was never the type of person to absorb things quickly nor was I born with some type of photographic memory. I spent a lot of hours studying, many times overstudying, more than the average student. I liked to study a week or so ahead of time before exams. This way, I would walk into an exam as confident as possible. 

 

I’m just trying to effectively manage the time I’m given since school moves so fast. 

[MT2PA]

Some have mandatory attendance, some don't.  Some record, some don't.  Some allow for a limited number of personal hours/days.  Those that have mandatory attendance will not make an exception for you despite your learning preferences.

My advice is to ask this of current students (as opposed to asking faculty where it may be received unfavorably).  If you feel your time would be wasted in a program with mandatory attendance, don't attend that program.  Or learn how to subtly tune out the lecturer and do your own thing during class time.

Of note, you will often need to be studying for multiple exams at once and will not often be able to devote an entire week to JUST studying for a single exam - and will have multiple exams in one week or even in one day.  Just something to be prepared for and adjust your study habits appropriately.

EDIT:  I will add that even programs that don't have mandatory attendance will notice who does and does not attend class.  It is seen more as a sign of professionalism; PA school is definitely not undergrad and not your average grad program.

[allthingspa]

5 minutes ago, MT2PA said:

Some have mandatory attendance, some don't.  Some record, some don't.  Some allow for a limited number of personal hours/days.  Those that have mandatory attendance will not make an exception for you despite your learning preferences.

My advice is to ask this of current students (as opposed to asking faculty where it may be received unfavorably).  If you feel your time would be wasted in a program with mandatory attendance, don't attend that program.  Or learn how to subtly tune out the lecturer and do your own thing during class time.

Of note, you will often need to be studying for multiple exams at once and will not often be able to devote an entire week to JUST studying for a single exam - and will have multiple exams in one week or even in one day.  Just something to be prepared for and adjust your study habits appropriately.

EDIT:  I will add that even programs that don't have mandatory attendance will notice who does and does not attend class.  It is seen more as a sign of professionalism; PA school is definitely not undergrad and not your average grad program.

Thank you so much for the feedback. I have read many schools can have 2-3 exams per week. I’ll have to keep policies in mind when considering schools. Thanks for the advice

[StevenBrule]

21 hours ago, allthingspa said:

I’m re-reading this and it sounds slightly bratty. I was never the type of person to absorb things quickly nor was I born with some type of photographic memory. I spent a lot of hours studying, many times overstudying, more than the average student. I liked to study a week or so ahead of time before exams. This way, I would walk into an exam as confident as possible. 

 

I’m just trying to effectively manage the time I’m given since school moves so fast. 

I'm sort of interested in people's answers to this topic as well...secretly one of the things that drew my to accept my PA program was the fact that the school's DO students didn't have to take attendance and the professors had recorded lectures online.

watching a recorded lecture at 1.5x speed leaves lots of time for studying for exams and concentrating on weaker areas.

[ak004]

My program has mandatory attendance, though attendance isn’t taken (we’re a small class size, so people missing would be noticeable). It really doesn’t have to do with making sure you’re sitting there learning though. It’s about professionalism. You have to show up to your job every day, and this is your career. So you have to show up to class every day


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk