- Base
I have two degrees before I come to Hungary. All of my opinions on
this site is based on my previous experiences.
My experiences in other universities than Hungarian:
- University of Helsinki, Finland, Medical School.
- University of Iowa, the United States, Computer Science.
- One graduate school in Japan.
- One university in Japan.
- Another US college.
This should be noted in the beginning. These schools are all
located in well-developped countries. It means that you will have very
different view if you are from a different country.
Good and Bad is quite denends on a reference;
good can be bad if you compared to the best one, while bad can be good
if you compared to a worse one. Please keep this in your mind, while
you are reading these articles.
The symbol of Doctor: The first stethoscope of mine.
- First of all:
- The school is working as a medical school; they have a
long history of education, and obviously they can teach and train
students and produce doctors if students complete their study. (if
you are a foreigner and especially far from here,
you might worriy about this level.)
- Do I recommend you coming here to study medicine? No, Mainly Because of
top three Negative Side (see below); Domestic oriented Staff, Flawed
information delivery, Language Barrier in Hospital. This impression
is as of at the end of the 09th semester(after 4.5 years).
- There are many nice photos in this site. This is, however, my overall
evaluation. It means that these good photos bring me a good memory
but always with these negative sides, which are dominant.
- Maybe you already knew how tough it would be. Pass rate,
is low; e.g. pass rate of first year to second year is
as low as 30-50%.(This is for Pecs but I think the rate is not very
different in Budapest too.) In other words
70%-50% of students fail and they need at least one extra year, for
which they need to pay the annual tuition fee of approximately
15,000USD (19,000USD in case of Budapest).
- Positive Side:
- You can have a chance to become a doctor.
- The quality of their education are good enough, although I had
been worried about it before I came here. Hungary could be a good
option, if you would really like to study medicine abroad.
- International Students: This multi-national enviroment is especially precious and
unsubstitutable; we are from 66 countries as the Dean revealed in the
opening ceremony.
- You would find that there are some really good teachers and many
teachers are trying their best to make us understand. Especially in
Biology Department. You will see if you come here. Biology
would be the first tough lecture though.
- Living Expenses are really reasonable. Tuition Fee is still better than developed countires.
- We have big events called "Freshman
Camp", "International
Evening", etc. These are amazing!
- Negative Side:
- Domestic Oriented Staff: Teaching Staff, eg. Professors, Associate Professors, Lecturers, are almost all Hungarians. Very Domestic to the fact that students are from all over the world. I think it is the cause of all troubles here.
- Closed Information: Their Information Delivery is fatally
insufficient.
- Even the curriculum stracture is not
delivered in Orientation. This is one example and
this level of flaws in information delivery are everywhere.
- Statistics are also never disclosed. i.e. How many students out of
how many graduated in six years? How many students successfully
passed from 1st year to 2nd year? Especially these numbers are, I
guess, not high. Thus this information could be very informative for
students; i.e. it can be used whether they should come here or not
in the first place.
- Language Barrier in Hospital: Hangarian will be a big barrier
especially when you go to hospital, ie hospital practice; no patient
speak English. Fool enough, I did not notice this until I come
here. Communication between doctors and patients is really really
important, needless to say. (but once you come here, you would better learn the language for practical purpose and also for respect to their language because you are in Hungary!)
- Some classes are not intended to make us understand,
rather just speak one way, which is frustrating actually.
Some classes are not efficient;
eg. histology. their web system oriented learning is horrible.
- I have sometimes felt that the faculty is "trying" to
downgrade/fail
us.Example in Anatomy
and Histology
- there are some parts left not well organized; for example Be
warned that many services like that of student service center is by
far below for a good organization, that results in messy information
delivery. it is stressful.
- Tuition Fee is not cheap any more among Eestern Europe; almost the highest in Eastern-EU.
- Neutral Side:
- They are very serious about study, as the Dean said. If you came
here, you would have to study very hard as if a real screening
process is now undergoing - this is also indicated by Dean.
- Especially Exam Period is really tough.(Here you can see how serious it could be.)
