Vanderbilt

I interviewed at Vanderbilt in Tennessee on Monday and I loved it. Pretty much everything about it was amazing. Here are the best things about Vanderbilt.

1. The students are happy. They are really happy. According the surveys, they are the happiest med students in the country. They have parties, they know each other and they even go line dancing together.

2. Extremely flexible program. Vanderbilt has this emphasis program that allows you to study what you want. I would probably look into Global Health or maybe healthcare administration (they have the #1 business school in this field).

3. Location. The South is amazing. Grits are amazing. Sweet potato pancakes are amazing. Sweet tea is amazing. Southerners are amazing (they talk to you and are friendly; I pulled out a map and it wasn't 3 seconds before someone asked if I needed help). Vanderbilt has about a billion trees, and they actually are changing colors! It is beautiful! Tennessee and Nashville are pretty cool too (though their roads are very poorly designed).

The interview itself went great. I just talked about FISH for an hour while the interviewer laughed and smiled. I felt very confident about it. It was a great first interview. I'll have something to cling to when I get torn apart by questions that actually are tough (beyond just "tell stories about FISH").

I've got another one at UCSF which should be much tougher. UCSF is very highly ranked among medical schools even though it doesn't have much reputation outside the medical community.