Initial Thoughts on the Pathology Summer Course

The Good:
-Since it's an online course, we can study at our leisure according to our own schedules.
-There are multiple choice quizzes for each chapter provided online to give us an idea of the kinds of questions and the level of difficulty to expect on the exams.
-The powerpoint lectures are generally thorough and cover most of the material found in the textbooks.
-An objectives guide plus a list of important vocabulary is provided in a word document for each chapter.
-There is a pre-test and post-test discussion for any questions we may have.
-The tests are multiple choice. (Could be bad if the choices are A through K or the infamous
a. A
b. B
c. C
d. A and B
e. A and C
f. B and C
g. all of the above
h. none of the above
)
-Since the tests are multiple choice, I expect that our grades after each test will be known within the same day.
-We've already studied this textbook during our spring semester, so the material should stick better the second time around.
-There is no cumulative final test that I'm aware of.
-The tuition for the summer course isn't as expensive as the tuition for a normal semester.


The Bad:
-The powerpoint lectures are always over 100 slides.
-Some of the speaker's voices in the audio for some parts of the lecture videos fade in and out.
-Some of the questions in the quizzes contain simple mistakes or ask material that is not discussed in the chapter at hand.
-According to the syllabus, a final grade less than a 75% gets you kicked out faster than a convict in a California prison. (I hear they're releasing 30,000 more over the next couple of years due to budget cuts.)
-Watching the video lectures takes up too much time. Time is better optimized by just glancing over the powerpoint material, reading the textbook and answering quiz questions found online and in other texts.
-Tuition is still expensive for us out-of-state and young (relatively) students.
-Studying takes up nearly the whole day (at least for me). Few people want to be stuck studying indoors when the weather keeps saying "It's time to swim!".

The Ugly:
-We go through the text at the blindingly fast speed of nearly 1 chapter every day.
-When the lectures are combined some powerpoints are over 350 (!!!) slides for a single chapter.
-Material covered in the powerpoint lectures and online videos go into more depth than the online quizzes are concerned. (Which begs the question, "What's really going to be on the tests?" and "Am I squandering what precious little time I have by memorizing this table/chart/list/material when it won't be asked on the test?")