Active Learning
Pre-med at APU is active learning in and out of the classroom.
At Alaska Pacific University, we’ve learned something about active learning: It starts with active teaching.
The kind that requires intentionally small class sizes and a typical student-faculty ratio of 12:1. Assignments that demand critical thinking, not fact reciting. Faculty who ask you to reflect on your progress and goals, often in writing.
Your Pre-med program at APU encompasses each of these active-learning features – and more – for a curriculum that helps develop you as a capable, confident medical school applicant.
From start to finish, your Pre-med track engages you in inquiry and discovery:
- Gain day-to-day practice in reasoning that forms the foundation of medical education.
- Work closely with Pre-Med faculty for insight into research methods and ways to communicate ideas.
- Graduate with a senior year demonstration project that adds to your learning and helps you develop a distinctive academic transcript.
Active learning at APU is project based.
Your Pre-med program involves at least one four-credit internship as well as job shadows with medical personnel and one or two intensives that place you inside a health care organization. You’ll gain academic credit for experience that adds to your professionalism and distinguishes your medical school application.
Active learning educates you to apply knowledge. Information sticks as you test it in new and different settings:
- Encounter complex scenarios in an ethics class requiring you to apply your values as health care providers must do
- Challenge your understanding of natural laws by converting an exercise bike into an electric power generator in a physics class
- Develop a senior year project and share your knowledge with the APU community in an academic presentation.
Active learning in your APU Pre-med program is grounded in rigorous academics. Project-based learning introduces you to mentors and keeps you motivated. The result: Pre-med preparation for a competitive edge.
