MERP: The Campus

After focusing on other aspects of the island life and culture we have seen, I thought it might be nice to have an actual post about the school. MERP is a program through Ross University, a Caribbean medical school. The school owns most of a strip mall/shopping center here, and has classrooms and such on both ends of the strip.

Here are the main doors of the campus...and naturally i thought they were worthy of a picture. Everything is locked and can only be accessed with your student ID badge.

Once inside, there is a public study area where the students can use whiteboards and study together. This is also where many eat and mingle during the breaks.





On the other side of the room the staff provides updates on activities going on around the island and they also give random study and healthy living tips.

 

The school offers lockers to all the students, but provides no actual locks. These may be purchased for $18-30 on island, if you're lucky.

This is the computer lab that is open all day. In addition to this there are a bunch of individual study rooms that you can reserve any time.

 This is the main classroom for the school, and all classes take place here. All of the lectures are recorded, but attendance is mandatory. All tests and quizzes are taken in this room. You basically live in this room.

This is the student lounge on campus and consists of a pool table and ping pong table, 4 leather couches and a TV. It's small but nice. They also have a little cafe inside that sells sandwiches and coffee and such.

 The last main building on campus is the gym. This is also a highly utilized room. Most of the students here are trying to get into better shape as studying all day and doing nothing else tends to make you gain weight.






In addition to the workout facility, the school also provides free weekly yoga and zumba classes. They also offer a weekly body tracker, which checks weight and body composition to encourage students to be healthier.

Here is a view of the grocery store in the shopping center. This is where most everyone on our side of the island shops. Most food and other household items can be found here, but everything is super expensive. It has been really hard to get used to paying 3x what the prices are in Utah.

The other end of the strip mall has a couple Italian specialty shops, the student services office and the bank here.

They recently opened a frozen yogurt shop right next to the school, but it is also super expensive so we haven't been as much as we'd like. We miss Farr's ice cream.