Campus Tour
Welcome to the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine’s virtual tour! While we hope this page will be a resource for many, it is especially critical for our prospective students this academic year (2020-21) as we will not be able to welcome hundreds of you to campus as we typically do because of the current COVID-19 health pandemic.
While not the same as seeing our building, community, and health system up close and in-person, we hope it gives you a good idea of what it is like to study, work, and live at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.
We asked some current students what they hope you'll learn about the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine even though you can't come see us in person.
Prospective students can't interview in person this year. What should they know?
[L.B. Canary, class of 2024]: The one thing that will be hard to tease out of this virtual experience is the culture of a program, so I want to make sure that you know that this is a very supportive place. We have a small class size so you really do form a family pretty quickly and then anything you're interested in, you're supported to do, and it's definitely very inclusive and supportive and in a way that may be hard to translate through a computer screen.
[Nirali Trivedi, class of 2024]: I think the most important thing to remember is, even though you're not going to be meeting the staff, everybody here is looking out for you and they want you to succeed. I was so afraid of getting left behind in my education or not getting like a supportive community, but being here everybody is so ready to pick you up when you're down. And just in general, the school the campus is beautiful and gorgeous and Roanoke, the town itself, I know you guys can't get to see it in person but when you guys come it is the cutest little town and it's perfect for outdoorsy people and also not outdoorsy people like me.
[Mina Lee, class of 2023]: I think the feeling that you get at VTC when you're a student here makes you really feel like you're part of a family. I think it's hard to find that anywhere else and I don't know whether it's because the class sizes are really small or whether it's because of the specific faculty that they have here or just the environment that they try to foster and nurture. I think it's probably a combination of all of those things, but that's one thing that I didn't really feel at a lot of other schools, was that feeling of like immediate acceptance and interest in who I was and what my goals were and and how the school could help me achieve those goals.
Let's get on with the tour! Where would you like to start?
Opening only a decade ago, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine was purposefully built for its unique curriculum. Instead of endless lecture halls, priority was given to small-group learning spaces and clinical practice rooms to support our active learning style. A tiered classroom serves as a more traditional classroom space. Finally, students learn anatomy in a variety of ways, through a dry anatomy lab where models and high-tech ultrasound machines are used, to a more traditional cadaver lab.
The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine has two larger traditional lecture-style spaces within the building. The first-floor lecture hall normally seats just over 100 people and is used for smaller guest speakers, large staff meetings, gatherings of one or two classes of students, as well as the first-year student patient case wrap-up every Friday. A larger auditorium spans the back of the second and third floors of the school and can seat more than 200 people. Larger speaker events are held in the room as well as ceremonies like the White Coat Ceremony and Match Day. Receptions for events often occur in the building’s atrium and cafe, which are located in the middle of the building right off the front steps of the building.
The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine has several places for students, faculty, and staff to find a quiet spot to study or relax. The library offers desks and carousels for students to use while enjoying large windows with a view of campus and Roanoke’s famous Mill Mountain Star. Finally, the building offers a small gym to sneak in a quick workout as well as a relaxation room for a quick reset and student lounge to keep snacks and meals at the ready.