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I'm 1/4 through a veterinary program, concurrently doing a Master's in Public Health. My previous career was completely unrelated, with a BA in Studio Art, that led to working in web design, web production, and advertising in social media. Very much on the opposite end of the spectrum. I loved what I used to do, before business got in the way, and then I hated it. I always had an interest in science and medicine, and worked hard to effectively change directions. I drastically lowered my standard of living to go back to school and take relevant, minimum-wage veterinary-related jobs. When I was accepted to a veterinary program, I moved across country to a state in which I knew no one, from a city in which I'd lived over a decade and had many good friends. I've since made new friends, and am adjusting, but the program DEFINES ALL. I'm here to answer questions about: - demands of professional programs - changing careers a little later in life (early 30s, in my case) - anything related to being a student in the veterinary field - anything related to being a student in the public health field - uprooting a good life to move to a place you may not want to be, and dealing with that - whatever is relevant to the aforementioned
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Oct 17, 2014 06:37
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What type of coursework did you have to do before applying to veterinary programs? Had you taken relevant classes while getting your BA, and if so did you retake those classes or just review the notes? I've got a BA in Political Science and I was looking into vet school a few years ago but having to basically redo college and take real classes was pretty daunting (also I pass out when giving blood/reading about inside-the-body stuff).
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Oct 17, 2014 13:22
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The vet schools accepted credits from up to ten years prior, so I was able to use my previous degree for general education requirements (English, humanities, social sciences - usually around 12-15 credits worth) and a few of the basic science courses. I didn't have to retake anything, though that can happen sometimes with older students. I did have to take many of the sciences for the first time, which worked out in the sense that the information was fresh in my mind for my first year at vet school. Pre-requisite courses can vary between colleges, and you usually need about 53-59 credits overall. Basic science reqs tend to be the following: - Inorganic chemistry I and II, with lab - Organic chemistry I and II, with lab - Physics I and II, with lab - Intro Biology I and II, with lab - Biochemistry - Genetics - Animal nutrition - Microbiology, with lab I took tentative steps at first, because like for you, it was a daunting change. I had a full-time job while I took one or two of the intro classes at a community college in the evenings, and I volunteered at a non-profit clinic and the local shelter on weekends/early mornings. Eventually I went back to my alma mater university full-time. You'd need to take some of the upper-division pre-reqs at an accredited university anyway. I'm gonna say the squeamish factor is the biggest problem, because there's no getting around that! I just finished up my intro pathology course. Cancer is some real-life Tetsuo Shima grossness.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:20
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Cool, I actually worked as an assistant vet tech (read: night janitor) for a few months right after college back in 2005. A couple times I got to assist during surgeries and only the neuterings made me queasy. Mostly I just mopped and did laundry though.
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Oct 18, 2014 00:13
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I would love to do this as a career but the insane cost of vet school turned me off. I think my main draw towards it is that I love animals and I like helping living things but would never be able to put up with being a people doctor.
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Oct 19, 2014 16:48
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3rd year vet student here. I was wondering if you have thought what area of vet med you wanted to do (LA, SA, Public Health, etc) and if you planned on doing internships and residencies? I know many of my friends are freaking out because by the time they will be done with residencies they will around 30 and will just be starting their careers. What are your thoughts on your situation being a bit older? Also, I'm also doing an MPH and was wondering what reason you personally decided to pursue one?
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Oct 19, 2014 19:31
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I would love to do this as a career but the insane cost of vet school turned me off. I think my main draw towards it is that I love animals and I like helping living things but would never be able to put up with being a people doctor. My girlfriend is in her fourth year at a vet school with an interesting model (all student-driven research learning, no lectures). The cost is quite insane, I think she calculated once that her loans were accruing $80 or more a day in interest. Of course, there are always shelters that could use volunteers, so if you still want to help, you might look that up.
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Oct 21, 2014 14:14
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I would love to do this as a career but the insane cost of vet school turned me off. I think my main draw towards it is that I love animals and I like helping living things but would never be able to put up with being a people doctor. It's pretty insane. I'm going to be relying on either repayment plans based on income or the 10 year program in a non-profit or govt organization that forgives loans after. I'm especially nuts because I didn't have any debt from my first degree, from scholarships and such. BUT, supposed love of the career and all that!
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Oct 21, 2014 16:44
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Faclon posted:3rd year vet student here. I was wondering if you have thought what area of vet med you wanted to do (LA, SA, Public Health, etc) and if you planned on doing internships and residencies? I know many of my friends are freaking out because by the time they will be done with residencies they will around 30 and will just be starting their careers. What are your thoughts on your situation being a bit older? Also, I'm also doing an MPH and was wondering what reason you personally decided to pursue one? I've thought about it. I'm less concerned about internships and residencies. I AM interested in the longer term specialization, which I assume you're familiar with. It's the route where you can go into practice, put in hours toward/work with a specialist in a particular field, write papers on it, and potentially specialize after 6 (or so?) years. I'm still figuring out what I want to go into, though, so that might change. And I think the stress about starting careers a little later is kind of overblown, but that's obvious, since I chose to do it. Everyone's financial situation and desires are different and will dictate how much that matters. I have a partner and a side business, so I'm not as strapped financially. Repayment laws and whether they'll change matter, too, of course. I've also heard from more than one older vet that it's not uncommon to change trajectories ten years or so in, making it seem like you'll have more than one "career start." I think what matters more is if you really need specialization for your chosen path, or if you're sitting on $200k in loans gathering interest while working for a $30k/yr residency, maybe with 10 or so years less to make up for it if you got into vet school later in life. If anyone's interested in specializing, need it for their chosen field, and will be entering the field late 20s-early 30s, the debt calculators make it seem like the income through the course of your life will make up for the residency period, if everything goes AS PLANNED. I think it's totally doable, for some people, and will be more of a sacrifice for others. Kind of hedging my bets with that answer, but it really does depend.
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Oct 22, 2014 05:17
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Faclon posted:Also, I'm also doing an MPH and was wondering what reason you personally decided to pursue one? I'm curious about this as well. Why the MPH dual degree? Thanks!
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Oct 22, 2014 20:29
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PreacherTom posted:I'm curious about this as well. Why the MPH dual degree? Thanks! I ended up pursing a dual degree because I decided midway through vet school that I no longer wanted to work with wildlife (no money available and no jobs)and didn't want to work in private practice. The MPH is a great asset to have for government jobs (epidemiology, food safety, FDA testing, etc.) which is what I plan to go into and stay for the rest of my career. I'm particular interested in Parrotstalking's reasons since they expressed interest in eventually specializing (which many times don't deal with public health) and an MPH is a significant money investment on top of vet school costs.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:15
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Parrotstalking posted:I've thought about it. I'm less concerned about internships and residencies. I AM interested in the longer term specialization, which I assume you're familiar with. It's the route where you can go into practice, put in hours toward/work with a specialist in a particular field, write papers on it, and potentially specialize after 6 (or so?) years. I'm still figuring out what I want to go into, though, so that might change. ABVP? What other specialty college has a model like this? quote:And I think the stress about starting careers a little later is kind of overblown, but that's obvious, since I chose to do it. Everyone's financial situation and desires are different and will dictate how much that matters. I have a partner and a side business, so I'm not as strapped financially. Repayment laws and whether they'll change matter, too, of course. I've also heard from more than one older vet that it's not uncommon to change trajectories ten years or so in, making it seem like you'll have more than one "career start." I think what matters more is if you really need specialization for your chosen path, or if you're sitting on $200k in loans gathering interest while working for a $30k/yr residency, maybe with 10 or so years less to make up for it if you got into vet school later in life. Hi, I graduated from vet school this June at the age of 33 and am interested in specializing in Neurology. I'm currently in a rotating small animal internship at a specialty/ER hospital. I think like you say it depends on your goals. A lot of people in my class tended to freak out about their friends from undergrad all starting real jobs and families etc and were on the fence about specializing because that's what they wanted too. But for me, I'm not really interested in having kids and my loan burden is bad but not unmanageable, and I don't really mind moving around and don't care about becoming rich, so when I became really interested in neuro in school it was kind of a no-brainer for me (no pun intended?)
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Oct 23, 2014 05:23
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I never really freaked out about it either; I've known I wanted a residency for a few years so I guess it's had time to digest now. Also I'm in Canada and didn't have to pay nearly as much for my degree so I don't have any student loan debt.
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Oct 23, 2014 10:47
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Crushed by a string of exams, am finally back in one piece. Topoisomerase posted:ABVP? What other specialty college has a model like this? Yeah, actually, you're right. It depends on the specialty you're going for and their requirements, so what I said about long-term certification is not for every area. Starting late and going for certification or not does seem to depend on who you're asking, how much debt they already have, and what they want their financial future to be. I grew up accustomed to a simpler standard of living, so I'm not "afraid" of not achieving a certain level of net income. I'm mainly irked by veterinary debt:salary prospects in the sense that the college debt situation in America would benefit from reform in general. As long as the laws surrounding repayment plans stay in place (or improve), many of our debt loads seem manageable to have comfortable lives in a field we enjoy. Our business class drove home the point that the future economic situation is "not great," and specialization can pay off in the long run "sometimes." Other factors to consider are how you want your day-to-day to look like. For example, if you want to work part-time with decent pay, it's apparently easier to do with specialization. As someone else mentioned (maybe not this thread?), if you're okay with chaotic, exhausting hours, being on-call for emergency care can pay very well. If you don't mind living in some rural place in need, you can have $25,000/yr forgiven for up to three years. http://www.nifa.usda.gov/nea/animals/in_focus/an_health_if_vmlrp.html I enjoyed using the VIN student loan repayment simulator to try out different approaches. It was a good way to eyeball, say, how much I'd have to put aside to pay off interest on leftover debt if I did the 25 year plan, how that would change if I opened a practice or had a kid, etc: http://www.vinfoundation.org/AppUtil/document/default.aspx?pid=0&catid=&objectid=24357&objecttypeid=10&redirectFromMiscDefault=1%22 For the MPH, it's close to my other interests and experience from undergrad, and keeps my options open for potentially going into research or related employment, as Faclon pointed out. My school also offers the MPH as part of my block tuition when I take the courses in the semesters alongside my vet curriculum. So, as long as I can handle the academic load, many of the credits won't cost me anything. Parrotstalking fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 18:47
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Do you want to be a useful vet who works with livestock or a superfluous vet who does surgery on hamsters and such.
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Nov 15, 2014 19:31
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YourHealthyColon posted:Do you want to be a useful vet who works with livestock or a superfluous vet who does surgery on hamsters and such. Before I graduated from vet school this is how I thought. With a year in mixed animal practice I came to realize that large animal vets are super important because they're looking after the food supply. Small animal vets are super important because companion animals are generally considered part of the family now. Travic fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 05:03
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YourHealthyColon posted:Do you want to be a useful vet who works with livestock or a superfluous vet who does surgery on hamsters and such. There are other parameters such as lab animal vet, farm animal vets who service farm animal pets, racing horse vets, draft/companion horse vets, wildlife vets, livestock vets who work with small ruminants, swine, poultry, or cattle in large or small agriculture settings, zoo vets, aquatic vets, research vets who hardly ever put their hands on animals, all with varying levels of importance depending on which operational vacuum we're in, and this could go on awhile, so my answer is I want to know all the things, but will settle for companion animals, small ruminants and equine for now.
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Nov 16, 2014 22:10
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Does your school have a cow with a door in its side? Those things are pretty cool and people are always disgusted when I tell them about it. I know the basic reasons for their existence, but could you elaborate on it?
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Nov 17, 2014 06:38
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