Experiences

Getting Started

Obtaining experiences in your desired profession is important for any graduate or professional school, especially veterinary school. Obviously schools want you to have experiences for admissions purposes, however even more importantly gaining animal and veterinary related experiences will help determine if veterinary medicine is really the right path for you. Your academics can get you into veterinary school, but your passion and abilities will help you complete your degree and become successful in the profession.

Starting to gain experiences early is important. If possible, gaining experience in high school is the first place to start because it will let you know early on if it is the right career path and it will give you handling experience with animals. During your undergraduate career it is very important to gain a variety of experiences with different volunteer organizations and veterinary clinics in your area. Many schools have a required/recommended number of hours for veterinary related experiences, ranging from two hundred to over a thousand hours. As you can see, getting experience is a huge emphasis for veterinary schools and will benefit you a lot.

Keeping Track

Just as important as gaining the experiences is keeping track of them. When applying to veterinary school you are going to need to submit all of your experiences, dates, and hours through VMCAS. In order to properly show the veterinary schools your qualifications you should be keeping track of not only locations, hours, and dates, but also writing down a summary of your experiences. Keeping a journal about your experiences allows you to look back on those instances to learn about yourself and the profession when you are applying. Since I decided to be a veterinarian during high school, I have been shadowing in clinics and volunteering at rescue centers. I have amassed over 1,500 hours of veterinary related experiences and 300 hours of animal related experience. During that time I have kept two different documents to detail my experiences in undergrad. First I had an excel sheet that kept a running total of all of my animal and veterinary related experiences hours and dates. This included my hours working an AEH, veterinary shadowing, school research, and any volunteer hours with animals.In addition, I had a microsoft document that I continually filled out every semester that listed all of my academic and community activities, such as volunteer opportunities, honors and awards, and organizations I was invovled in. These experiences unrelated to veterinary medicine are just as important because they show the schools that you are a well-rounded individual.

Veterinary Experiences

These are experiences under the guidance of a veterinarian, such as shadowing or working in a clinic. The experiences in this category are arguably the most important because they provide you with direct experience in the profession. Shadowing or working in that setting will let you know if you are the type that is going to faint at the sight of blood or get excited when a case comes through the door.

Getting experiences in a clinic can sometimes be hard because of the regulations of the medical field. Granted it is going to be a lot easier than if you were going for human medicine. The first place to start is the internet by looking up all the local vets in your area. Compile a list of the veterinary clinics and then start calling them. Some clinics will have policies against allowing students to shadow, but many are going to be willing to allow you to visit once or even make it a regular weekly routine. It never hurts to ask, so call or go there in person and explain who you are and that you want to shadow. Another extremely important point is to get a variety of experience. It is highly recommended by many veterinary schools to get experience in at least three different areas. Some examples are small animal medicine, equine medicine, large animal medicine, food animal medicine, dairy, zoological medicine, exotic medicine, mixed practice, or aquatic.

Beyond getting shadowing experience, it is very beneficial to obtain some sort of job in a veterinary clinic. This can be very difficult and it will take time to find these rare opportunities. You might need to start as a receptionist in a clinic and work your way to being a veterinary assistant. Keep in mind that in most cases a job in a clinic for a student with no formal training/education is going to be cleaning cages and other grunt work. However, every hour you spend in a clinic is going to give you more experiences and in many cases the clinic will give you more responsibilities as you gain their trust.

I was very lucky to have had the veterinary experiences that I have had over the past few years. Working at the Animal Emergency Hospital has been an amazing opportunity as I have had very hands-on and extensive training and on-the-job experiences. I highly recommend trying to find a local emergency hospital, especially for those of you in the Grand Rapids area, and applying for positions. At the West Michigan Animal Emergency Hospital, my place of employment, they provide their students will stellar training and unbelievable hands-on experiences. I know that my employment at AEH has had a very large part in my acceptances to multiple veterinary schools.

Animal Related Experiences

In addition to having veterinary experiences, it is also extremely important to have various animal related experiences. These experiences show veterinary schools that you are passionate about animals and they will teach you how to properly handle animals. Working as a veterinarian can be potentially dangerous as you are working with sometimes scared or aggressive animals that have the potential to inflict injury. In order to protect yourself, your staff, the owners, and the patients you need to be able to properly handle and understand your patients.

There are many different ways that you can get animal experience and listed to the left are some examples in Grand Rapids. In general, you can volunteer at a humane society, rescue centers, zoos, farms, 4-H experience, dog walking. or working at a pet shop. I have personally volunteered at Big Sids, Crash's Landing, Mackenzie's, and the John Ball Zoo.

Research

Experiences in research aren't for everyone, but if you are able to get an opportunity definetely go for it. Research looks really good to veterinary schools because it shows that you are interested and competent in the sciences. It provides you with the opportunity to solve problems, learn new techniques, learn how to write scientific papers, and perform presentations on your work. I spent the summer after my freshman year doing biochemistry research with E. coli. While I discovered that research wasn't my passion, it was still a great experience and provided me with many great opportunities since then. If this is something you are interested or would like to try, start early and make connections. It can sometimes be difficult to obtain research opportunities, so you need to look around and work hard for it.

Volunteer Work

Veterinary schools also want to see that you have areas of interest outside of veterinary medicine and that you give back to your community/school. In general giving back to your community is great and it provides you with important life lessons. There are so many different opportunities, especially when you are in college, around Grand Rapids and the local area. To the left is a short list of opportunities, but a google search will easily find many other programs.