So I don't come on here much, but I will post a few things about my school to help any prospectants. If you post a bunch of questions after, I may not get round to answering them for a few weeks-months really! I'll try to be comprehensive. I am in my 3rd out of 4 years (did the graduate entry program) here at Edinburgh.
The city and country are beautiful. If you are a person that is not prone to getting homesick you will do just fine being away. There are endless opportunities to travel cheaply to do veterinary related things or just for fun. It is an adjustment at first, moving to a different country, but give yourself a year at least to fully appreciate things. We all went through phases of regret coming here, as well as pure gratitude and excitement about our choice.
The university has its pros and cons just like every school. I came here not because I didn't get offers from state schools (I got two), but because it was actually my cheapest option and I had visited the school before I accepted and liked it. I also recently noticed that the tuition is now 26,400 pounds a year! Even at the current exchange rate (which is historically good) that is very expensive. When I started my tuition was fixed at 20,900 pounds a year- which works out on average to about $33,000 per year (which compared to what I would have payed at Penn or Tufts as OOS is much less). Anyway, I still feel that when I tell people where I go to school, they assume I wasn't smart enough to get into school in the states. I wish I could shake that feeling, but truthfully many people do come here because they didn't get an offer in the states. I guess I just have to get over that!
Academically, things can be weird. From what I hear state-side, most vet students are in class like 8-4 or 9-5. We have some days like that, but usually its more like 4-5 hours of class per day (sometimes more, sometimes less). They do not teach you everything you need to know always, you really have to take it upon yourself to do outside/additional reading like they tell you to, and not just memorize your notes. There is a reason we usually have a few extra hours off each day.
Your first year of 'EMS' is animal husbandry- some of this is useful, and some of it is the worst experience ever and a waste of time. My dairy experience was very good and helpful since I didn't have any hands on experience with cattle before, and lambing is a blast as well, although no one in the states will care that you lambed 300 ewes in the middle of the night by yourself. My poultry experience consisted of a week of collecting eggs basically. Biggest waste of time ever. After first year, you move onto 'clinical EMS'- in other words, externships. Whenever I did an externship in 2nd year or this year, which I mostly did in the states, some vets kept assuming I was in my final year when I had only just started my clinical years and basically only knew my anatomy and physiology and little bit of anesthesia and surgery or whatever. I'm sure these vets thought I was an idiot because I didn't know anything clinical at the time. So make sure you are clear about your experience so far!
Also, there is a huge age range of people at school, so you are not just with 19-20 year olds. There are plenty of British students that do a vet degree as their second degree too. However, the 19-20 year olds are immature, even for that age, and often incredibly annoying. No point in sugar coating it!
A few things I wish I had known before coming:
Many Americans don't know where Edinburgh is, let alone whether it has a good vet school or not. It is a good vet school, it will get you to pass your NAVLE, but often there will be a stigma attached to you, AVMA accredited or not.
You will graduate in late June of your final year. State schools graduate their students in May. Therefore, you are out of the running for many internships your first year after graduation. Competitive internships get more applicants than they know what to do with, and they are not going to go out of their way to give you a later start date and let you miss orientation unless they REALLY, REALLY like you. Additionally, they don't use class rank or GPA here, which are often important criteria in selecting interns at many places. You get number grades, and a transcript, but it probably won't make much sense to the selection committees in the states. If they see a 75 average (which is an A here), they may think you are a terrible student and it's an extra hassle to have to send along an explanation of grades with your application. I just think it's difficult for them to compare you well enough to US students applying.
If you do not have a realistic idea of what your monthly loan payments will be after graduation, and what your starting salary will be, do not commit to vet school period. You really need to work this out before you go.
The school is AVMA accredited, yes. They make every effort to teach you about things you need to know for work in America. However, the program is ultimately geared toward working in Britain, and you don't have lectures on practice management, legislative things, and a handful of other things. Obviously, you can learn this stuff on your own though and something like 95-100% of people that take the NAVLE here pass it. It would just be easier if we knew what exactly was different/missing from the curriculum.
If you are seriously interested in equine, I don't know that I would come here. We don't have a huge caseload- however, we do have some fantastic equine professors (Paddy Dixon!). Just a heads up.
There is no neurology or ophthalmology rotation in final year- you get tutorials and a few practicals on them in final year, but that's it.
Importantly, a lot of your practical experience is dished out to 'EMS.' Great if you find good placements, crappy if you don't. I got to do a lot of neutering on EMS, but not everyone else does- and you get to do ONE spay/neuter in final year and that's it. And during the small animal surgery course, there is not much of a lab component. The only surgery labs we have are on surgical principles like suturing, gowning, gloving, etc. They don't even give you cadavers to practice on. I think the education you get on surgery here is therefore minimal at best. I just don't think listening to lectures on how to do surgeries and scrubbing in on difficult surgeries in final year in any way prepares you to do them on your own. Our surgery experience does not even compare to that students at Iowa State get for example.
Americans are here because the school gets money from them. All the students know this, and it seems like some of the British students really resent that sometimes. We all get along pretty well, but don't assume the school accepts Americans for any other reason than that.
So I realize a lot of this is negative (oops!), but on the plus side: most of my friends that graduated last year now have jobs at what seem to be nice practices. The few that applied to internships matched somewhere (I think it was only like 4 or 5 people though). The professors are great, you will gain invaluable life perspective living outside the insulated box that is the United States, the small animal hospital is really nice (Glasgow's may be nicer for the person that asked- but do a cheaper 4 year program PLEASE!), they are well aware of all the obstacles North Americans face coming to vet school here and are very helpful, you get to travel, the city is beautiful and the novelty has never worn away for me, and you definitely have more time off in final year than most schools!
I struggled a lot with whether I made the right decision or not, and have constantly compared myself and my degree to those state-side for the past 2 and a half years. My conclusion has been that vet school is what you make of it, and if you study hard and don't flit around with your extra time off, you will be just as smart and prepared as graduates from other schools in most areas. It all depends on the student and not the school. Really.
So I guess that's all I can think of right now. It is a serious decision, and despite the wealth of info on SDN, there was a lot I still did not know before coming here. I hope some of this helps you with your decision. If I could do it over again, I don't know what I would pick honestly. I value the life experience I have gotten here and all the traveling I have gotten to do in Europe and Asia. In the grand scheme of things, life is short and if you can afford it, it is an amazing place to be and experience. On the other hand, I am pretty type A and wish that I was going to be more prepared and seriously considered for very competitive internships, and from that perspective, I wish I had taken one of my offers from the northeast vet schools. So I guess I really don't know if the grass would be greener on the other side or not- it all depends which way you look at it.
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M.A.
