Also, does anyone know of a place to live, I'm in a time crunch now!
Kansas State c/o 2018 Applicants!!
- Thread starter remi4301
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Hey All! I'm late to this discussion but I'm a fourth year at K-State. I did a concurrent MPH and was an original 2014er (now 2015er). I am food animal focused, applied to food animal/large animal internships and plan on doing a bovine therio residency so if any of you have specific questions feel free to PM me. (A fellow student brought this subject to my attention this morning which is why I'm so late.)
Here is my two cents:
Failing: The curriculum changed for the class of 2013. Vastly. They changed the credits of most classes to add in electives so material got cut. It has taken the professors awhile to be able to teach less well and for that our education has suffered. It has taken them awhile to figure out appropriate cut offs for classes (particularly Pharmacology, for 2014ers, 7ish didn't pass pharm, 2015 had 1-2ish once they moved the passing grade.) They have changed three times since I've been here the way Surgery 1 is graded third year - 2014 had 1 person fail that class, 2015 had 10ish. Six of us failed medicine III (equine medicine; yes I said us - I failed by two points). Unlike many of my fellow failers (or at least that's my impression), I am not nearly as bitter about it - I didn't know the material and I deserved to fail. But it gave me the time to finish my MPH (a lot of students start an MPH once failed btw because our programs mix so well.) and do things I enjoyed for the change. Although failing sounds devastating, I have a friend who failed two years of vet school, did an MPH and had 7 job offers out of school including one with a $80,000 starting salary. Does it suck? Yes. Does it mean you are a failure and can't do anything with your life? No.
Food Animal Program: While it is true that K-State has put out EXCELLENT food animal vets in the past, our faculty has DRASTICALLY changed in the five years I've been here. When I started we had Dr. David Anderson (now at TN, he is amazing). Extremely well known food animal surgeon (guess how many of those there are) as well as Camelid experts. When we lost him, we lost a lot of our Camelid clients, many of our more affluent bovine clients. Although Dr. Matt Meisner is a fantastic teacher and veterinarian, he is overworked and just not quite as well known. We just hired Dr. Emily Reppert (from OkSU) who is still young yet and with time will attract more clients. In field service we lost Dr. Shellie Laflin this past week due to retirement. Dr. Nora Shrag is also an amazing teacher, but is also a recent hire. With time I believe we will have excellent faculty who can teach us to be great production animal veterinarians. The other side of the coin is the administration - we have issues attracting and keeping clients because of our business model. Most food animal people are good people who want to support the school and the students and are excited to see us young folk consider large animal careers. But to come here is takes longer and cost more and they just can't sacrifice both. Plus we charge 60% up front on anything that stays, and for the beef community who get paid twice a year that isn't reasonable (if it was dairy country maybe you could get away with it.) Our school has both sides of the hospital on the same business model and what works for small animal just doesn't work for food animal and its causing long term issues.
The Computers: 2014ers got an e-mail asking to survey our opinions on the computers - most of us described them as useful but distracting (Back up - we were required to buy and are technically required to use them although some people use other computers, I found my grades and focus were higher if I pre-printed my notes and only used my computer if I had to). Then BAM - 2015 was told that they were concerned our internet was causing failures (mind you they also studied where people sat in relation to who failed and that showed nothing) and turned it off to see if it would help with the intent to turn it off school wide eventually. In my opinion, both sides (student vs. administration) handled the entire situation very poorly and it has created some hard feelings. (PS they couldn't control 4G on your phone so almost everyone was using the internet anyways). The reality is there is good and bad with every school and you need to decide if that is enough of an issue to not attend.
Again, my opinions. I'm not on here that often anymore so feel free to PM me with specific questions if you have them.
Here is my two cents:
Failing: The curriculum changed for the class of 2013. Vastly. They changed the credits of most classes to add in electives so material got cut. It has taken the professors awhile to be able to teach less well and for that our education has suffered. It has taken them awhile to figure out appropriate cut offs for classes (particularly Pharmacology, for 2014ers, 7ish didn't pass pharm, 2015 had 1-2ish once they moved the passing grade.) They have changed three times since I've been here the way Surgery 1 is graded third year - 2014 had 1 person fail that class, 2015 had 10ish. Six of us failed medicine III (equine medicine; yes I said us - I failed by two points). Unlike many of my fellow failers (or at least that's my impression), I am not nearly as bitter about it - I didn't know the material and I deserved to fail. But it gave me the time to finish my MPH (a lot of students start an MPH once failed btw because our programs mix so well.) and do things I enjoyed for the change. Although failing sounds devastating, I have a friend who failed two years of vet school, did an MPH and had 7 job offers out of school including one with a $80,000 starting salary. Does it suck? Yes. Does it mean you are a failure and can't do anything with your life? No.
Food Animal Program: While it is true that K-State has put out EXCELLENT food animal vets in the past, our faculty has DRASTICALLY changed in the five years I've been here. When I started we had Dr. David Anderson (now at TN, he is amazing). Extremely well known food animal surgeon (guess how many of those there are) as well as Camelid experts. When we lost him, we lost a lot of our Camelid clients, many of our more affluent bovine clients. Although Dr. Matt Meisner is a fantastic teacher and veterinarian, he is overworked and just not quite as well known. We just hired Dr. Emily Reppert (from OkSU) who is still young yet and with time will attract more clients. In field service we lost Dr. Shellie Laflin this past week due to retirement. Dr. Nora Shrag is also an amazing teacher, but is also a recent hire. With time I believe we will have excellent faculty who can teach us to be great production animal veterinarians. The other side of the coin is the administration - we have issues attracting and keeping clients because of our business model. Most food animal people are good people who want to support the school and the students and are excited to see us young folk consider large animal careers. But to come here is takes longer and cost more and they just can't sacrifice both. Plus we charge 60% up front on anything that stays, and for the beef community who get paid twice a year that isn't reasonable (if it was dairy country maybe you could get away with it.) Our school has both sides of the hospital on the same business model and what works for small animal just doesn't work for food animal and its causing long term issues.
The Computers: 2014ers got an e-mail asking to survey our opinions on the computers - most of us described them as useful but distracting (Back up - we were required to buy and are technically required to use them although some people use other computers, I found my grades and focus were higher if I pre-printed my notes and only used my computer if I had to). Then BAM - 2015 was told that they were concerned our internet was causing failures (mind you they also studied where people sat in relation to who failed and that showed nothing) and turned it off to see if it would help with the intent to turn it off school wide eventually. In my opinion, both sides (student vs. administration) handled the entire situation very poorly and it has created some hard feelings. (PS they couldn't control 4G on your phone so almost everyone was using the internet anyways). The reality is there is good and bad with every school and you need to decide if that is enough of an issue to not attend.
Again, my opinions. I'm not on here that often anymore so feel free to PM me with specific questions if you have them.
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You might want to post this in the c/o 2019 thread as well. 
