Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Like, I hate coffee but I have a coffee maker because I max out at 5 hours of sleep a night due to work. This is my choice to work as much as I do though. I work about 25-30 hours a week on top of being on a wildlife team and of course school. Weekends are my catch up days.
ugh that sounds draining
It definitely can be if I don't manage my time appropriately, but again it's my choice to work that much.
I'm actually interviewing at the vet med library tomorrow. Not sure about the other libraries on campus, but the vet med one is super low key. I see the students watching Netflix all the time.
I will! It's definitely a cushy job. As far as I know, students run the lib on some nights and then weekends. It is open until midnight during exam weeks, but chances are I'd be awake until then at home anyways. The selling factor for me was not being stuck at school during winter/summer. Or holidays.
Reading this thread combined with the college strategic plan is very unsettling to say the least.
Yes, the college is having some problems right now. They suck, they're annoying, and sometimes you want to rip your hair out when you go in circles talking about said problems. Nonetheless, there are very few schools that will give you as much clinical experience on campus before your 4th year clinic rotations. Right now I'm on imaging and I spent my day shadowing the ultrasound crew. In that time, I learned what the little blobs are supposed to be, what's normal and abnormal, how the machine works in general, and what different opacities mean. Yesterday I helped position and restrain several dogs for radiographs. I was fully in charge of positioning the animal and the tube to get the proper rad to look at (with guidance of course) and figured out how to readjust to fix any rotation errors. These are things I could learn through externships or in 4th year rotations, but I'm learning them now. It will make me more competent and knowledgeable by the time I get to 4th year. It's seriously valuable experiences that I wouldn't toss to the side just because our governor is being stubborn or the school admin people are being dramatic. It's not the end of the world. Your decision on what school to go to should be based on their curriculum, their tuition, how it will affect your personal relationships, and if you want to live in the town the school is in. The budget thing is just temporary.
Really, the rotations are excellent. A fair number of people try to knock them, but until you've been through them, you don't really realize how much you can learn just as a first year going through (and then you still get second year to have more rotations as well!). Some exciting things I did: blood draws on a horse jug, cow tail vein, sheep jug; how to use a balling gun and restrain a cow's head (for the most part...lol); x-ray positioning and ultrasound; how to do an optho exam, and so much more. This is stuff that you otherwise may very well be doing for the first time as a fourth year when a clinician (or client) is watching you. We also have two milestone exams to test us on these skills, so it's not like these rotations aren't taken seriously.
Seriously the BIGGEST plus about Illinois is the fact clinical practice start year 1. That is awesome!
That sounds so awesome!! Illinois' curriculum does sound amazing!
Do you feel these finance problems have impacted your learning ability ?
Honestly? No. The only issue we have right now is that we're having to use our labs as classrooms. That is an annoyance, but I don't feel that it will have an effect on me educationally if that makes sense.
Yeah I get it. Thanks for the honesty!
It'd be crazy unlikely. This is a huge school. The schools at risk are the small universities that don't get the amount in tuition that we do. All universities have cash reserves for crises like this.
Even our janitors are supportive, lol. One saw the look on my face right before our final and said "You'll be okay!" It's the little things.
Didn't get mine.
Honestly, the mass exodus is with clinicians, not much the researchers. There's been a lot of conflicts within the faculty and tenure has been difficult for several professors to get. The school has been whipping down on doing more research so there should be opportunities. My learning doesn't seem to be damaged by all the changes, but it doesn't mean I'm super happy about it. Like I've mentioned before, we're working to get the budget fixed and find alternative funds to finish our classrooms so we have some place to put all of you. It'll hopefully be fixed by the fall, but I'm not completely optimistic about it. We'll see.
We are down a few faculty members starting next year, but I mean if they are offered a better job than where they are now...one is taking a hospital director position at another school (most people are pretty sad he's leaving, but he definitely wants to be in a decision making position). One is retiring last I checked. In reality, our mass exodus is 3-4. Those that are leaving do not have a significant role (one taught an elective) in the curriculum prior to clinics. It isn't affecting us right now.
That's not quite true. It's at least 10 professors that are either leaving or retiring. Dr. O'Brian, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Dirikolu, Dr. Hale-Mitchell, Dr. Kulenschmidt, Dr. Paul, Dr. Hamer (not sure how to spell this one), and Dr. Ferguson are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. There's plenty more. It's still not affecting us that much because they've found decent replacements for most of the positions already, but it's a lot of people. It's just more than you've had the chance to meet yet as a 1st year. Dr. D, Dr. K, and Dr. Paul are all 2nd year professors and Dr. O'Brian teaches imaging only a little 1st year.
Those names are a surprise! That hasn't trickled down to first years yet haha. Actually, Ferguson is supposedly staying on for another year.
He had a retirement party in December. Apparently we're not the only ones who like free food lol.
It's a profession-wide thing!I didn't get anything either....
Possibly alphabetical? Also, in case this wasn't mentioned yet, there will be 340 of you interviewing.
Online it said 200-250 OOS and 100 IS not sure if that is accurate for this interview session though
