Advice on my current situation

[sushivet2018]

I really want to go to school to be a veterinarian. My situation is as follows: I am a 27 yo female. In 2015 I graduated with a BS in Biology. This just happens to be a coincidence because I never really thought of going to school to become a vet until some time in my junior year, I just loved the sciences and figured I would do something with that. I started college all the way back in the Fall of 2010. When looking at some schools, they have age requirements for their prereqs and by the time I would even be ready to apply, my general prereqs (gen bio, gen chem, math, english) will be expired (and I am missing some like public speaking, a full biochem course). I started off at a community college and got my associates there and took most of the prereqs there and when I transferred to the four year school I took a good amount of upper level bio classes.

The real problem is this, I work full time Mon-Friday 830a-5pm. This was my first real job right out of college and its in a call center helping people with their health insurance (I hate it but the pay is ok). The only school that I would be able to take some of the prereqs at (evening classes) is the same community college I graduated from and I really don't think that will look well at all. There is a college near me that offers a post bacc pre med certificate that I really want to do but the classes are during the day. I also have no vet experience. There are vets near me open on the weekend but they said they really don't recommend having shadowing on those days because they are mostly vaccine appointments and very boring and wanted me to come in during the week, when I have work. I wish I was still younger and wasn't a full blown adult with a ton of bills. I live on my own and can't just quit my job. I also haven't taken the GRE yet. My grades were pretty decent, overall GPA around 3.5. I have looked into Ross and it seems like a good option since I know that I will probably need a few cycles to get into a US school but Ross seems about the same as OOS tuition. My in state school is Cornell and I no I have no chance of getting in there. Anybody have any advice on what I should do at this point? Where I should start? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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[dyachei]

You're going to have to make a choice - do you want to keep this job or become a vet?

If you want to become a vet, you can certainly take some community college courses. Have you looked at cornell for instate to determine you "have no chance"? or are you making assumptions?

Ross may have the same tuition, cost of living and flights may change that.

 

[CoffeeQuestionMark]

I really want to go to school to be a veterinarian. My situation is as follows: I am a 27 yo female. In 2015 I graduated with a BS in Biology. This just happens to be a coincidence because I never really thought of going to school to become a vet until some time in my junior year, I just loved the sciences and figured I would do something with that. I started college all the way back in the Fall of 2010. When looking at some schools, they have age requirements for their prereqs and by the time I would even be ready to apply, my general prereqs (gen bio, gen chem, math, english) will be expired (and I am missing some like public speaking, a full biochem course). I started off at a community college and got my associates there and took most of the prereqs there and when I transferred to the four year school I took a good amount of upper level bio classes.

The real problem is this, I work full time Mon-Friday 830a-5pm. This was my first real job right out of college and its in a call center helping people with their health insurance (I hate it but the pay is ok). The only school that I would be able to take some of the prereqs at (evening classes) is the same community college I graduated from and I really don't think that will look well at all. There is a college near me that offers a post bacc pre med certificate that I really want to do but the classes are during the day. I also have no vet experience. There are vets near me open on the weekend but they said they really don't recommend having shadowing on those days because they are mostly vaccine appointments and very boring and wanted me to come in during the week, when I have work. I wish I was still younger and wasn't a full blown adult with a ton of bills. I live on my own and can't just quit my job. I also haven't taken the GRE yet. My grades were pretty decent, overall GPA around 3.5. I have looked into Ross and it seems like a good option since I know that I will probably need a few cycles to get into a US school but Ross seems about the same as OOS tuition. My in state school is Cornell and I no I have no chance of getting in there. Anybody have any advice on what I should do at this point? Where I should start? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

1. For the old prereq s, I'd suggest either looking solely at schools without expiration dates, or taking the classes online or at the community college. You shouldn't be afraid of doing that unless the schools specifically say upper division only or no community college courses. I did all my bio, chem, math, physics communication course at a community college, only did genetics/ochem/biochem/micro at a university

2. Shadowing will be a very slow way of gaining hours. It may be beneficial to shadow solely as a means of finding a clinic you'd like to work at. Another option is volunteering in the veterinary department at your local animal shelter-this theoretically will be more hands on than a shadow position.

 

[DVMDream]

You need to get veterinary experience before deciding to plunge into the hole that is getting all the pre-reqs and applying. You need to see what this field is really like by actually experiencing it before you throw yourself $150-300k in debt with a horrible salary, compassion fatigue and a 4x the average suicide rate of the general public.

See if you could shadow an emergency clinic at night after you get off. Maybe from 6-10PM or something. So that you aren't up super late but still getting experience. You might have to try changing your work hours some to get experience, see if you can trade a weekday off to work on Saturday. Volunteering at a shelter is an option as well and that can be done on the weekends. Or even the ER clinic on the weekends. I'd check out other vets, I rarely have only vaccines on the weekend, actually tend to have more sick patients because people wait all week and then try to squeeze in their pet that has been vomiting for 5 days on Saturday afternoon, usually 5 minutes before closing.

You need to really verify that this is what you want to do. I can promise it probably isn't anything like you imagine and that might mean it isn't as good as you are thinking or it might be better, but really make sure you want to go into this field first.

 

[sushivet2018]

You're going to have to make a choice - do you want to keep this job or become a vet?

If you want to become a vet, you can certainly take some community college courses. Have you looked at cornell for instate to determine you "have no chance"? or are you making assumptions?

Ross may have the same tuition, cost of living and flights may change that.

Would retaking prereqs at the same community college that I originally took them look bad?

 

[SkiOtter]

Would retaking prereqs at the same community college that I originally took them look bad?

Why would it look bad? If they’re expiring you have to take them SOMEWHERE. Check with each individual school on their policies about coursework expirations.
And PLEASE FIND SOME VET EXPERIENCE BEFORE STARTING TO RETAKE CLASSES and sinking money into something you may not end up liking.

 

[wildlifer]

Like what everyone else is saying, get some shadowing hours in before you dive into retaking prereqs, those are gonna be time and money wasted if you feel it really isnt for you. If after getting some veterinary experience under your belt and you do decide to go for it, there are also some schools that offer prereqs online that may fit with your work schedule. They are more pricey than probably the community college but the schedule may work better. But really focus on getting some veterinary hours first. This isn't a field you should just dive right into and "loving animals" isn't enough of a reason.

 

[britzen]

Lots of schools will accept older classes. A few of mine were from 2002 and I developed a list of 5-10 schools I was looking at applying to. Look up any school you'd be interested in and see if they post a policy. If they don't post anything, contact the school directly to ask. You can get an idea of some schools where prereqs don't expire on this thread:

Schools where pre-reqs don't expire? (I'm at 10 years, yikes)

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[JustPaws]

I got in with ten y.o. science prereqs... Gotta ask the schools. Mich States website said they needed to be no more than 7-8, but things things aren't set in stone.

Go get some experience and then start reaching out to schools if you're still still interested before you retake credits just because the classes are old.

Also I took lots of science prereqs at community college, I think @LetItSnow did too. Pm me of you wanna talk more, good luck!