Hello,
I'm about to be freshman in college in 2 months, and I just decided to pursue veterinary medicine as my career, because I dearly love the hard work and experiences I have done with caring animals, and really it's the only thing that makes me happy. I would like to go in for Large-Animal and I understand it's a long-studious career and expensive but I wanted to know more about the aftermath of vet school.. My questions are
1.Is it required to do residency immediately after graduating? If so, how many years?
2. Are you able to work after graduating from vet school? Or do you need to be board-certified to do so?
3. What do you recommend doing after vet school in your opinion? If your interests were in Large animal?
Thank you for your time!
I would first highly encourage you to find a veterinarian to shadow. Maybe this is the career for you, but maybe not. The realities of veterinary medicine are often quite different from what we imagine it will be like. Being a vet is way more about the people than the animals at it's core. To answer your questions:
1. No, not required. Most residencies are 3 years +/- a rotating intern year beforehand.
2. Yes, you are a fully licensed vet and able to practice when you graduate. No need to be board certified.
3. Nope.
Please heavily research and debt-to-income ratio and make an informed decision. It is truly a crisis, and often pre-vets come in with a 'but it's my DREAM' mentality...then those first loan payments come due. Most people realize a vet won't have a fancy car, mansion, and multiple vacations a year...but the reality is that with a lot of debt, you may not be able to even purchase a home, any car built within the last ten years, or take time off because you're on production and still have loans to pay. Is it doable? Yes. Is it wise? Maybe, maybe not. For those students borrowing 250,000+ it almost always relies on income based loan repayment. This is especially true for someone wanting to do large animal. Many places need a large animal vet. This is true. But, not many places can pay a large animal vet anywhere near what they deserve, what they need to survive on, or what that person could make in small animal medicine. My best friend does mixed animal (about 40% bovine, 15% goats, 40% cat/dog, 5% equine) in the midwest/south and she makes $52,500 a year
before taxes. If you're about to be a college freshman that may seem like quite a bit (it would have to me 10 years ago), but after taxes, loan payments and/or saving for loan forgiveness, rent/mortgage, maybe retirement savings, etc that doesn't leave hardly anything left.
I realize this may be coming off as a debbie downer, but do spend time shadowing vets before making the decision to pursue vet med...preferably in multiple aspects of vet med. Talk to them, ask if they'd do it again, what they thing, if it's what they thought. See what a day is like in their shoes. If you still decide it's what you want to do, then go for it! Go to the cheapest undergrad you can, pick the cheapest vet school you can, and hope that income based loan repayment continues to be a thing or you win the lottery. But if you decide it's not for you, then that's okay too.
