Animal Experience: Do Fishes Count?

[ChicoShadow]

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I have been looking for research jobs on my campus that deal with animal care and I ran across one that looked really interesting. It involves taking care of the zebra fish used for research. Does anyone know if vet schools would consider this animal experience? I mean fish are animals but....

 

[TrocarKarin]

If you're just doing basic husbandry, it should count as animal experience. If you're actually doing research with a PhD, it may count as veterinary experience.

 

[NStarz]

I have been looking for research jobs on my campus that deal with animal care and I ran across one that looked really interesting. It involves taking care of the zebra fish used for research. Does anyone know if vet schools would consider this animal experience? I mean fish are animals but....

I hope fishes count! I'm using my research experience with mummichog as a boost to my app! Animal care (spraying eggs, feeding, cleaning) would fall under animal experience, but the actual research (running experiments, literature searches, etc.) would count as veterinary experience.

 

[that70sfan11]

if my research with scorpions counts, then I'd say fish count!

I don't know many people with pet scorpions...😉

but yeah, I'd say take animal experience for what it is... experience with animals!

 

[No Imagination]

As others have said, I'd put it down as vet experience if it was with a PhD or Vet! And of course fish count - while you may be working on Zebra fish, lets not forget about aquaculture, which in MS anyway, is a growning industry (OK, the industry may be stalled, but vets in the industry are apparently in demand).

That said, I wouldn't go into my interview with 10,000 hours of Zebra Fish and Scorpions experience and zero clinical and expect to be a competitive applicant in this category - they ask for the experience for a reason, and while research is a big part, they also want to see that you know what being a practicing vet is like.

 

[168135]

How come being paid to look after fish counts while looking after fish as a hobby doesn't count?

 

[c17lat]

How come being paid to look after fish counts while looking after fish as a hobby doesn't count?

I guess it's the same reason why taking care of your pet dog doesn't count or why walking through the woods and picking up snakes and toads every week as a hobby doesn't count. It's not really official and can be hard to verify.

You could mention your hobby in an essay or interview. In one of my interviews I said that the bass fishing tournaments I compete in should be considered animal experience. Throughout a tournament day I am constantly handling various fish (hopefully), and have to keep them alive(penalty for dead fish), and often perform surgery in the boat if the fish is bleeding a lot and hooked very deep in the throat. Although I may never touch a fish while I am in vet school, this offered more evidence that I could stomach handling nasty situations and that I had experience trying to keep an animal alive when a lot is on the line.

 

[Jill418]

DEFINITELY counts! Just make sure you have an adviser monitoring you/running the project so they can verify your hours or write a letter of rec.

I work with BUGS! And not for research purposes or anything -- I take live insects into schools and teach elementary students about insect biology and rain forest conservation! I included that on my animal experience section and was asked about it in interviews. Adcoms love variety! So definitely include the fish experience!

 

[168135]

I guess it's the same reason why taking care of your pet dog doesn't count or why walking through the woods and picking up snakes and toads every week as a hobby doesn't count. It's not really official and can be hard to verify.

You could mention your hobby in an essay or interview. In one of my interviews I said that the bass fishing tournaments I compete in should be considered animal experience. Throughout a tournament day I am constantly handling various fish (hopefully), and have to keep them alive(penalty for dead fish), and often perform surgery in the boat if the fish is bleeding a lot and hooked very deep in the throat. Although I may never touch a fish while I am in vet school, this offered more evidence that I could stomach handling nasty situations and that I had experience trying to keep an animal alive when a lot is on the line.

That sounds like it should count as animal experience... it sounds pretty cool. I never realized that you have to do surgery on them. I used to fish when I was a little girl. I kinda miss it.

I kept bettas in high school and university and learned how to fishless cycle, choose fish for and take care of tanks under 20 gallons. It's just frusterating when feeding/changing water under a PhD/DVM counts but spending years researching, setting up aquariums and giving advice to other people doesn't seem to be as important. The vet school I'm applying for doesn't require a personal statement and I'm wondering if it would actually come up in an interview. It's definitely shaped me as an individual. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've managed to convince people that goldfish don't belong in bowls, how the nitrogen cycle work, how important water changes are, and what the perfect betta tank needs.

I miss my bettas... 🙁

I'd take that job in a heartbeat. If you're not used to caring for fish, you might just realize how cool it is! 😎

 

[Minnerbelle]

I kept bettas in high school and university and learned how to fishless cycle, choose fish for and take care of tanks under 20 gallons. It's just frusterating when feeding/changing water under a PhD/DVM counts but spending years researching, setting up aquariums and giving advice to other people doesn't seem to be as important.

The reason why it counts as an employee and why it doesn't as a personal hobby is that if you're working in animal care, it's assumed that you are at learning appropriate husbandry skills in a professional setting wherever that may be. Because you list where you were employed, adcoms can more easily asses what kind of experience you had. If you worked as an animal care technician in a lab animal facility, you would have learned IACUC standards of care. If the only animal experience you had was working in Debbie's Petland... then adcoms would know to grill you during interviews about your perceptions on the pet industry/animal care.

On the other hand, it's very hard for adcoms to gauge personal pet experience (though some schools do allow it). No matter how well you think you've researched something, it doesn't mean that what you're doing is appropriate (we've all seen crazy people who think they know everything about animal care because of their misguided experience with their pets), and there's no way for vet schools to know if you are.

That being said, VMCAS has a section on hobbies, so you can put your fish stuff there! Especially if you've done really cool things with it, you can say something about it and it might at least be amusing enough to read that you'll stand out a lil bit.

 

[libster06]

VMCAS has in their instructions what is animal and what is veterinary experience. Animal experience is any experience dealing with animals (paid or unpaid) that you were not supervised by a veterinarian. Veterinary experience is that which, either paid or unpaid, is experience with animals supervised by a veterinarian.

I listed every animal experience that I could think of that I have had in my 4 years of undergrad. I am a poultry science minor and raised chickens one semester for a research project for a class and you better believe I listed it under animal experience on my app. It would most certainly be in your best interest to take and list this research job on your app, because vet schools are looking for students with all kinds of experiences with all kinds of animals.

 

[No Imagination]

VMCAS has in their instructions what is animal and what is veterinary experience. Animal experience is any experience dealing with animals (paid or unpaid) that you were not supervised by a veterinarian. Veterinary experience is that which, either paid or unpaid, is experience with animals supervised by a veterinarian.

I am pretty sure animal experience while under the supervision of a PhD can count as EITHER research or veterinary experience. I had a TON of veterinary experience, so I choose to list it under 'research', but I think its up to you.

Also, all 'animal' research conducted in a University setting, has to be (for the most part) under an IACUC protocol, and therefore is technically supervised by a veterinarian. So technically you are working under the supervision of your universities veterinarian 🙂 even if you never met him/her.

Might want to double check that, but its what I remember.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I am pretty sure animal experience while under the supervision of a PhD can count as EITHER research or veterinary experience. I had a TON of veterinary experience, so I choose to list it under 'research', but I think its up to you.

Since when were there separate sections for research and vet experience?

I thought the only two categories were animal and vet experience...