animal experience

[osu20152020]

If I took a class in undergrad that involved animal handling, do I list that as animal experience or not since it was a class?

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[pinkpuppy9]

There are a lot of threads that discuss this if you use the search function. Long story short: There is a "Classroom experience" option to describe your experience last time I checked. However, the debate as to whether or not classroom experience should count for anything is kind of ongoing, still.

 

[midnightkitten]

Would something as simple as kennel cleaning count?

 

[pinkpuppy9]

Would something as simple as kennel cleaning count?

General kennel work is animal experience, yes. If your direct supervisor is a veterinarian (as it would be in most small clinics), it is veterinary experience. If you work at a boarding-only facility, then it would be animal.

 

[LuckySpartan]

There is a really nice flow chart in the VMCAS application handbook that will guide you in determining how to classify experiences.

Any experience directly with animals that is NOT supervised by a veterinarian is ---> animal experience
If it is supervised by a veterinarian ---> veterinary experience

 

[cheathac]

I work at a histology lab, that is part of the animal disease and diagnostic lab. My direct supervisor is the histotech, but the section head of the lab is the pathologist..... vet experience?

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I work at a histology lab, that is part of the animal disease and diagnostic lab. My direct supervisor is the histotech, but the section head of the lab is the pathologist..... vet experience?

Probably not since you are not working directly with a veterinarian.

 

[Lab Vet]

I work at a histology lab, that is part of the animal disease and diagnostic lab. My direct supervisor is the histotech, but the section head of the lab is the pathologist..... vet experience?

I'm not sure about this. The technicalities of the experience headings are far too complicated for my simple brain. If it were me, I'd likely classify this as 'employment experience' or as a stretch, research/laboratory experience. You aren't working directly with animals (not animal experience) and you're not directly supervised by a veterinarian (despite his or her association with your job, many rungs up the ladder). I tend to take a holistic approach when it comes to categorizing experience. If I worked directly with a living thing, but didn't have contact with a veterinarian (i.e. the vet and I never spoke, and he or she didn't supervise me), then it's animal experience. If I worked directly under a veterinarian, doing some sort of work relating to the field (either live or dead critters), than it's veterinary experience. If I actually did research (i.e. project design, data collection, data interpretation etc.), then it's research experience. In my opinion, providing husbandry for lab animals isn't research experience- it's animal experience. Research has more to do with the numbers you get from the animals than the animals themselves (not to discount their value). I wouldn't necessarily dock a student for placing lab animal husbandry under research experience, but I'd think to myself that they were 'stretching' to check multiple boxes on their application. It looks desperate. Finally, if you had a 'sciencey-technical' job related to research, but were not actually involved in project design, etc., that would be employment experience. I think that pre-vets stress out way to much about how they categorize their experiences. Admission committee members know that the categories are somewhat artificial, and many categorization decisions are splitting hairs. In general, good advice for your application is as follows: be honest about what you did. That honestly will come through in your app, and faculty will recognize that you're not attempting to take them for a ride. Remember, they've seen it all before.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I work at a histology lab, that is part of the animal disease and diagnostic lab. My direct supervisor is the histotech, but the section head of the lab is the pathologist..... vet experience?

Have you not asked this same exact question like 50 times? Plus multiple other questions of similar spirit?

It does indeed sound desperate, as if you're just waiting for someone to give you the answer you want so you can justifying putting it in your apps as such.

I really can't see why you don't just call up the admissions offices of all the schools you're interested in applying to or VMCAS and ask if you don't like the same exact answer that you keep getting from multiple people every time you ask. Those are the only opinions that really matter.

 

[cheathac]

Sorry.. I just emailed admissions today.

 

[cheathac]

I'll stop posting and just observe.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I'll stop posting and just observe.

It's not that you can't post. It's that you ask the same things over and over and over

 

[pinkpuppy9]

I'll stop posting and just observe.

No one's suggesting you shouldn't post here. It's just that you made a thread and literally asked the exact same question and got the exact same answers

@Minnerbelle gahhh you beat me by a nanosecond!

 

[cheathac]

I'll count it as employment. I just wanted it to be vet for hours reasons... I have 150 from family farm vets, 120 from school LA hospital, 25 from foal team, 60 from oncology, 145 in SA (ongoing), just started a job in radiation (ongoing) at around 5 hours a week, and some scattering hours from volunteering a week at a clinic and some vet camps. Maybe I'm just paranoid bc I'm planning on volunteering at the current SA one the rest of the year at 10 hours a week to bring that total up to 450 or so.. just don't know if that's enough and if the histo is valuable experience since it's employment.