Animal Science Labs....include handling in your app?

[Lab Rat83]

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Okay, so I started thinking. I'm being asked to include pretty much everything I've been up for the last 5 years on my supplemental app for AVC. I was at an agricultural university so a lot of my animal science courses involved hands on experience with sheep, dairy, poultry, and mink. We did various things from mastitis testing to sheep sheering/handling to weighing laying hens. I can't remember a lot of the specifics but I do know I have mentionable hours obtained from these labs.

Has anyone else included this kind of course/lab work?

 

[EllieGirl89]

I included my Equine Production class even though I have extensive equine experience. For our class we were assigned a mare in foal as well as a yearling. By the end of the class we had to train the yearling to stand tied, be groomed, have its feet picked, load on the trailer, be clipped, have a spray bottle used on it, and to be walked through an obstacle course. For our mare we had to monitor her vitals and her milk calcium levels for signs of parturition, then do foal watch and foal her out. Once the foal was born we had to imprint it, teach it to halter, lead, be groomed, lift its feet, and be sprayed. We spent hours every week with our horses and I feel that for an aspiring equine vet this was a really important experience.

If you feel like you got something from the experience and you have enough material to talk about it in an interview, go for it!

 

[KodaBear]

That's really awesome that you were able to get that kind of experience in school. What college do you go to? If you don't mind me asking. 🙂

 

[EllieGirl89]

That's really awesome that you were able to get that kind of experience in school. What college do you go to? If you don't mind me asking. 🙂

I don't know about the other two but I go to Ohio State. We get all kind of hands on experience with animals in our animal science classes. One of the benefits of going to a school with a strong ag program.

 

[168135]

I'd send an email to Dr. Singh and double check. I guess he's the go-to guy for stuff like this. I've asked him for advice on what to include and what not to include and he was good.

We have so few students applying and a huge chuck of them come from your university. Maybe they're already aware that if you've taken x course, you've done a, b and c in the lab?

Sounds like awesome experience and I hope you can use it towards your app!

ETA: If you don't email him, I'm going to. I just remembered I did a field course where I trapped/released voles, did behavior and feeding trials, and captured storm petrel chicks... might count as animal experience? Maybe? It'd be cool if it did 🙂 If I didn't write this here, I'd forget about it again!

 

[Armymutt25A]

For NCSU, experience gained in classes is like experience gained growing up with pets - doesn't count.

 

[that redhead]

I'm on the fence about this one myself. I've been in animal science courses where we learned to handle production species and I took (and later TA'ed) a class about equine management which included a hands on lab every week. In the end, I decided against including the animal experiences for two reasons: I already had hours for all of the species we learned to handle (thousands for equine, a couple hundred total for swine/dairy/beef) AND the hours we spent in the lab learning these skills really only amounted to like, a couple hours (more for equine).

I think if you have classes that gave you extensive, significant time working with certain species, include it. But for only a couple hours total, I don't think its worth it.

 

[Lab Rat83]

Thanks guys! I might not end up including it as I have my 10 spots filled for my animal related experience, but I was wondering. Incase, there was another place worth mentioning it on my apps.

It was Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro that I had graduated from.

 

[hahatoofunny22]

There's a girl that has been helping me with my application that showed me her application and she was an Animal Science major. She wrote down ALL of her animal science courses under animal or veterinary experience. Needless to say I'm getting her help because she got in and so I think you should record it under experiences like she did.