As a first year, how best do you spend the summer?

[Ezio Auditore]

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So, I'm a first year and now that we're halfway through with the spring semester, I've been hearing and seeing my classmates talk about how they've got internships, the Merial scholarship for summer research, the Banfield internship, others just going back home to work with their vet clinic, or generally just something cool involving the veterinary field and gaining experience.

My question is, is it ok to just take the summer off to relax?

Our associate dean spoke to us a few weeks ago ensuring us that it was ok to not want to do anything during the summer, that for a lot of students, the course load was hectic and some people just need a break. He insisted that it was ok and not to look at everyone else and see what they were doing as a competition.

But it makes me very anxious to think about it. I've been fighting through some small personal problems and anxiety all this semester. E-mails would come in about internships and opportunities here and there and I would look at them, consider applying, and then just never applied. Come about February when many internship applications deadlines had passed, I panicked and at the same time became inspired to decide to ask for a job as a student worker at one of my school's labs (parasitology, anatomy, etc.), which at the time I was very excited about because I loved that kind of work.

Well, here I am now, panicking again because I feel like I'm going be behind if I don't find something to do during the summer other than work in the lab. My employer can't give me a definite work schedule because he hasn't made it up, yet, and won't be making it until shortly after finals are over. So even if I wanted to volunteer, apply for a second job, or shadow anywhere, I couldn't because I don't know when I would be free. I truly don't want to go behind my employer's back and say I want to back out of the job because I had already spent so much time assuring him that I wanted it.

The only other thing I have planned for the summer is going on a week-long WorldVets IVM program.

So, what is everyone's opinion about relaxing during the summer? Is it truly ok? Should I be worried, like I am, about falling behind classmates in terms of how my resume would look for future scholarships/internships/etc.?

 

[CalliopeDVM]

You don't have to worry about falling behind your classmates this summer -- except maybe financially. If I were you, I'd earn and sock away as much money as possible. At this stage, I think that's more important than any veterinary experience you could get. At least, if you can find a job to earn some reasonable money......at the very least, don't spend any 😉

 

[Lab Vet]

So, I'm a first year and now that we're halfway through with the spring semester, I've been hearing and seeing my classmates talk about how they've got internships, the Merial scholarship for summer research, the Banfield internship, others just going back home to work with their vet clinic, or generally just something cool involving the veterinary field and gaining experience.

My question is, is it ok to just take the summer off to relax?

Our associate dean spoke to us a few weeks ago ensuring us that it was ok to not want to do anything during the summer, that for a lot of students, the course load was hectic and some people just need a break. He insisted that it was ok and not to look at everyone else and see what they were doing as a competition.

But it makes me very anxious to think about it. I've been fighting through some small personal problems and anxiety all this semester. E-mails would come in about internships and opportunities here and there and I would look at them, consider applying, and then just never applied. Come about February when many internship applications deadlines had passed, I panicked and at the same time became inspired to decide to ask for a job as a student worker at one of my school's labs (parasitology, anatomy, etc.), which at the time I was very excited about because I loved that kind of work.

Well, here I am now, panicking again because I feel like I'm going be behind if I don't find something to do during the summer other than work in the lab. My employer can't give me a definite work schedule because he hasn't made it up, yet, and won't be making it until shortly after finals are over. So even if I wanted to volunteer, apply for a second job, or shadow anywhere, I couldn't because I don't know when I would be free. I truly don't want to go behind my employer's back and say I want to back out of the job because I had already spent so much time assuring him that I wanted it.

The only other thing I have planned for the summer is going on a week-long WorldVets IVM program.

So, what is everyone's opinion about relaxing during the summer? Is it truly ok? Should I be worried, like I am, about falling behind classmates in terms of how my resume would look for future scholarships/internships/etc.?

Excellent question, OP. Although I agree with your school's Dean not to compete with your classmates (you should avoid doing this generally, for the sake of your own happiness and mental health), I would argue that summers are crucial to gain practical experience in vet medicine and (perhaps more importantly) to begin building a professional network for your life after vet school. I'm unsure of where you want to end up after vet school- SA GP, LA GP, SA/LA internship, non-traditional veterinary road..regardless of the area you choose, professional relationships are necessary to help you land your first job, and every job after that. Grades in vet school are important- don't discount them. At the same time, don't be under the impression that grades are the only thing that matters. For many positions, applicants need to hit a basal level of qualifications to be considered for a hire. After that, it all comes down to personality and 'who you know.' There is a reason cliches are cliches- this happens to be one of them. A solid professional network will go far towards building the career you want for yourself. If I were an adviser to an up and coming veterinarian, I'd be telling this individual to use his or her summers wisely, to the individual's advantage. Get out there, network, and see what the career has to offer you. When you apply for internships/residencies, LORs are required. Good LORs come from substantial, personal contact with veterinary mentors in your chosen field. Summers are a prime opportunity to build these relationships, given that 2-3 months of uninterrupted time are available for your use. If you don't plan on going the internship/residency route, entry level jobs will likely call references whose names you provide (this is true for internships/residencies as well [in addition to LORs]). A verbal recommendation from an individual who knows the hiring manager is GOLDEN- truly, your ticket to a hire.

Although I wouldn't have an anxiety attack over not having lined up a significant experience this summer, I would recommend against passing up the summer of your second year for a networking experience. At many vet schools, the summer of your third year is your entre to clinics, so summers 1 and 2 are all you've got (in addition to fourth year rotations) to network in field (for substantial periods of time).

I'm not yet a veterinarian, but I did work in the 'real world' for over 10 years prior to attending. EVERY job I got, I was offered due to networking. It's very important for your career success, and should not be understated.

Good luck! Perhaps other SDN posters will have a different opinion.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

First of all....CALM DOWN! 😉

Breathe.

Ok, now. Is this more an issue of you having personal problems and anxiety that you need to take some time to work on? Or is this more of a self-induced pressure you are putting on yourself because you feel like you are not "measuring up" to the overacheivers?

If it is the first, always put your own mental health and well-being over adding another line or two to your resume. The first is essential to life, the second is not. If you need to take a summer off to deal with stuff, do it. For the second, if you always compare yourself to your classmates, you will never, ever be satisfied. Because the hard fact of life is there will always be someone better than you. There will always be someone with more experience than you. If you constantly compare yourself, you will never, ever be happy. Don't worry about both what you are doing plus what the other type A crazies are doing. Worry about you alone.

You're a first year, you have time to tailor your experiences to things you really want to do - think quality over quantity. Like LabVet said, making solid connections and networking is much more important that working dozens of little part time jobs to fill up your resume.

Feeling "guilty" because you aren't "doing enough" is a very, VERY common feeling in high-achieving people. Hell, even now sometimes I feel guilty not doing work a Saturday, even if I don't have anything to do (and it's gorram SATURDAY). You need to firmly remind yourself that yes, taking time off for you IS ok. In fact, it not just ok, it is essential to proper work-life balance.

I *wish* I had taken more time to myself in vet school - I was working part time jobs all through the school year and doing internships/working every single break and while it made me look impressive on paper, it really damaged my internal stability.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I dunno, it's certainly possible esp if you stay in current contact in the professional setting with someone you spend your first summer with, that they end up being someone who helps you network later on with a job/internship/residency... But more often than not, it's people who know you in your later years that tend to do that.

Networking is very important, especially in this profession. But I don't think taking the summer after first year to relax rather than do some formal program/job is necessarily going to be detrimental to your ability to network. Plus, you can take the time to relax, and when you feel like it, contact clinicians in the area if you could hang with them and build relationships that way. Even if you don't, I don't think it necessarily puts you behind. There is so much growth between first year and fourth year, that you're probably going to be unrecognizable to the people who worked with you summer after first year.

The only think it might make more difficult is scholarships if you look similar to everyone else and have nothing that differentiates you from others. Not that there are enough significant scholarships to even justify making that a deciding factor.




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[MassDVMMPH]

You're not going to be doing nothing this summer - you're going to be working in a lab at the school. What the heck is wrong with that? You just finished first year - anyone who hires you in the veterinary field is just going to use you to do vet assistant stuff (and I'm sure if you got into vet school, you've already had plenty of that). And the nice part is that you'll be at the vet school all summer. That will give you the chance to wander around the hospital and see what's going on - maybe sit in on some rounds that the fourth years are doing. You can pick up a lot just hanging around during your time off and maybe, if they're short-handed, they'll involve you in some procedures. I think what you're planning to do is great - stop beating yourself up. Heck, my first summer I spent house-sitting, pet-sitting, and picking up odd jobs on campus (like stuffing envelopes for professors who were sending out research questionnaires) and I never had trouble finding a job as a vet when I got out ;-)

 

[Ezio Auditore]

It's awesome to see the huge variety in responses, thank you all!

Money was one of the big reasons why I jumped the bandwagon on the lab job. I had already kind of made the assumption that it might be difficult to get any kind of vet assistant job around my college town and all of the current student worker positions at the vet school have been taken (as far as I know). I am living with my boyfriend and I definitely didn't want to burden him with trying to support us for the summer and I didn't want to rely on my loans to make it through the summer, either. And when my employer told me I had the job when I went up to him and asked about it, I figured it was too good to be true -- didn't need to do any interview or application; he didn't even ask for a resume (he knew me from class, though). CalliopeDVM, I definitely agree.. I just wonder if I could have gotten a better deal with something like Merial or an internship? Because the lab job won't pay a hefty amount. It will be enough to get through summer, which I know is not something to complain about.

My grades have been great -- straight A's last semester and currently averaging A's or high B's for this semester. WhtsThFrequency, my mental stress is coming from a lot of directions -- dealing with a sense of loneliness at school, detachment with my family, failing to be awarded the Army HPSP scholarship (that one brought me down a lot, but looking back on it, I understand why I didn't receive the scholarship), competing with some classmates for a different job at the vet school and being unable to acquire said job. I've come to realize that I have been focusing on a lot of "expectations" which results in me comparing myself to all of my friends and classmates. I have thought a lot about talking to the our school counselor, but every time I find the time to do it is when I'm feeling marginally better about myself and I feel silly for even being depressed about what I think seems petty. I also still need to talk to my recruiter about whether or not to reapply for the HPSP. I don't really know why I didn't decide to apply for any exciting internships or even just working with any clinicians. I guess I got bogged down in everything else and then jumped the gun on something else.

MassDVMMPH, haha, thank you. It sounds pretty good when you simplify it like that. I didn't think about poking my head into rounds while I was there. I don't quite know what my schedule is to see if I have time for that, but if I do, that is definitely something to consider! Believe it or not, it's comforting to know that someone could be doing odd jobs all summer and still make it out fine 🙂

Lab Vet, Minnerbelle, I definitely hear you guys. We've been told several times already that networking is very important. I'll readily admit that I'm bad at it, though, haha. I am pretty introverted and awkward. Initiating conversations and interactions is not my strong point. I know that being a veterinarian requires good people skills; I've been working on it, I promise, haha.

So, yeah, talking about all this with you guys definitely helps. I think I'm still going to stick to the lab job. Hopefully the work schedule is decent enough to where I'll be able to attend rounds or tag along with some clinicians. On that note, I have a question for everyone that is sort of diverging from the topic -- how do you find clinicians you want to work for and how do you go about asking to work with them? And by this, I mean working for during winter/spring/summer breaks, or even on weekends or after classes (if possible). I would assume that it isn't easy to try and find someone working in the vet school to work with, as they will be working with third and fourth years. So that leaves general practitioners and specialists in the area. By now I've caught on to the fact that calling is better than an e-mail. What do you say to a clinician you've never met? Do you ask for a job, an internship, or do you go straight for asking to shadowing/observing whenever possible?

Hopefully I hit the high points in responding to everyone. I definitely do feel better. I know I could've done differently for this summer (and still can...) but I'll just take that as a lesson for the future. If anyone else still has a response to my original post, please feel free to pitch in, because there are so many opinions and I'd love to hear them all.

 

[Minnerbelle]

By "networking" I didn't mean you have to make an effort to do formal meet and greets with people or anything like that (I certainly did nothing of that sort). You don't need to ask for a special position or formalize any sort of program. I just found opportunities to do stuff I was really interested in and was persistent about making time for them. The same faculty and residents and community clinicians that are passionate about the same types of things tend to be present so after multiple instances of working together we just got to know each other. You have to earn respect, not demand it.

Figure out what it is that you like and ask around to see who a nice clinician might be to tag along (some clinicians are waaay nicer to students than others so ask around to find a nice person who actually enjoys working with students). All you have to do is email and say "hi I'm _____ and I'm a first year who will be around for the summer working in a lab on campus. I am interested in/passionate about _____ and would like to get some clinical exposure when time allows this summer. Would it be possible for me to spend time with your service this summer?"

Alternatively, if it's a larger service with many clinicians, you can send a similar note to the dept head.

If you don't have any particular interests and would like to be in a dept where you could see a lot and maybe even be allowed to do something at some point, ER might be a good place to hang out. Unless it's a school with a dead ER, that's where it tends to be hopping, and you get exposure to a ton of specialties and clinicians that you may want to get involved with later. And ER/ICU tend to be where student jobs pop up in the future so it's good to be known and liked by the clinicians, residents, and the tech staff there if you are looking for a clinical student job.

A lot of people think things like surgery, dentistry, and ophtho might be fun to shadow, and they're usually really really not.... so beware. Fun specialties, but it's really hard to find room to observe things, or difficult to get too much out of it without a lot of background knowledge.

I would email. Don't call. Calling makes it so people have to stop what they're doing during their busy day to talk to you. Leave your phone number in the email so they can call you when they have time if they want to talk on the phone. The less of a hassle you are to them, the more likely they'll let you hang out. The more you demand their attention, the less inclined they'll be. Most clinicians will be on the "sure, just come at x time and find us at rounds"
train. If for some reason they want to meet with you first to discuss or whatever, they can set that up with you.


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[Minnerbelle]

Btw, I'm getting stressed just reading your posts. Loosen up and stop overthinking it! And STOP comparing yourself to others and acting like it's all a big competition. Do things because they interest you and because they are things that will help you grow, NOT because it pulls you ahead in this imaginary competition you have in your head. That is likely a big source of your loneliness too. I know I stay the hell away from people who I can tell is always sizing me up or gets envious of my opportunities.

I know that's easier said than done, but I swear you'll be much happier and likely more productive that way. And opportunities just pop up for those who are busy doing things they're passionate about, not for people who are sitting at the sidelines just lurking and waiting for them.


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[dyachei]

I have a question for everyone that is sort of diverging from the topic -- how do you find clinicians you want to work for and how do you go about asking to work with them?

I didn't work for clinicians but I did get involved in clubs/wet labs and have a good network set up as a result. You also will find some of this from externships/preceptorships.

Sometimes, they will advertise if they need help or want a student.

 

[Ezio Auditore]

Haha, glad I could convey my stress in my posts, Minnerbelle. I know, I try not to compare myself and I do realize I'm overthinking it a lot of the time. It IS hard to get out of that nasty habit, which is why I'm here. I'm trying, I swear; it's just so hard to not let it get to me. And your other post was very, very helpful. I don't know quite what I want to do, yet, so I would have to pick and choose carefully.

dyachei, I'm not really a club person. I am in a few, yes, but I find it so hard to make time to attend meetings and be involved. Part of it may be because I don't know enough about vet med, yet, since we are taking basic courses right now, and so I don't really understand what is going on. I do plan on trying out more clubs here and there, just to get some exposure to different aspects of vet med, though.

So I'm gathering that they key here is to get involved in one way or another (which seems like an obvious thing, I know). I think I'm just scared to get out of my comfort zone as well as scared to sacrifice the time to be involved, especially when classes are going on. But I'll definitely take everyone's advice. It all seems so obvious, now, haha!

 

[DVMDream]

Meh, I personally did this during summer after first year (well once my required EMS stuff was done):

But yeah, you can do what you want. Don't compare what you are doing to what other people are doing.

 

[gogreenfolks]

the first couple of semesters was the harshest for me. relaxing and not doing anything related to school/animals wouldnt be a bad idea. i tend to use my breaks to totally unwine and refreshed for the next semester 🙂

 

[SocialStigma]

I worked in a research lab the summer between 1st and 2nd year too. My PI (a boarded pathologist) ended up writing me a reference letter for my rotating internship application, so just because you're not working with clinicians doesn't mean you're not "networking". Also, research experience looks good on internship/residency applications because not everyone has it.

 

[BIOMMMM]

@SocialStigma Random question, but I'll working in a research lab over the summer but my PI is not a veterinarian. He teaches in the program and works with the vets at the hospital on their clinical trails. His focus is basic research though. Do you think a LOR from him would work for an internship or no? It's not something I even thought of.

 

[SocialStigma]

@SocialStigma Random question, but I'll working in a research lab over the summer but my PI is not a veterinarian. He teaches in the program and works with the vets at the hospital on their clinical trails. His focus is basic research though. Do you think a LOR from him would work for an internship or no? It's not something I even thought of.

I haven't personally heard of any internship applicants using a non-DVM reference. It doesn't explicitly state it on the VIRMP site that your references have to be from DVMs, but I believe it's pretty much implied that they should be veterinarians, with a strong preference for boarded specialists. I had 3 different specialists (surgeon, pathologist, and anesthesiologist) and a GP write my reference letters for my rotating internship application. I personally probably wouldn't use a non-DVM PI as a reference unless I felt that he could write me a glowing letter and I also have 3 other strong references from boarded specialists that can speak to my clinical skills.

 

[K9Mechanic]

I was in the same boat, OP. I think the only thing you might wanna avoid doing is getting a job in a completely unrelated field.

Although others have already harped on this -- don't do any type of internship or research project if it doesn't completely interest you. It's not worth wasting your Summer doing something you hate, only to use it as a resume builder. To me, that doesn't seem worth it.

Like you, I had seen a hundred emails about all these different opportunities available to us. And for a brief second, I did feel like I was gonna fall behind if I missed out on them. But luckily, I got selfish and planned on doing what I wanted to do. Going back into a vet clinic full time was going to not only immerse me in the world that made me love vet med....but ALSO help me draw correlations between what's going on in the hospital and all the basic stuff I learned as a first year. To me, that is worth SO much more than spending a Summer picking up cow poop and testing rumen content, or being a mule for the FDA. FWIW, I def don't want to do research or work as a corporate vet.

 

[bradleyyoung04]

You've only finished your first year, If I was in your position I would be taking it a bit slower. Don't forget you've got the next few years of study to develop practical experience and knowledge.