Experience Diversity

[Pomona2006]

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I know it is important to get diverse experience for your application, but is it crucial for the experiences to be all vet supervised? Does it still look good if you have diverse experience but not all of it was supervised by a vet? I'd love to get your thoughts / opinions?

 

[VAgirl]

If it's not under DVM or PhD supervision (in some capacity), that's fine. It just becomes animal experience.

The question is what counts as supervision. Generally, if there's a DVM or PhD on site that you have interaction with at times, then that's supervision. But working/volunteering at a place where the vet/PhD does not work, but where they visit (think vet making calls to a horse stable) is not vet experience, it'd just be animal experience. Which I think most people would agree is less ideal than vet experience. But it still looks decent on an app and counts towards some experience hours!

 

[tealamutt]

I think a very important question for applicants to be asking themselves is not only 'what do schools value/ look for in experience" but "why do they value these experiences?" I can't understand how someone can be sure they want to go into vet med without having a lot of experience in the field (be it research or clinical practice, etc.) For me, my first 2 years as a tech in a small animal clinic taught me so much more about what I don't want to do than what I do want to do. The requirements for experience aren't just about jumping through hoops, they're for your own benefit and will really help you with school selection (ie to track or not to track) and fine tuning your education to where you want to be when you finally get your DVM. So definitely go for a very diverse experience 'portfolio' because it will make your app stronger but most importantly you won't spend 4+ years and a whole lot of debt to find out you don't like where you've ended up.

(and off the soapbox)

I was told I had very diverse experiences- so in addition to working as both a SA and LA tech (vet experience) I had zoo volunteer, sunbear reproductive research, cancer research (on mouse models), shelter volunteer, farm worker, wildlife rehab, and wildlife field research. All of these are animal (non-vet) experience and were looked upon favorably. Find something you think is fun, that is the key to having positive volunteer experiences.

 

[mstweetie]

hey guys! i was wondering if it's okay to list animal experiences you've obtained from a class (that isn't specifically explained by the course title).

For example, in my vert. biology class we had to do a research project (self chosen topic) -- my project looked into the species diversity of an area. I've visited the site 2-3 times a week to monitor and record the number of species present. Another example was my animal physiology lab where the whole class was based on a self-chosen experiment -- mine was on earthworms -- monitoring # of castings. variables were amount of food available and level of humidity.

i think these are experiences that will be great for my app, but i'm not sure if it's okay to put them since it was done in a course...

what do u think?

 

[VAgirl]

hey guys! i was wondering if it's okay to list animal experiences you've obtained from a class (that isn't specifically explained by the course title).

For example, in my vert. biology class we had to do a research project (self chosen topic) -- my project looked into the species diversity of an area. I've visited the site 2-3 times a week to monitor and record the number of species present. Another example was my animal physiology lab where the whole class was based on a self-chosen experiment -- mine was on earthworms -- monitoring # of castings. variables were amount of food available and level of humidity.

i think these are experiences that will be great for my app, but i'm not sure if it's okay to put them since it was done in a course...

what do u think?

I would definitely list those under animal experience. I think that's completely appropriate. If you're worried, you could even explain that the experience was obtained through class X where you did an individual research project on Y.

 

[mstweetie]

Great! Thanks, VAgirl ... I will add them! 🙂

 

[Catnapper]

Just a little FYI on the "diverse" experience hurdle: I'm having a hell of a time finding a LA vet to shadow/work with, but I have LA "animal experience" volunteering at a farm. When I had my Davis file review, the woman basically told me that if it wasn't with a vet, it doesn't count for much (if anything). Western on the other hand, seemed a little more sympathetic to the plight of an urbanite 🙂o), and seemed to think that the farm work does count for something--maybe not as much as working with a bona fide LA vet, but it helps.