Experience

[cubs11]

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what kind of experience have you all been involved with?

what experiences do you think are key for applying to vet school?

i'm currently trying to get a volunteer position with a vet at a local animal hospital as well as the zoo in attempt to gain experience with different types of animals.

 

[pressmom]

In the 2.5 years I had from no experience to VMCAS....

What I strove to do was have one deep experience of around 1000 hours and then at least 3 with over 100 hours that provided diversity. I ended up with 4 on the diversity.

So I did over 1000 small animal hours and around 100+ each of wildlife, exotic pet, equine and food animal.

I got into 3 schools.

 

[Angelo84]

I have six years of part time work at a small animal vet hospital (3,000 hours), and then volunteered with a behaviorist (who also worked at a shelter), a large animal vet, and a leatherback sea turtle research station all 100 hours each. I also volunteered at a zoo for 250 hours and shadowed an alternative vet for a week. My plan was to get a taste of the fields I was interested in and three days a week for a month worked well with my work schedule and adds up to a nice round 100 hours. I got into 5 schools but I don't think that all of my experience was necessary although more experience will not hurt your application.

 

[cubs11]

Right now I'm trying to shadow the vet at the zoo and volunteer in the hospital there. I also want to gain experience in other areas by shadowing a vet in an emergency clinic, volunteering with a raptor rehabilitation organization, and hopefully try to get hours in equine somehow.

For those who did hours with equine (and didn't grow up on a farm) how did you get started with that process? I have tried looking for contacts in our Equine Dept. but haven't found any information. Now i'm looking into equine vets in the area.

 

[RazorDoc2010]

For those who did hours with equine (and didn't grow up on a farm) how did you get started with that process?

I asked a small animal vet that had recently gotten out of mixed practice who he knew in the equine field. It was a nice way for me to get into it not having been from any type of equine background.

 

[Angelo84]

For those who did hours with equine (and didn't grow up on a farm) how did you get started with that process? I have tried looking for contacts in our Equine Dept. but haven't found any information. Now i'm looking into equine vets in the area.

I looked up vets (they did mostly equine but a fair amount of alpacas, sheep and goats as well) in my area and then cold called them to find out if they were willing to have volunteers. The ones that said they did I mailed a cover letter and current resume. I recommend calling in a week or so to make sure they received your package--I have had very bad luck mailing these types of things ( 2 out of 3 didn't get it the first time I sent it!).