extra coursework worth finances?

[gracietiger]

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i consistently read on here how useful additional coursework is, and would like to take courses in histo, microbio, immunology, cell bio, nutrition, parasitology, reproductive physio, dev't bio, endocrinology and neuroscience.. and possibly anatomy. these are the courses i frequently hear are considered extremely useful in vet school.

however, needless to say, these additional courses are not cheap. i am not a matriculated student, so i pay out of pocket for the cost of courses. i work part-time and make enough to pay for classes and cost of living, but am not saving. i could complete all of the above courses without debt, but like i said, with no savings.

i want to take these courses in order to be as prepared and competitive as possible once in school, should i be accepted. my feelings is that if i am going to be spending 40,000$ on tuition, i want to know that i have done everything possible to set myself up to make that cost of tuition worth it by being able to provide myself with the most options in school - ie, good grades for internship/residency should i want to pursue that; less time on schoolwork, more time pursuing clubs/activities that will be useful; etc. additionally, i don't feel like science is my natural tendency, so i think i would especially benefit from an extra head-start from these courses compared to my more scientifically inclined fellow students.

on the other hand, vet school's debt scares the heck out of me. i wonder if i am crazy for dropping close to another 15,000$ on extra courses when i could save that and have a nice little buffer upon entering school (again, should i be accepted - this is all theoretical).

i do not need the courses for my GPA, so extra coursework really is just for pure personal benefit.

for those with a similar struggle, i am wondering what you have chosen to do? for those first-years who have taken additional coursework, what is it worth? is it just sort of nice to have taken the extra courses b/c it makes life a little easier, or it is it the difference for you between an A and a C in a course, or the difference between being able to live a little in vet school and being miserable?

 

[Moonstruckmuse]

I think it comes down to a few things....

How much of a crammer are you? If you end up just cramming and retaining a TON in short term memory, but that doesn't end up carrying over to vet school, then these will do you little good.

Could you do independent/book study? I'm pretty good about reading out of a book and gleaning the important stuff... and if you are motivated and stay on top of it, I BET you could go online, find a syllabus and the textbook for a course, and just buy the textbook and basically follow along. The little details were probably going to be lost to time anyhow, but the concepts will stick in and help you long term.

Could you volunteer at a lab to see the different lab techniques? Labs cost a lot of money... but if you volunteer/intern at some of them, they'll teach you interesting things for free! Or at least, for your labor and time, haha.

I personally would try to save that money, and buy books with it to see if you could do it. There are a few textbooks that stick in my mind as EXCELLENT to read, and therefore great to learn from... and you can always buy slightly outdated editions (say, the 5th instead of the 6th) for SUPER cheap.

My professor always told me that you can always be a student for free - many professors at my university let people sit in on courses for FREE if they're just genuinely interested. This may involve a touch of sucking up if you're not actually interested, but I've sat in on some excellent courses and just not received credit for it. For many, that seems blasphemous - do the work and get "nothing" for it, but you learn some great material.

 

[laitmanvet]

You should contact veterinary schools you are interested in applying to (or at least some of them). Ask them what they think about the courses you've taken already, how your application stands as is, etc. If your application is strong enough you may not need these classes. While I suspect they can help when you're in vet school, there are applicants to vet school each year who are liberal arts majors. I assume some pretty much have the bare mins to apply, as they aren't science majors.
Like the previous poster said if you're dedicated enough there are many good books available out there as well as some really great university-run websites which are publicly available.

 

[Goatherd]

I am also a non-matriculated student--I am taking pre-req courses through a post-bacc but it doesn't allow me the opportunity to take those interesting "extra" courses. I asked the admissions director at Penn what his opinion was on the extra science electives--he said they like to see them (if you can do well in them) particularly if you're a traditional applicant (they forgive us old people a little because they realize it's hard enough to fit in just the pre-reqs) but that their usefulness in vet school is hard to predict because ultimately everyone comes with a different educational background, every vet school has a different curriculum and every teacher is a little different.
I'm not sure if that's helpful to you but I took it to mean that if you can afford it and have time then great, but I really wouldn't stress yourself (mentally or financially) if it's just not feasible.

 

[New Foundland]

Definitely sounds like the best option for you is to buy cheap versions of recommended textbooks and make a study plan on your own 👍

 

[gracietiger]

You guys are awesome! Honestly, I didn't even think about buying the texts on my own and sitting in class or filling a syllabus. That's why these forums are so great!

I am definitely going to look into that, but at the same time, I worry that I will not actually learn to the fullest on my own, and I also have a nagging worry that I may regret not taking these classes. I suspect that I may want to specialize, so I really worry that if I end up not being competitive academically in vet school and effectively ruling out a specialty, then I will forever ask myself why I didn't just make the investment in additional courses that I feel pretty confident I can not only do well in, but actually learn the material (I am not a crammer). It does seem that a lot of people on these forums say they wish they had exposure to the courses I listed in the first post before going to vet school.

Then again, I'd also love to have savings and feel better prepared financially upon starting vet school. Again, this is all hypothetical and dependent on an acceptance, but hopefully this helps others who are accepted and undergoing the same debate.

I am hoping a first year might weigh in with an opinion about whether or not the additional courses really give an edge, or if vet school is just going to be tough, no matter how prepared one is?

Thanks again, all of you. Really great advice!

 

[nyanko]

Let me preface this by saying that it's tough for me to speak for people who didn't have my science background, and it's only been one quarter.

I did upper division coursework in all of those topics you listed except for histo and nutrition. It definitely helped me in the sense that I had heard much of the information presented once before (even if I didn't retain all of it the first time), and because of this it was easier for me to learn and integrate this time around. I feel like I had to study less than a lot of my classmates, and I did well.

That being said, I also probably would have gained the same thing from just spending some time learning the same things on my own. I am also not a memorizer/crammer by nature - I don't like (and honestly often get by without) learning things solely for grades/exams. I prefer to learn and assimilate things, solve problems, draw inferences, make connections, etc. But even for me, learning things in undergrad certainly didn't mean I already knew them for vet school in the least bit. It was just the exposure that helped, IMO. Take that as you will as it's only my personal experience and only one quarter so far.

 

[gracietiger]

Nyanko, I totally get what you're saying. I have done very well in the sciences (to my surprise!), but like I said in my earlier post, I am not a "natural" and I think I require more time getting concepts than perhaps others do. Once I get them, I really really get them, but I cannot hear something once and it make sense to me. Though I don't expect I would go into school knowing anything, I think perhaps having a foundation would put me up to speed with people who are a bit quicker at understanding scientific concepts and language.

It's tough. I have to say, I was planning on just being done with pre-reqs and calling it a day until I read SOV's post from not long ago very much encouraging us non-science non-trads to take another year of courses to prevent being behind our scienced-up peers and to make life a lot less miserable. SOV, any thoughts?

 

[StartingoverVet]

Definitely sounds like the best option for you is to buy cheap versions of recommended textbooks and make a study plan on your own 👍

Good luck with that. Textbooks have almost nothing to do with most of the classes we have had so far.

 

[gracietiger]

SOV, do you still believe the extra courses would have helped in a big way? Do you think you would have benefited equally from taking heavier course loads (full time student) in order to get used to the "pace" of vet school? In other words, I am wondering if non-science non-trads (who may do two courses at a time) find that they struggle more b/c of a lack of science content, or b/c they are not used to the pace of a heavy course load?

I know when I went full-time with prereqs it made taking two courses at a time seem like a cake walk.

 

[StartingoverVet]

SOV, do you still believe the extra courses would have helped in a big way? Do you think you would have benefited equally from taking heavier course loads (full time student) in order to get used to the "pace" of vet school? In other words, I am wondering if non-science non-trads (who may do two courses at a time) find that they struggle more b/c of a lack of science content, or b/c they are not used to the pace of a heavy course load?

I know when I went full-time with prereqs it made taking two courses at a time seem like a cake walk.

Absolutely no question in my mind that extra courses would have helped (if you are so self-motivated that you can study on your own that would work, but most people I know are too undisciplined to do an equivalent amount of work as a class).

You have to remember that w/o the extra classes you will be starting every class behind the majority of your classmates and will have to work that much harder to keep pace. I have found that as the semester progresses that gap thankfully narrows.

Personally I don't find the load of courses to be the big issue. Taking 2 science classes and working full time was not that different from taking classes full time at vet school. I don't think full time undergrad is anything close to replicating full time at vet school though.

I can't tell you how many times I heard fellow students say, "Oh, I have to study for THIS exam, because this material is new to me." I was always kind of pissed because ALL of the material was essentially new for me.

Also, it is a lot harder learning when all the "names" and terminology are brand new to me. It was a lot easier for people in anatomy or histology who had some previous exposure to the items being located.

In the end, taking classes undergrad is not a substitute for having to study in vet school in my mind, it just means you are in a more reasonable position to survive the first couple of months especially. I am going to update with my 1st semester conclusions in a couple of days.

 

[Dsmoody23]

If you're simply looking for free exposure, I'd suggest looking into the free lectures a lot of colleges post online.

MIT, Yale, Cornell and a bunch of other schools put video/audio and course outlines for many undergrad classes up on the web for free.

For instance:
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Also, if you use itunes, they have a free service called 'itunesU' which gives you access to thousands of video recording of lectures from all over the place.

That way you can get some exposure to the topics you're not as comfortable with, without selling your plasma.