Grad word vs. Vet work load -

[No Imagination]

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Was wondering about how different the work load will be once I am in the vet program vs. how my life is as a grad student and how to make the transition.

As a grad student, I put in about 15 hours a day, between research, classes, teaching, maintaining a lab, and grant writing. Since I started gearing up to defend, I have increased from 5 days a week to 7.

Once I start vet school, everything seems to change. My plate will be wiped clean of writing, research, lab responsibilities, ect., but I will have a ton of academic responsibilities.

How hard is the transition back to studying 5-6 hours a day (is that about what I should expect? 5-6 hours a day on top of classes?) when for the last 4 years I have been doing a little of this and that?

 

[Electrophile]

Having done both at least partially (3 years in grad school for my masters in biology with research, teaching, thesis writing, presentations at national meetings, etc), here was my experience. Grad school is more multi-tasking, you're right about that, but vet school is harder. In grad school, your classes really aren't that important compared to your research projects. Yeah, you need to get decent grades, but getting Bs is fine and you can usually get those with about the same level of effort as upper level undergrad classes, maybe a little more. I was finding it much more difficult to put in the same amount of effort as I did in grad school classes and get the "same" grade. It's weird because the classes are often very similar (we have grad students in many of our classes) and I don't think the tests in grad school are necessarily easier, but I found in grad school I got a mix of As and Bs. In vet school so far, it's been mostly Cs with a few Bs. And the D in histology 👎 ....but we won't talk about that. No "real As" yet (as in actual challenging classes...though I got a 89.3% in intro to pathology, so close!). I think it's because in grad school, you take 1-2 challenging classes at once and like 1-2 seminar/journal club type classes, which don't require a ton of work, so you don't end up with 3 or 4 exams in one week.

My faculty adviser told me and another guy in our lab who wants to apply to med school when he's done with his PhD that vet med/med school was harder than grad school. I didn't believe him at first, but I agree with him now. I honestly don't study every day. I try not to study at all on Friday afternoons and Saturdays if I can help it (most Saturdays I can get away with it, some I can't). And if I don't have a test coming up for the next 3 days, I probably won't study either, at least not more than real briefly skim notes or something. I'd say on an average week of maybe one test and one quiz a week, say, it works out to 2 hours a day? I'd rather have a good relationship with my husband (and my dogs!) than be constantly studying, so my grades could be higher, but eh...as long as I have a good grasp of the material, that's okay. 🙂 Anyways, one thing that I really liked better about grad school is that it makes you become a critical thinker and you have to evaluate the whys a little more than the whats, if that makes sense.

 

[No Imagination]

Thanks Electrophile, I guess i'm worried about the transition from the different lifestyles. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[pika8]

hey,

I got my master's before starting vet school and I have to say grad school is very different from vet school. I definitely miss the freedom of grad school--yes it was a lot of work--but there was more flexibility as far as schedule goes. But I don't know yet if vet school is as stressful as grad school was (ask me again in a year, I guess). I can't really imagine something being worse than the stress I had getting ready to defend my thesis and getting my paper published. Vet school is hard--but a defined hard: study for test a, b, c, repeat.