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- Aug 10, 2022
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Friendly neighborhood Illinois shill here to review Illinois new Certifiate of Veterinary Science program. We're halfway through, but I'm sure people would be curious to hear about it.
Background
In Fall 2022, UIUC started a new Graduate Academic Program focused in Veterinary Sciences. Its a 4 course sequence for a total of 12 credit hours. I've called it baby vet school since we kinda follow the Illinois vet med sequence. We started with Anatomy and Physiology then built towards basic pathology in our second class. The final two courses are Science of Health Homeostasis and Science of Health Evaluation. Ask me about those in a few months. It is all online and has been built from the ground up to be online.
Review
Truely I can't say enough good things about this program. Since its all online we have people from all over the country and a couple people from outside the US. It's been incredibly helpful to hear everyone's stories and all the different routes people are taking to vet school. In the fall we had small group Pods where we met weekly and discussed the topic of the week, or in the second class our one case we worked. The Pods were the last part worked out and honestly my favorite part of the program so far.
The other stand out part to me is how we get the material. Our longest lecture was 20 minutes! Most were around 10-15 minutes, but that means it's basically wall to wall information and pretty dense. However because they're so short, it's fairly easy to watch over them a couple times. We also have full transcripts to read, which is also super helpful.
Lastly, homework, exams, and quizzes were all amazing. We had 2 exams in each class, but we got to do a group retake for each which really helped me learn the material and do well on the exams. Quizzes were weekly, but open book and had 2 attempts. I only missed 4 quiz questions the second course, the questions aren't easy but they give you everything you need. Homework was also so to the point and helpful. We had (usually) two questions every week and had to give a 2 sentence answer for one and a more detailed answer for the other. I really loved the challenge of only having two sentences to explain a dense concept.
Overall Thoughts
I cant tell you if this has helped anyone get into vet school yet, but I really feel like it will. Between having the Veterinary Medicine courses on your transcript to the ability to have faculty help us through the application process it really seems like a good path to vet school if you've been struggling. Now this is speculation on my part, but Illinois may start pulling from this pool for applicants. It costs a lot of time and effort to get this up and running so I wouldn't be shocked if it grows into a Colorado like pre-vet program in a handful of years. It seems like a really good way to vet applicants and see if they can handle the material. But that's pure speculation on my part.
Background
In Fall 2022, UIUC started a new Graduate Academic Program focused in Veterinary Sciences. Its a 4 course sequence for a total of 12 credit hours. I've called it baby vet school since we kinda follow the Illinois vet med sequence. We started with Anatomy and Physiology then built towards basic pathology in our second class. The final two courses are Science of Health Homeostasis and Science of Health Evaluation. Ask me about those in a few months. It is all online and has been built from the ground up to be online.
Review
Truely I can't say enough good things about this program. Since its all online we have people from all over the country and a couple people from outside the US. It's been incredibly helpful to hear everyone's stories and all the different routes people are taking to vet school. In the fall we had small group Pods where we met weekly and discussed the topic of the week, or in the second class our one case we worked. The Pods were the last part worked out and honestly my favorite part of the program so far.
The other stand out part to me is how we get the material. Our longest lecture was 20 minutes! Most were around 10-15 minutes, but that means it's basically wall to wall information and pretty dense. However because they're so short, it's fairly easy to watch over them a couple times. We also have full transcripts to read, which is also super helpful.
Lastly, homework, exams, and quizzes were all amazing. We had 2 exams in each class, but we got to do a group retake for each which really helped me learn the material and do well on the exams. Quizzes were weekly, but open book and had 2 attempts. I only missed 4 quiz questions the second course, the questions aren't easy but they give you everything you need. Homework was also so to the point and helpful. We had (usually) two questions every week and had to give a 2 sentence answer for one and a more detailed answer for the other. I really loved the challenge of only having two sentences to explain a dense concept.
Overall Thoughts
I cant tell you if this has helped anyone get into vet school yet, but I really feel like it will. Between having the Veterinary Medicine courses on your transcript to the ability to have faculty help us through the application process it really seems like a good path to vet school if you've been struggling. Now this is speculation on my part, but Illinois may start pulling from this pool for applicants. It costs a lot of time and effort to get this up and running so I wouldn't be shocked if it grows into a Colorado like pre-vet program in a handful of years. It seems like a really good way to vet applicants and see if they can handle the material. But that's pure speculation on my part.
