How do you get experience?

[TrocarKarin]

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I have about 2 more years until I finish my degree, I'm going about 17 credit hours a semester year round (trying to cram 3 years into 2.) and working 25 hours a week.

What would be the best way to accumulate experience? I think I need something more "concrete" than my weekly schutzhund group and pet care experience. My vet said she'd let me shadow a little bit over the summer, but I don't know how many hours that would be.

In my shoes, would you

1. Try to get as many hours as possible shadowing/volunteering with your vet(weekends)?
2. Volunteer with a wildlife rehab, and try to obtain your rehabbers licensee (weekends)?
3. Volunteer at the humane society (weekends)?
4. Quit your cushy job that lets you do homework while you're at work, and get a job with the equivalent hours at a vet's office?

 

[david594]

1. Try to get as many hours as possible shadowing/volunteering with your vet(weekends)?
2. Volunteer with a wildlife rehab, and try to obtain your rehabbers licensee (weekends)?
3. Volunteer at the humane society (weekends)?
4. Quit your cushy job that lets you do homework while you're at work, and get a job with the equivalent hours at a vet's office?

1. Defenitely. If you check the stats of most of the other people here on this site, you will see that most have atleast 1000+ hours in some aspect of veterinary medicine. If your vet wont let you do much, or has very limited hours for you, see what other vets in the area might take a volunteer.

2) I volunteered with a wildlife rehabber last summer. It was interesting and I am thinking about going back, but It was a lot of cleaning cages. Its animal experience, but not vet experience.

3) Find out what you would be doing there. Depending on how they run things its possible you would never have any exposure to veterinary care there. Although, other people on the board have had some very good experiences with humane societies and shelters. It varies by locale.

4) If you could get a job in a vet office, DO IT! Unless the lack of time doing homework will cause you to fail out of college, you will not regret it. If you want to go the small animal route, what you learn is priceless. Also, It seems that getting something paying with no veterinary experience is much easier said than done. Ask around, you might get lucky. Volunteering is an amazing way to get your foot in the door at a clinic.

 

[adOggy07]

It's definitely hard to leave a "cushy" job... especially one that you have familiarized yourself with. It's difficult to leave your comfort zone for sure! But I think you really need that clinical experience because.. 1. for yourself to understand and know that this is what you want to do... 2. improve your app for vet school once you apply!

The first 3 options all are good ideas to help your app. I think if you can get experience in a variety of areas... wildlife rehab, shelter, vet clinic... it will only strengthen your app to have diversity.

Just remember to have a good balance between your education and your job... I always put school first, then worked more on the weekends at a clinic. But depending on your ability to handle school and a job, you may be able to do more or less hours with your job. Just make sure to find the balance that works for you.

Maybe you could do wildlife rehab and shelter over the summer and work at the vet clinic for right now? 🙂

 

[lailanni]

Also keep in mind that you will need at least one letter of recommendation from a DVM to apply to vet school in the US. So establishing a good relationship with a DVM is necessary eventually.

Also I'd agree with David about the wildlife rehab. I did that for a while and I agree it was mostly cleaning cages and feeding - I saw very little medicine. I helped at the humane society and never saw any vet med, just more cleaning. I got the most veterinary experience volunteering/working at a clinic.

Now maybe your wildlife rehab center and humane society are a whole lot cooler than mine, that was just my experience. Give them a shot, you'll see if you like it and it will increase your app's diversity.

 

[Angie09]

A lot of veterinary clinics that won't hire you right off the bat will hire you if you shadow there for awhile first. I had a job I loved as a tech in a large, mixed emergency/routine care, SA hospital for a year and a half before I applied to vet school. I tried several times to get a job there, and never got anywhere, and finally I called one of the doctors personally and asked if I could just shadow, and within a month they'd hired me. But definitely call around and see what you can get -- and the more stuff they let you watch and do, the better. Shadowing is nice, but actually being responsible for clients and patients is much better.

I second what's already been said about getting medical vs animal experience. Eventually you'll need to branch out and get animal experience in areas that you might not necessarily have vet supervision (all my lab animal and LA was that way) but you'll definitely need hundreds of hours working directly with a vet. So, send resumes to as many clinics as you can find, and then start calling them. Good luck!

 

[Duke07]

I have about 2 more years until I finish my degree, I'm going about 17 credit hours a semester year round (trying to cram 3 years into 2.) and working 25 hours a week.

What would be the best way to accumulate experience? I think I need something more "concrete" than my weekly schutzhund group and pet care experience. My vet said she'd let me shadow a little bit over the summer, but I don't know how many hours that would be.

In my shoes, would you

1. Try to get as many hours as possible shadowing/volunteering with your vet(weekends)?
2. Volunteer with a wildlife rehab, and try to obtain your rehabbers licensee (weekends)?
3. Volunteer at the humane society (weekends)?
4. Quit your cushy job that lets you do homework while you're at work, and get a job with the equivalent hours at a vet's office?

My suggestion would be to consider taking the full 3 years to complete your degree, that way you will not be seriously overloading academically and if you want, will have time to pursue some vet experience and possibly continue your current job.

If for some reason you must finish school in 2 years, then really you probably need to do whatever you can to get both vet and animal experience. I volunteered at Humane and didn't get to help with anything medical, but I also worked at a trap/spay/release clinic and was a surgery asst. Since you'd want to volunteer at the shelter on the weekends, I'm guessing there will not be a lot of medical exams then, so you probably won't get much experience w/a vet. See if you can find a vet's office to shadow or see if they will train you as a vet asst.

Alternately, maybe you could get a paid job in a lab doing animal research?