Lsu

[futurevet2226]

So forgive me if you have had this conversation before (these blogs are difficult to search)... but I am considering LSU Veterinary and am wondering what people can tell me about it? Does anyone know some of the good things going on at this school to attract students? How many surgeries/ what type do students do before they graduate? Is there an opportunity to focus on small animal very much? How happy in general are the students ? .. and anything else anyone can tell me that is not on their webpage!


Thanks so much!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[libster06]

So forgive me if you have had this conversation before (these blogs are difficult to search)... but I am considering LSU Veterinary and am wondering what people can tell me about it? Does anyone know some of the good things going on at this school to attract students? How many surgeries/ what type do students do before they graduate? Is there an opportunity to focus on small animal very much? How happy in general are the students ? .. and anything else anyone can tell me that is not on their webpage!


Thanks so much!

http://www.tigerDVMforums.com

That is a website recently set up by the LSU admissions office for current 2015 student applicants and future applicants to go to and get specific questions answered by current LSU SVM students. Since it's new, there isn't much on there yet, but I check it occasionally and try to help any way I can if I see a specific question that I can be of use to answer. It is divided into specific categories for better understanding of your questions.

As far and things to attract students, it's hard to say becsause I don't know what you're looking for in a vet school. I chose LSU because it is close to my home and my IS school did not work out. Everyone has different "wants" in a vet school, so it's hard to say what "attracts" people necessarily about any one school. LSU is a good school, and I don't know enough about other vet schools around the country to compare it against them. As I said, all vet schools are different.

As far as surgeries go, we do not do terminal surgeries (to my knowledge) and the kind/extent is not known to me, since I am only a first year. I know we do simple spays and neuters, but the amount and diversity of surgery experience I am not sure of. I don't know if there is a set surgery quota even for students. Unfortunately, in this day and age, surgery experience is getting smaller and smaller for various reasons, and no vet school leaves their students with TONS of experience. What I do know is, we basically do curriculum for 2.5 years, then in the spring semester of 3rd year, we start clinical rotations and do that year round for 1.5 years up to graduation.

There is both a large and small animal clinic at LSU. They try to give equal experience, but depending on your preferred area, you can tailor your experience to either large or small animal (you have various 2-week increments during 4th year clinicals to do certain externships of your choosing). I don't know the exact format, because they don't go into that until you've reached your fourth year.

I assume you're in the region around LSU, so it would be helpful to you to attend and open house that they put on (we just had one in February) or an informational weekend about the SVM, so you can get those specific questions answered. You might also contact the Student Affairs office at the SVM to see if they could direct you to answer your questions.

 

[irisdania]

They are really good at Exotics and Wild life.

 

[happytowner]

They are really good at Exotics and Wild life.

Overall, I've been really happy with LSU. The students tend to be way more collegial than cuthroat (I've always imagined there would be more 'gunners' and competitive crap at bigger name schools, but don't really know), and that really helps more than you can imagine. The big-sib/test file program is really helpful, and most people tend to share their test files, so that's really good as well. There are some really great professors and some not so impressive ones, but the admin seems to take student feedback seriously and I've noticed the professors tend to get better at every year, so that's good. Overall, I've been satisfied, even happy, with the quality of teaching, and I'm really hard to please. There is a club for EVERY thing with cool wetlabs going on all the time. If you want to go to every football game and every class and join 30 clubs and be rah-rah school spirit, you can definitely do that, and if you want to watch recorded lectures at home and have a job off campus, you can mostly do that too. Don't underestimate the power of test files and recorded lectures -- if I could go back and give myself advice those two things would be the main two criteria that would factor into my decision (behind cost). I wouldn't worry too much about opportunities being limited depending on where you go -- unless you're in to some really fringe stuff, you're going to be able to get the experiences and focus you want anywhere. Also, there are going to be times where you just can't remember why you even signed up for vet school (it's just the nature of the beast) and there's an almost preternaturally sympathetic counselor in the student affairs office who can (and will) help you out if you have personal, family, medical issues or are just feeling overwhelmed. You will do at least 3 spay/neuters before you graduate on shelter animals to make them more adoptable. You will be the primary surgeon on one of these surgeries and have practiced many more on cadavers. You can increase your experience by participating in monthly spay days (feral cats) or signing up for the shelter med rotation. And that doesn't count anything you pick up in your month long surgery rotation 4th year. There are a few weeks of PBL every year, enough to be edifying and enjoyable but not enough to be really annoying (PBL is hard to evaluate before you've done it and know what it's like...some people love it and some hate it, it tends to depend more on the individual..) Also, parking is close to the building and plentiful, which makes a difference.

On the negative side, they keep jacking up the tuition. It may be universal given the economy and whatever, but it's increased something like 30% just in the time I've been here, and that really sucks. The building is a 70's architectural monstrosity (no brick and ivy here) and the classrooms are kind of cramped and vaguely depressing and a lot of the building is sort of dingy. The library is pretty small and finding quiet places to study in the building isn't always as easy as it should be. Still, it's always sunny in Louisiana, and I'll take utilitarian ugly over cold, gray novembers and seasonal affective disorder inducing winters any day. Okay, that's all I can think of right now....hope it helps. And feel free to ask any more questions...

 

[LSU SVM]

I assume you're in the region around LSU, so it would be helpful to you to attend and open house that they put on (we just had one in February) or an informational weekend about the SVM, so you can get those specific questions answered. You might also contact the Student Affairs office at the SVM to see if they could direct you to answer your questions.

Please note that LSU Administrative Offices are closed on the weekends so any informational tour would have to be during normal business hours on Monday - Friday.

Sincerely,