Pre-Clinical Electives

[morganic]

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Heyo,

I'm currently a second year and feeling...very frustrated with the whole elective process at my school. We're required to have 13 hours of electives, selected from a pretty small list. There is one small ruminants class that is only offered in the spring, and only to 2nd year students, and it only has 30 seats (while we have a class size of 106) which everyone has to race to sign up for at 7 am. Every spot was filled before 7:01 am. It's just frustrating because I genuinely want to work with small ruminants post-graduation but didn't get into the class, and we don't really get any other opportunity to work with or learn about them during school, so now I feel like I'm a bit screwed.Every "high-importance" elective seems to have such a limited number of seats; for example, I believe equine therio lab only had something like 10 seats... And to beable to get into bovine therio lab in 3rd year, you have to get to know the professor who teaches the small ruminants course by taking that course during second year, so a good amount of the people taking it have 0 interest in goats/sheep/camelids. don't "track" at my school, which is why I assume we have electives like this?

Does your school offer any pre-clinical electives? What's the enrollment process for that like?

 

[SkiOtter]

I would definitely email the professor and ask if there’s any ability to get added to the elective since you want to go into small ruminants. They may tell you they can’t do anything but to show up the first day of the class and it may work out with adding then if someone doesn’t show up, but there’s no harm in asking if it’s possible. Sometimes they do have the authority to add an extra person, sometimes they don’t.

 

[finnickthedog]

I think I only had two pre-clinical electives in school but the ones I ended up in had very little to do with what I actually wanted to do with my career. I would try as Ski suggested but if it doesn't work out, there are likely other ways to gain experience in your area(s).

Do you have externships during clinical year?

 

[morganic]

I think I only had two pre-clinical electives in school but the ones I ended up in had very little to do with what I actually wanted to do with my career. I would try as Ski suggested but if it doesn't work out, there are likely other ways to gain experience in your area(s).

Do you have externships during clinical year?

We do have externships clinical year, including some elective ones. But I am at least a little worried about having not taken the class and if that would affect me being able to either get that externships or succeed in it.

I would definitely email the professor and ask if there’s any ability to get added to the elective since you want to go into small ruminants. They may tell you they can’t do anything but to show up the first day of the class and it may work out with adding then if someone doesn’t show up, but there’s no harm in asking if it’s possible. Sometimes they do have the authority to add an extra person, sometimes they don’t.

We were told specifically NOT to email professors by administration unfortunately. Right now, my game plan is emailing him to ask what other opportunities I would have to potentially get experience. And get copies of his PowerPoints from friends haha.

 

[battie]

But I am at least a little worried about having not taken the class and if that would affect me being able to either get that externships or succeed in it.

With any sort of small ruminant clinician being a rarity any more, most externship sites will likely love to take you on regardless of not having this single class.

I like emailing the professor for other opportunities. That gets your foot in the door with them; they may invite you to other opportunities that are even better than the class.

For what is worth, the elections at Illinois were structured exactly the same way. I didn't get any of the highly sought after electives third year. Still doing well as a baby doctor

 

[finnickthedog]

We do have externships clinical year, including some elective ones. But I am at least a little worried about having not taken the class and if that would affect me being able to either get that externships or succeed in it.

I think this is unlikely to be an issue, especially if you have some ability to travel for externships as that will open up more options. But remember that there are other schools that don't even have a small ruminants pre-clinical elective and it doesn't prevent students at those schools from getting externships in that area.

 

[max_wildlife]

Does your school offer any pre-clinical electives? What's the enrollment process for that like?

my school does. we use a random lottery system, and some of these selectives can only seat 3 or 4 students, so it’s tough to get placed where you want. most of my class has mixed feelings about it. we do have a build-your-own option, though, which is helpful. do you have anything like this? it allowed me to get a lot of the training i wanted last semester and over the summer.

i agree with reaching out to your prof - i wonder if they can help you find some opportunities; for what it’s worth, i know mine have.