Research Experience?

[dogtorschmogtor]

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Hi guys!

I'm a little confused about what counts as research experience vs animal experience.
I was a lab assistant at my university's marine biology laboratory where I was on protocol for 2 research experiments involving stingrays and sharks. The research was not my own, I was just helping two other people with their research by helping take care of the animals and collect data. I did things like feed them, keep up with the tanks, take daily water quality readings, keep records for IACUC, and help with the trials contributing to the research. Also, I recently finished an internship at the veterinary hospital at Disney's Animal Kingdom veterinary hospital. In addition to my job at the hospital, I also helped with data collection for the conservation team at Disney. I used telemetry to track previously treated and released Gopher tortoises and their burrow activities, however I was fairly removed from the actual research taking place- pretty much all I did was collect the data. Would these be considered research experience, or is research experience when you conduct your own independent projects?

Thanks!

 

[OGCatLady]

I would consider both of these research experience. It sounds like you were working under scientists and collecting data. While certainly some applicants complete independent research projects and may be more involved in the experimental set up, data analysis, etc. you still contributed to those research projects, aided the scientists with completing their research, and worked with laboratory animals. What you are describing is honestly the experience most undergraduate students have when joining labs. I was extremely lucky and worked my butt off to gain the trust of my PI during my undergrad, and was given a project to work independently on. However, in my experience, no undergrad's project is really "independent" as it is usually hypothesized by the PI and a collaboration with more senior members of the lab (Post-docs, grad students, etc.). From what I have been told, people usually don't start formulating their own research projects/ideas until late in their PhD, so regardless I don't think the admission committees will be judging you harshly on that. Animal experience is essentially working at a shelter, kennel, zoo, etc. under the supervision of someone who doesn't hold a DVM. If they do, it can be considered veterinary experience.

P.S. All of these experiences sound super cool and and I'm really jealous!

 

[Doctor-S]

According to VMCAS Experiences:

ANIMAL EXPERIENCE: Animal Experiences include farm and ranch experience, 4-H membership, animal training, or similar activities that were not under the supervision of a veterinarian. Experiences listed as Animal Experience should be different from those entered for Veterinary and Employment experiences.

RESEARCH: Research Experience includes any animal and veterinary research, as well as other field and/or laboratory-based research. Include specific details about your work/involvement, including whether the research experience provided an opportunity to present or publish.

VETERINARY EXPERIENCE: Veterinary Experience includes any veterinary clinical, agribusiness, or health science experiences that took place under the supervision of a veterinarian. Experiences listed as Veterinary Experience should be different from those entered for Animal and Employment experiences. Do not list any veterinary research experience.

Therefore, in response to your original post:

1. Marine Biology Lab Assistant: Research experience.

2. Disney Conservation Team: Research experience.

3. Disney Animal Kingdom Veterinary Hospital Internship: Veterinary experience (since I'm sure your hospital internship took place under the supervision of a veterinarian).

 

[pp9]

Hi guys!

I'm a little confused about what counts as research experience vs animal experience.
I was a lab assistant at my university's marine biology laboratory where I was on protocol for 2 research experiments involving stingrays and sharks. The research was not my own, I was just helping two other people with their research by helping take care of the animals and collect data. I did things like feed them, keep up with the tanks, take daily water quality readings, keep records for IACUC, and help with the trials contributing to the research. Also, I recently finished an internship at the veterinary hospital at Disney's Animal Kingdom veterinary hospital. In addition to my job at the hospital, I also helped with data collection for the conservation team at Disney. I used telemetry to track previously treated and released Gopher tortoises and their burrow activities, however I was fairly removed from the actual research taking place- pretty much all I did was collect the data. Would these be considered research experience, or is research experience when you conduct your own independent projects?

Thanks!

I don't totally agree with classifying the telemetry as research experience (context: I'm a Disney vet hospital alum and did the same thing). If you spent a great deal of time doing it, that might be a little different...If you spent maybe a day or afternoon doing it just to get a taste of what they do (which is what we did), then maybe not. Like you said, you were really far removed from the actual research process, which has been ongoing for many years. There are a lot of threads on the forum debating what is and isn't considered research experience if you care to look. Tbh I didn't even list my telemetry on VMCAS because it was only a few hours, but maybe you expressed an interest and did it a lot more often than I did.

At the time I was applying, I was told my hours of data collection (I had hundreds of hours from multiple places) didn't count as research since it wasn't my project, I wasn't helping publish, etc. VMCAS can be really vague with their description because they have to fit all of the schools. Either way, I don't think you'd get dinged for calling it 'research,' I would just be aware that you may have more 'research' in the eyes of one school and another may disregard it completely. That's kind of the situation I was in.

You can always talk to the schools, but I don't think a bit of gtort tracking is going to make or break your app, regardless of how you classify it. Just my two cents.

 

[Doctor-S]

Here are some more useful comments concerning research experience.

"Research Experience" should include activities that support an understanding of scientific method, evidence of problem solving and observational skills, data entry and analysis for the purpose of reflection/study and other related experiences that exhibit a significant contribution to a research project. Listed below are examples of research experience:

• Research experience gained while applicant is pursuing a graduate degree (MS or PhD)
• Collaborator status on another student or faculty member’s research.
• Responsibility for a portion of a research project (including conducting a portion of the project, responsibility for observations, data entry, development of protocol)
• Presenting the research project data at a professional meeting – either oral or poster format.
• 1st, 2nd or 3rd authorship on peer reviewed papers.

[Source: Veterinary, Animal, and Research Experience|College of Veterinary Medicine]

The VMCAS Helpdesk has also mentioned:

Research should include ALL experiences in a research environment. Please report research experiences in THIS section, even if they were also animal or veterinary experiences. Be very specific about your work/involvement in the research experiences entered in this section. Veterinary schools can weigh your level of involvement according to their school’s standards.

 

[that redhead]

The data collection and entry hours should count toward research. I classified my animal care hours in a lab environment as veterinary, since my boss/oversight was the campus vet and we communicated regularly regarding the animals' health.

 

[KCgophervet]

Sounds like a mix - I would count the hours caring for the animals doing husbandry-related tasks as animal and the hours doing actual experiments, data collection, or data analysis as research. Honestly though, it won't really matter how you categorize it so long as you are sincere in how you think it should be categorized and fully explain the details of what you were doing. If School A thinks its more animal experience but School B thinks it sounds like research experience, that's their call to consider it a different category. So long as you are up front and honest about the experiences you should be okay fitting it into either.

 

[pp9]

Thanks! Yay for being ex-Disney interns. I just completed the internship last spring and we went tracking every Wednesday (not because I showed interest in it, I actually very much disliked it haha). How do you think the internship impacted your vet school applications?

Long story short: the only difference I had between my first and second application was the internship. I got 0/5 interviews the first try, and 3/3 interviews the second time with 2/3 acceptances (one being a waitlist that I very quickly got off of). It is such a unique thing to be able to put on an application, and they will remember the 'Walt Disney intern' after reading 1000 other files. Chances are that you'd be the only person in the pool with that on there 🙂

It will also really help you if you choose to pursue zoo med too, everyone knows the Disney vets and having worked with them will speak very highly of you. Make sure you get letters of rec from whichever vet you feel you connected with the most. I still ask one of them for letters here and there and get hugs at every AAZV conference!

We definitely didn't have to track that often, so in that case, I'd list it too since you were a bit more involved! I think I actually suggested that the interns be given more time to be involved in that project (so sorry, you going weekly may have been my fault!).

I was there in summer 2014. I'm the intern that adopted the rabbit if that helps (and if you heard that story 😛). I seriously miss that job.

 

[vethopeful_2]

I've been brewing on something for awhile now and have decided I just need to ask my trusty SDN fellows lol!

I've been keeping an Excel sheet of all my experiences for each VMCAS category for awhile now. I never thought I would have anything to put in the "research" category, but after reading some of the things that past applicants counted as "research experience" (feeding lab rats, etc.), I feel like I actually have had meaningful experience in a research-related environment but I'm not sure if it technically counts and I don't want to look stupid on my application. BUT I also read that people say you need to acknowledge all your activities and not downplay them. So here we go... time for y'all to judge if I should count this as research or not--

When I was a sophomore in undergrad, I took a class that focused on research methods and using the scientific process. We had a semester-long project that we worked on individually and gave presentations of our conclusions/findings at the end. We also submitted our individually collected data to a national scientific database, as the topic we were studying is apparently hot in the science world right now. Basically we collected insects, used PCR, gel electrophoresis, gene sequencing, and some other processes (need to look back at my research notebook, sorry lol) to determine what species of insects in our area contain a particular disease.

I guess I'm confused because this was for a class. But I had to do all of the same steps that most people do for out-of-class "research" , minus presenting my work at a convention or getting published in a magazine. I spent 5 hours a week on this project for a whole semester, so I guess I feel like it deserves more credit than what I initially thought.








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[pp9]

I've been brewing on something for awhile now and have decided I just need to ask my trusty SDN fellows lol!

I've been keeping an Excel sheet of all my experiences for each VMCAS category for awhile now. I never thought I would have anything to put in the "research" category, but after reading some of the things that past applicants counted as "research experience" (feeding lab rats, etc.), I feel like I actually have had meaningful experience in a research-related environment but I'm not sure if it technically counts and I don't want to look stupid on my application. BUT I also read that people say you need to acknowledge all your activities and not downplay them. So here we go... time for y'all to judge if I should count this as research or not--

When I was a sophomore in undergrad, I took a class that focused on research methods and using the scientific process. We had a semester-long project that we worked on individually and gave presentations of our conclusions/findings at the end. We also submitted our individually collected data to a national scientific database, as the topic we were studying is apparently hot in the science world right now. Basically we collected insects, used PCR, gel electrophoresis, gene sequencing, and some other processes (need to look back at my research notebook, sorry lol) to determine what species of insects in our area contain a particular disease.

I guess I'm confused because this was for a class. But I had to do all of the same steps that most people do for out-of-class "research" , minus presenting my work at a convention or getting published in a magazine. I spent 5 hours a week on this project for a whole semester, so I guess I feel like it deserves more credit than what I initially thought.








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I took a research class and completed a full project too, and VMCAS told me it didn't count because it was for credit. I listed it anyways because I spent hundreds of hours on that thing (also because VMCAS isn't making the decisions).

I've said this a few other times, but I don't think any school is going to 'ding' you for listing something as research that may not fully qualify in the eyes of each school. You could always ask the individual schools since they make the actual decisions, but I'd say you should list it. You went through the full scientific process and wrote up your own project. That's v. different from the usual 'I washed glassware/fed rats in a lab, is this research?'

 

[vethopeful_2]

I took a research class and completed a full project too, and VMCAS told me it didn't count because it was for credit. I listed it anyways because I spent hundreds of hours on that thing (also because VMCAS isn't making the decisions).

I've said this a few other times, but I don't think any school is going to 'ding' you for listing something as research that may not fully qualify in the eyes of each school. You could always ask the individual schools since they make the actual decisions, but I'd say you should list it. You went through the full scientific process and wrote up your own project. That's v. different from the usual 'I washed glassware/fed rats in a lab, is this research?'

I'm glad to hear someone else understands haha. I just think it would be kind of a shame if someone who washed glassware or fed rats could have "research experience", if what I accomplished didn't count. I think I will list it, and just make sure to mention that it was for a class so that the schools can decide if they want to value it or not ha! Thanks for your advice 🙂


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