I'm currently a sophomore and have no vet experience. Last year I dual enrolled full-time, but I had a lot of classes and had a hard time keeping up. I also couldn't drive.
Anyway, what's considered a solid amount of hours?
How many hours do pre-vet students typically work a year?
How do I get experience working with animals other than your average vet clinics (farm animals, research, exotics)?
How do you balance keeping up your grades, working a part time job, and shadowing?
I think a big part depends on the area you are in. Like you, I started shadowing/volunteering during high school at the equine clinic I used, who also owned a small animal clinic. In my area, there’s only 3 local(ish) equine vets and the one I used was a 45 min drive from my house. So I only volunteered over school breaks and summers for a total of 5 years then.
So personally, I didn’t really do any shadowing over the school year unless I got a day off (clinic isn’t open on weekends). I could’ve found other small animal clinics closer to me that way I still could’ve gone during the school year, but I had a lot of other stuff that I was involved in and that one clinic saw a bit of everything (mainly dogs, cats, and horses, but would also see goats, cows, pigs and occasional exotics).
For your solid hours question, each school
Is different. Some may require a min of 200 or 500 hours. Others say quality over quantity and don’t have a min. I was able to rack up a lot of hours over the 5 years just doing summers and breaks, but I also spent more than 1 day/week over there (typically at least 3 or 4). Again, it depends on the clinic. Some may give you set days or have multiple volunteers/shadows and not want all 5 showing up on the same day. My clinic kind of did that since they were so open to people coming in and volunteering, but most people only came for a few weeks or maybe 1 summer. Since I kept coming back consistently they told me I could come whenever. Try to get as many as you can cause it’ll make your app stronger and give you a better idea of what the profession is really like.
I also dual enrolled, but my class load couldn’t go over 18 credits a semester as a dual enrollment student and I think I only took 13 each semester as a DE student and didn’t have any problems with the load. So maybe if you took 18 drop it back while you get the hang of college classes?
I worked all through under grad, but it was part-time (20-25 hrs/week) and VERY flexible. I know other people who worked multiple jobs though and still kept up with the curriculum. It’s all about time management and staying on top of things.
For other types of experience, you can volunteer with shelters/rescues, if there’s a wildlife rehab center in your area, check with your college about research opportunities (not sure if you can as a DE student though?), some areas have an equine/farm animal rescue, FFA or 4-H while still in high school, Pre-Vet Society (if your college has one) often has connections for its members.
I will say though, you don’t need experience in every possible area. Yes, it will give you a more broad experience and background, but IMO sometimes it may be better to build up better relationships with fewer experiences than lots of experiences but not forming good relationships. Like instead of getting 30 hrs at place 1 and 20 hours place 2 and 60 hrs at place 3 etc but not having a great relationship with them, it may be better to spend 200 hours at one place so they can write you strong letters of rec. On the flip side though, each clinic does things differently so it’s still a good idea to at least gain experience in more than 1 setting, but I know that’s not always possible either.
I hope all of this helps and sorry it was such a long post!
