Switching to pre-vet

[phantasmox]

Hi everyone. I saw that you have a thread already for "what are my chances?" but I guess since I haven't actually decided on being pre-vet, I figured I'd make my own thread.

I'm currently in my final semester getting a BS in psychology but I haven't really figured out what I want to do as a career. A friend told me I'd be a good vet and then it dawned on me that I could be an animal doctor instead of a people doctor because I sure don't like people but I love animals.

Anyway, I did horrible in my bachelor program. I was really confused, went through a lot of switching of majors, and was overall super unmotivated because I didn't know what to do with my life. I'm graduating with like a 2.7 GPA at the most, have a lot of withdrawals and retakes on my transcripts, and am already graduating a year and a half late, on my parents' stretched dime. I'd rather not spend any more of my parents' money getting my bachelors and would like to do this on my own, so that would probably mean I have to work for a year or so before going back to school. All my science credits are in my freshman year, so that's already like 5 years ago (wow, time flies).

I have a lot more researching to do about the veterinary career path and have to look into volunteering to see if this is really what I want to do, but I have some questions about whether this would even be feasible. What would I have to do in order to even have a chance at getting into a veterinary program? Would it hurt my chances if I took the pre-reqs at a community college after I finish my BS? Is it really bad that I did so terribly getting my bachelors?

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[heylodeb]

I sure don't like people but I love animals.

One Animal normally has 1-5 people attached to it and you will spend most of your time as a veterinarian interacting with those people. If you do not want to work with people, vet med is not the field for you.

 

[Suomi]

Although your BS major GPA is not stellar, you can get a better chance by working VERY hard in your vet pre-reqs in a post-bacc program and passing them with A's and B's (A's are best to bump up that GPA and for proving you can handle the rigor of vetmed). Try to avoid having to retake courses. Also keep in mind the numerous science courses you will be taking. Most schools required 1 yr bio, 1 yr gen chem, 1 yr organic chem, 1 yr. physics, calculus, statistics, biochemistry, cell biology, microbiology, physiology or some variation of these. If you do well in your pre-reqs, you stand a chance of getting in, but you need to work hard on those grades and prove to the admissions committees that your past academic issues are not still a problem and something that will arise in vet school. As far as community college goes, you can take your pre-reqs there without harming your admissions in any way. However, some of the upper-division science courses will need to be taken at a four-year university since they are usually not offered at community colleges.

Also gain lots of volunteering/shadowing experience in many areas of vet med to continue to examine
whether this is the path for you. I suggest starting this before you even start taking those pre-reqs. You may decide the reality is not what you thought it was. Plus, most of the possible veterinary paths for one to take after vet school graduation involve A LOT of people interaction. It's not all playing with puppies. The people are often the most frustrating/annoying part of the job. When you shadow/volunteer, pay particular attention to client interactions.

 

[DVMDream]

You will still have to deal with people in veterinary medicine, so I really strongly suggest you get some shadowing/volunteering done with a vet before you make any commitment to going down this path. If you don't like people, vet med really may not be the best path. Pets don't walk into vet clinics on their own with notes attached to their collars and credit cards tucked in. (Would sure make the job much easier.) Now, there are other career paths in veterinary medicine that do not involve dealing directly with pet owners but you will still have to communicate with people and deal with people.


Also, a 2.7 cumulative GPA is going to prove very difficult to get accepted into vet school and for some schools is too low of a GPA to even apply. Now, considering that you do still have to take some pre-reqs you have a chance to bring this GPA up a little bit, but seeing as you will already have a bachelor's degree at the point that you start any pre-reqs (which means you will already have accumulated a lot of credit hours), it will be very difficult to bring the GPA a significant amount. You will have to do well in all of pre-req classes, getting mostly A's, if not all A's if you want to bring your GPA up enough. Average GPA's for acceptance are usually around 3.6-3.7 depending on the school and if you are in-state or out of state. This is not saying that people do not get accepted with lower GPA's, but it is much more difficult for them to be accepted.

Now, about doing courses at a community college, that should be ok, some schools don't really care where course work is completed and others do. Some schools will allow all pre-reqs to be completed at a community college and others will like to see the upper-level courses completed at a 4 year university. You will need to do some searching and figure out what will be best for you and the schools that you are considering applying to. Some schools are also very understand of mistakes early on in undergrad, now if you did show an upward trend in grades during obtaining you current degree then that will be good. But that GPA is still very low and will be hard to overcome. Some schools do have grade forgiveness that will excuse grades taken from 5 years back or so, but that means any pre-reqs taken in that time will need to be retaken, although this shouldn't be too much of a problem as generally those classes will need to be taken again anyway. Also, just curious, but if your goal was ultimately medical school as you mentioned being a people doctor, you should have taken most of the pre-reqs for vet school as well, which will then show up with you retaking classes. Med school and vet school pre-reqs are nearly identical.

My suggestion to you first though is to find a vet to shadow and be sure that this is something that you want to get into. You will have to deal with people, it is not all animals. You are actually working very closely with people almost as much so as you would being a human doctor. You just aren't doing any medicine on people.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

My suggestion to you first though is to find a vet to shadow and be sure that this is something that you want to get into. You will have to deal with people, it is not all animals. You are actually working very closely with people almost as much so as you would being a human doctor. You just aren't doing any medicine on people.

Absolutely. Being a vet is in many ways like being a pediatrician. Your patients don't understand what is happening to them, cannot articulate, etc. So you spend a huge amount of time with the parents (or in our case owners) getting history, discussing treatments and prognosis, etc. You will have great clients who will work alongside you in their animal's care and you will have nasty, belligerent, or just plain ignorant clients who refuse to listen to you. It's very emotionally draining, just as much as it is rewarding. As others have said, you really need to shadow to figure out if this is for you.

 

[phantasmox]

Thanks for the replies!

My pre-med adventure was very, very brief. It was only during my first year of college, so while I do have credits in biology and chemistry (1 semester each), I have to redo them anyway. I ended up the psych route because it was the fastest track to graduation since it was originally my minor. Its the caring for people part of it that I didn't care for. I actually work at a hospital.

I'll see about volunteering at a shelter and vet offices!

 

[MysteryCat]

One Animal normally has 1-5 people attached to it and you will spend most of your time as a veterinarian interacting with those people. If you do not want to work with people, vet med is not the field for you.