I'm trying to decide between TAMU and WSU. I'm wanting to track large animal/equine and I know TAMU has a great program for that. TAMU is my IS school, but I also know you can get residency for WSU. I like the idea of tracking and I know WSU doesn't let you track. I do love the mountains and scenery of WSU. Leaning more towards TAMU, but what are everyones thoughts? Thanks!
Texas A&M vs WSU
- Thread starter cowdoc_3
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Your post seems like you've pretty much already made up your mind😊 As an OOS person who didnt have a reasonable IS and chose to come to WSU. Go to TAMU. You'll thank yourself later and I have no doubt you'll get the education youll need at TAMU. While we have decent LA and EQ opportunities it's not worth the tuition difference. You'll also likely have to travel less for the same experiences. Imo while the hills are pretty, as someone from where it's very flat like TX I miss seeing out to the horizon. Come visit the PNW on vacation time!
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We are the only equine referral center within ~6hr radius so we get quite a few equine referrals. However, it can be hit or miss. Last week I was in the barn and it was packed, went back this week and there was one horse hospitalized. You can work out in the barn as a job to get experience. Our eq club is pretty active usually and they normally put on a dentistry or podiatry series. Not sure how things have changed with covid as things are always changing, but we have a herd health program that you and a few other students are in charge of providing basic care for the teaching herd. There's also enrichment which is a do on your own with a buddy go brush, pick hooves, spend time with the horses type deal. In 3rd year there are 2 equine electives you can take one on the medicine side-work on palpation, urinary catheter placement, NG tube placement, case work ups, opthalmology, etc. The other elective focuses on the sports medicine part of eq-so working on evaluating lameness(I'm not sure what all they do since I'm not in that course). You can also sign up for foal team percovid in the spring which is a calling tree to go spend time and help care for neonates that need basically round the clock care in ICU. Legit go sit in the stall with the baby for x hours making sure it doesn't pull out its NG tube and help them take care of the foal. We also have colic team that runs in the fall and spring which is a class once a week over lunch and calling tree (precovid) so that when there was a colic case you'd get a text to come in and observe case workup and possibly go to sx. Friend and I got to help do an enema once. Both the calling trees are completely optional incase you have a test that next day or whatever.
For your didactic years our Ag club is super active though and puts on great labs-we did a palpation/synch lab one year as a weekend trip. Went and toured Vytelle down in OR one year. Lots of opportunities that way. We also have out therio club and small ruminant club that offer other various opportunities. We do have the northwestern bovine exchange program that sets you up with a farm beef or ranch and the practice that serves the farm. Summer 1 you work on the farm learning the ins and outs and year 2 you work with the vet. It's pretty selective, but seems like a cool opportunity-I just didn't have the time to commit to it. We also have a couple cattle based elective you can take as well. One of our faculty members also invites a large dairy to speak to us and they usually offer summer research jobs that you can apply for (you'd be out of state for the summer you work). We currently have a large animal surgery block in year 3 which you can pick to track bovine or equine for the class, but it's on the chopping block for various reasons so no guarantee it will be here when you get to be a 3rd year, but our class is fighting hard to try and keep it. Unfortunately there's not a ton of cattle work in the immediate area and if you're interested in pigs at all this is not the place to come-we don't have much pig work up here. There's tons of small ruminant and camelid work in the immediate area, but most of your major beef and dairy herds you have to drive ~3 hours to get to. WSU does have a dairy and small beef herd and we also contract with U of I across the border so we have that work nearby, but it's not much. We do have the Ag portion of the hospital which is pretty variable. With covid and some things going on with U of I alot of the big bovine rotations got axed which not going to lie sucked when we were looking at 4th year rotations-they did replace them with new similarish rotations though. Since the rotations are new though their availability is limited right now- that may change by the time you're a 4th year. For my 4th year bovine rotations I'm in OR 1 week, southern ID for 2 weeks, and driving around the middle of WA ~3 hours away-so nothing really close and lots of travel expense.
I hope that gives you a better idea of what's offered! lmk what other questions you have
For your didactic years our Ag club is super active though and puts on great labs-we did a palpation/synch lab one year as a weekend trip. Went and toured Vytelle down in OR one year. Lots of opportunities that way. We also have out therio club and small ruminant club that offer other various opportunities. We do have the northwestern bovine exchange program that sets you up with a farm beef or ranch and the practice that serves the farm. Summer 1 you work on the farm learning the ins and outs and year 2 you work with the vet. It's pretty selective, but seems like a cool opportunity-I just didn't have the time to commit to it. We also have a couple cattle based elective you can take as well. One of our faculty members also invites a large dairy to speak to us and they usually offer summer research jobs that you can apply for (you'd be out of state for the summer you work). We currently have a large animal surgery block in year 3 which you can pick to track bovine or equine for the class, but it's on the chopping block for various reasons so no guarantee it will be here when you get to be a 3rd year, but our class is fighting hard to try and keep it. Unfortunately there's not a ton of cattle work in the immediate area and if you're interested in pigs at all this is not the place to come-we don't have much pig work up here. There's tons of small ruminant and camelid work in the immediate area, but most of your major beef and dairy herds you have to drive ~3 hours to get to. WSU does have a dairy and small beef herd and we also contract with U of I across the border so we have that work nearby, but it's not much. We do have the Ag portion of the hospital which is pretty variable. With covid and some things going on with U of I alot of the big bovine rotations got axed which not going to lie sucked when we were looking at 4th year rotations-they did replace them with new similarish rotations though. Since the rotations are new though their availability is limited right now- that may change by the time you're a 4th year. For my 4th year bovine rotations I'm in OR 1 week, southern ID for 2 weeks, and driving around the middle of WA ~3 hours away-so nothing really close and lots of travel expense.
I hope that gives you a better idea of what's offered! lmk what other questions you have
