Veterinary Science/Animal Science or Biology major?

Started by lullabies
Veterinary Science Graduate Programs from U. of I.
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
L

lullabies

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
So I'm wondering if I should look into an undergrad college that specialized in biology orrrrrrrrrrrr go specifically for more animal-based sciences like animal science, veterinary science, zoology, etc.

An IS school has veterinary science but it is more well known for its
"pre-med" program, thus specializing more in biology. However, I've heard nothing really special about its veterinary science major. So I'm kind of wondering if it will make a difference on what major I choose for veterinary school specifically.
 
From what I've heard/seen, it all depends on what your Plan B is if you don't get into vet school. Would you want to work in a career more animal-science based or more biology-based? Because both majors will likely fulfill the majority, if not all, of your prereqs, my advice would be to choose a major as if you weren't even planning on going to vet school. For what it's worth, I know a lot of people who have a degree in animal science, couldn't get into vet school, and are now stuck working not-so-great jobs. I don't know that you would have any more luck in the biology field, but just what I've heard.

Good luck with your decision!
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
You should major in whatever you want, I even know an English major pre-vet. However, I do kind of agree you should go for whatever would give you a more enjoyable job if vet school doesn't work out.
 
I started off as an An Sci major because that's what I thought people did to get into veterinary school (that is what my very unhelpful adviser said anyways). After I really got into taking some of the more advanced an sci, I realized that it was really more focused on production than I was interested in, and it didn't really have that much to do with veterinary medicine after all. I looked at what kinds of jobs an An Sci major would get me in case I didn't get into vet school and feed sales and AI technician we're really what I had in mind, so I switched to a biology major and was able to take some classes that were much more relevant to vet med like parasitology and diseases of wildlife. A biology degree also gave me the opportunity to specialize it how I wanted, so I also ended up taking some wildlife ecology courses too.

That being said, if you are really into animal agriculture and want to use that sort of industry as your plan B, go for it. But I feel that maybe a lot of pre-vet students get corralled into an sci for no real reason, and it really isn't that helpful, especially if you are interested in going into small animal... There were a few an sci majors in some of my classes that were going for exclusively small animal vet med...I just couldn't figure out the relevance of that to save my life.

So that's my two cents anyways.
 
PocoCalypsoQH said:
I started off as an An Sci major because that's what I thought people did to get into veterinary school (that is what my very unhelpful adviser said anyways). After I really got into taking some of the more advanced an sci, I realized that it was really more focused on production than I was interested in, and it didn't really have that much to do with veterinary medicine after all. I looked at what kinds of jobs an An Sci major would get me in case I didn't get into vet school and feed sales and AI technician we're really what I had in mind, so I switched to a biology major and was able to take some classes that were much more relevant to vet med like parasitology and diseases of wildlife. A biology degree also gave me the opportunity to specialize it how I wanted, so I also ended up taking some wildlife ecology courses too.

That being said, if you are really into animal agriculture and want to use that sort of industry as your plan B, go for it. But I feel that maybe a lot of pre-vet students get corralled into an sci for no real reason, and it really isn't that helpful, especially if you are interested in going into small animal... There were a few an sci majors in some of my classes that were going for exclusively small animal vet med...I just couldn't figure out the relevance of that to save my life.

So that's my two cents anyways.
Click to expand...

👍 I agree with everything said here. I got a degree in biochemistry and feel that the degree was really well rounded. Most of the pre-reqs were covered with the courses required for the degree. And I took asci electives to fulfill the others. At a job interview I went to at the beginning of the summer, the interviewer graduated from my school with an animal science degree and she said if she could do it over she would have gone the bio route because the asci courses are a) not aimed towards small animals and b) many have to do with raising and management, not medicine.

On the other hand, I think that had I been an animal science major I may have gotten better grades because there were less upper division bio/chem classes required for an asci degree and the animal science versions of classes were not as difficult as the bio/chem versions (one example being biochemistry). *Note, I am not saying that ALL bio/chem classes are harder than asci classes, and asci majors do have to take some of the same classes (gen and organic chem), but that was my experience at the school I attended
 
I have to agree with the above post. I was planning on doing the animal science majors as well and even scheduled my advisement for that major, but thankfully somehow the appointments got all screwed up and I got moved to the college of science where the advisor kindly informed me only the college of ag does animal science... lazy me I didnt want to change my appointment again, so we decided on Zoology. In the end, I am glad everything got all messed up because the animal science major is very production/feed bases (atleast at my school) where as my zoo degree is offering more insight into areas like parasitology, histology, virology, etc.

Like everyone said, its not per say the degree you earn, its in the requirements that you fulfill. Do what makes you happy.
 
Enough with the animal science bashing.👎 Seriously. I'm an animal science major and will be able to take plenty of courses that will prepare me for vet school including, but not limited to, histology, immunology, and virology. Animal science majors at my university are also required to take business and socioeconomic courses to broaden their scope of animal science. Animal science majors can find jobs pretty easily. They can manage farms, work in breeding programs, animal/public health fields, sales and marketing, meat processing, nutrition programs and the list goes on.
 
I don't think there's any animal science bashing going on, just people giving their two cents.

That being said, I'm an animal science major and I wouldn't change it for the world. The classes are fun and engaging and I truly look forward to going to them. I'm SUPER glad I didn't choose biology as a major. I have an Associate of Science and an Associate of Arts and when I transferred from my CC to Ohio State I spoke with a lady in Professional Admissions to see what major I should choose to best prepare me for vet school. Her answer? "Well what major do you want to do?" I said "Well I guess I should do biology, right?" And she said "No, what do YOU WANT to do?" I said "Well I'd really like to do animal science" and she said "Great! You need to choose a major that YOU like." And I never looked back.

Any major can get you prepared for vet school. Pick the one you have a passion for.
 
I chose Zoology after a semester on AnSci because I didn't want to take meat and carcass evaluation. That's pretty muck all there is to that. Now I know I should have gone for biochem or micro because *I* would have liked it better, but sometimes it takes a while to figure out what you really like.
 
By all means get your pre-reqs in. But choose your major based on what you are passionate about and what motivates you--so that you succeed at it.

Playing a bit of devil's advocate, I will say that while my liberal arts education was useful (I think I am more prepared for lifelong learning and enjoyment), I do wish I had majored in something with more DIRECT practical applications... I watched all my tech and finance buddies make bank right out of college (this was awhile ago...) and now have the freedom to go to grad school where they want or take extended sabbaticals because money is not a factor. But, so is life. I traveled more, learned languages, met tons of awesome people, and had some adventures while they were stuck in a cubicle... 🙄
 
You may want to find out as much as you can about the GPAs in the different majors you are considering. Beyond that, I agree with others who suggest looking into what you would do with the degree if you did not get into vet school.

It can be difficult to know, as others have discussed, until you take some courses. If you have never done biological research, for example, how do you know it will be fascinating for you? Also, it might be good to check out the graduate school programs you could consider with each degree.
 
Your major for vet school will not matter, period. Especially if its anything biological/an sci - those are all fine. What matters is pre-reqs and grades.

If you're considering career options aside from vet school - go animal science all the way. Take it from a biochem major (and someone who has many jobless friends in the phd and beyond biochem world). In stuff like bio/chem/biochem/biomed, etc today, the only thing you can do is masters to phd to postdoc, getting paid crap to be a slave for years.

You basically HAVE to get a phd and the slog through multiple postdocs in order to be competitive now, since industry is not hiring and the economy is crap. Hopefully things will change, but I think it'll take a long while.
 
Hillview said:
If you have never done biological research, for example, how do you know it will be fascinating for you?
Click to expand...

That's true. The only thing close to "biological research" are high school labs and I have no idea what that is like compared to lab courses in uni.

Thanks guys! I really didn't know that it didn't make too much of a difference. I thought having a degree in biology or something would be 10923840934x more impressive than having an English degree.

OneDay81 said:
What would you want to do if you didn't get into vet school?
Click to expand...
Truth be told, I have absolutely NO idea.

If I went "undecided" for my first year or two, does that really make a difference?

I'm afraid going undecided or going into a major I don't like will be just a waste of my time at this point. Especially if you don't need a specific major for Vet school.
 
I entered college with an Animal Science major, and 2 years in I decided to add Biology as a second major. I found I loved the bio classes and they really helped me understand vet med better.

I think I'm gonna apply for a masters in veterinary microbiology (that sounds freakin amazing!) in case I don't get in this year.
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
That sounds like a really neat masters to pursue! I will defiantly have to keep that in the back of my mind. Keep me posted on what you decide to do or the outcome of that. Sounds to cool!
 
lullabies said:
Thanks guys! I really didn't know that it didn't make too much of a difference. I thought having a degree in biology or something would be 10923840934x more impressive than having an English degree.
Click to expand...

I'm under the impression that having a degree not in the sciences is just as good for applications. It makes you a more-rounded applicant and vet schools like to see that. The downside is that the courseload is less demanding in non-science degrees and you might find vet school more difficult. There was a member on here that took a different degree and found vet school overwhelming. I can't remember if this person stayed in vet school or not. It depends on the person though.

I was under the impression to that you had to have an animal science degree to get into vet school 😛 I too looked into careers. I'm a vegetarian and didn't really want to be stuck working with production animals if I didn't get into vet school so I decided on a biology degree. My university has a lot of ecology and enviromental science courses and it's kinda become my second passion.

Good luck!
 
scarcelyheard said:
I'm under the impression that having a degree not in the sciences is just as good for applications. It makes you a more-rounded applicant and vet schools like to see that. The downside is that the courseload is less demanding in non-science degrees and you might find vet school more difficult. There was a member on here that took a different degree and found vet school overwhelming. I can't remember if this person stayed in vet school or not. It depends on the person though.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, this does not apply to all non-science degrees. Engineering, for instance, is not considered a science.

Anyway, I spoke with Kathy Seay (in admissions) at Mizzou, and while major doesn't matter, you can get extra points in their scoring system for being diverse. This includes choosing a major in the non-sciences.
 
Last edited:
I think everyone here has offered some great advice so far.

I was undecided my first year of college. Then I switched majors a few times, mostly pursuing a BA (with thoughts of possible vet school). I was really worried about settling on a major, afraid that it would define my future life. Finally, I gave up, and just took the courses I enjoyed the most. I ended up in a wildlife program (which I LOVED) and although my major didn't include some of the vet school pre-requisites, I decided to stick with it anyway.

My point is that you should do what you love. Don't worry about deciding your future career at such a young age. Try to focus your tastes, though.
 
scb44f said:
Just to clarify, this does not apply to all non-science degrees. Engineering, for instance, is not considered a science.

Anyway, I spoke with Kathy Seay (in admissions) at Mizzou, and while major doesn't matter, you can get extra points in their scoring system for being diverse. This includes choosing a major in the non-sciences.
Click to expand...
Oooh, that's actually GREAT to hear! I guess my thoughts were wrong -- it's not exactly a thousand times more impressive to hold a degree in a science. Although most schools may not think that way, I guess that knowing it won't matter too much won't limit my majors.

KaibabVet said:
I think everyone here has offered some great advice so far.

I was undecided my first year of college. Then I switched majors a few times, mostly pursuing a BA (with thoughts of possible vet school). I was really worried about settling on a major, afraid that it would define my future life. Finally, I gave up, and just took the courses I enjoyed the most. I ended up in a wildlife program (which I LOVED) and although my major didn't include some of the vet school pre-requisites, I decided to stick with it anyway.

My point is that you should do what you love. Don't worry about deciding your future career at such a young age. Try to focus your tastes, though.
Click to expand...

Ahh, it's great that you switched around to find something you ended up loving! My friend's older sister (now a sophomore) suggested I do that but my biggest fear would have been that doing so would waste my time/money in classes I don't quite enjoy.

I agree - everyone's advice so far has made me feel much more relieved that I'm not completely limited on majors.

I guess I'm really going for a choosing a major now (in high school) because as I said earlier, I'm afraid to waste my time/money on some classes. Yikes! But I might just try that and try the classes that really appeal to me.
 
Have you thought about what major will help you the most when you do get into vet school?

Not gonna lie, I found that plenty of classes from my Animal Science major made studying much easier, especially in light of WesternU's PBL system. Even if I didn't fully master the concepts, I knew they were there, and I knew what to look for in terms of researching my learning objectives. I guess this is less of an issue for traditional learning systems.

Additionally, several of my classmates who've had the chance to take non-core (as in, not pre-reqs) animal science / science classes like histology, pathology, animal diseases, epidemiology, etc. found it easier to digest the MASSIVE amounts of information vet school throws at you. Again, even if you didn't master the concepts, you're definitely familiar to a degree that you're comfortable tackling what you've previously had trouble on. If vet school was the firehose you're supposed to drink out of, your extra science classes are several buckets to help you start at your own pace.

...That was a horrible metaphor. I'm sorry. I'm obviously not cut out to be a writer.

Although the converse is true in that your undergrad major won't really matter, it makes life a little bit easier.

And for those who would say "Oh they'll teach you all that during your first semester of vet school, so don't bother," ... not at Western hahaha. ((But don't let that deter you from applying! I love not having to sit in lectures from 8am-5pm 😛))
 
Hi, I don't think what you decide to major in will influence what the admissions committee will ultimately decide on. You can complete your pre-reqs in any degree. An animal science degree may offer an advantage by giving you more "hands-on" experience with domestic and companion animals. On the other hand, a biology degree can give you an advantage with the more theoretical courses in vet school (e.g. anatomy...). I'm just speaking on the terms of the post-secondary institutes where I'm from. Both UCVM and WCVM have accepted students with only 2 years of pre-professional study, and they're getting along fine (from what I've heard!).

My background? I'm a typical city girl who never touched a cow prior to vet school, classically trained at the music conservatory in piano performance, then decided to go to university in the sciences stream, completed an honours degree in zoology in 4 years...my electives included: systematics and evolution, freshwater ecology, entomology (5 courses!), population ecology, vertebrate diversity...the point is to show you that I didn't really worry too much about focusing too much on taking "vet-oriented" courses. I took what I thought was interesting, not to make my application look good. It made my undergrad experience enjoyable.

That being said, I've heard wonderful stories from my classmates who did the animal sciences route. Even if you took the biology route, you can still take animal science courses as electives and vice versa. In my school there are people who have degrees in music, business, forestry, chemistry, ecology, biochemistry, so anything really!

Whatever you decide to choose, make sure you speak to an adviser to make sure you complete your pre-reqs AND to also make sure you complete your degree requirements. Go with your gut and in the end, you're striving for the same dream! I hope this helps and good luck!
 
I kinda wish I'd thought more about my major... I mean, I like Animal Science, but if I'd thought about it before I was about to be oh, say, a junior (next semester *sigh* growing up too fast), I might have picked something more biology related. But I'm in up to my ears with animal science courses completed and I DO enjoy it, so that's something.

Of course, I also have a tendency to take what I want to take in the order I want to take it, and to heck with the departments nicely laid out "four year plan." Including a couple courses NOT on the degree plan at all. :laugh: For instance, in the case of the order of classes... I'm a sophmore right now and I'm enrolled in a junior level course, two sophmore level courses, and a freshman level course (haha yeah... there is nothing "freshman level" about physics even though it's course number is in the 1000's). And there's still a few 'freshman level' courses I haven't taken, but I guess I'm kind of skipping around right now in favor of what looks like more fun and more useful for vet school (I'm trying to take all my most relevant courses (besides pre-reqs) first since I'm trying to get in in three years)
 
twelvetigers said:
SOV, my university has a course in wool judging. It's not that you're sheltered, you just haven't been far enough South. We do have good iced tea, though.
Click to expand...

We've got all those goofy courses at CSU too. We even have ADVANCED wool & fiber evaluation. And a course on how to manage your manure (thank god for that! :laugh:) I doubt the iced tea compares though.
 
Someone should really create a sticky. I've been seeing waaay too many "What should I major in?" and "What books should I get to study for the GRE?" threads 🙄
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
SDN Article: Major Graciela Orantes, DVM: From West Point to the Army Veterinary Corps
Replies
0
Views
891
Alexander Salas
A
M
  • Question Question
Vet Experience or Animal Experience?
Replies
5
Views
2K
mnnatio
M
circling
AUS Vet Schools - Will Studying a Year in a Non-Science Degree Affect my Chances for Admission?
Replies
1
Views
445
supershorty
supershorty
S
  • Question Question
Animal Science major vs. Biology major for undergraduate studies
Replies
10
Views
4K
Jess Monster
Jess Monster
I
Trying to transition into veterinary client service/reception work — looking for advice from veterinary professionals
Replies
3
Views
450
pp9
pp9