Was anyone else told not to add vet experience if it was less than 30 hours?

[runnervet]

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I applied to just one school last year and in my application review the addmssions advisor told me to not add the one-day-only vet experiences which totally sucks since I job shadowed many different vet's but for one day only. All vet's do things differently so it nice to know the many ways you can skin a cat j/k!!!

This year Im applying to that school and 3 others so should i add those small "piddly" hours. Is it just that school that really cares about that detail? I see some successful apps from last year had 10hrs LA experience 10 equine . .. ect... .

 

[TurtleLover]

I applied to just one school last year and in my application review the addmssions advisor told me to not add the one-day-only vet experiences which totally sucks since I job shadowed many different vet's but for one day only. All vet's do things differently so it nice to know the many ways you can skin a cat j/k!!!

This year Im applying to that school and 3 others so should i add those small "piddly" hours. Is it just that school that really cares about that detail? I see some successful apps from last year had 10hrs LA experience 10 equine . .. ect... .

I can't say from personal experience, because I had more than 30 hours in any experience I had, but when I was looking at the successful applicant thread from this year, a bunch of people had what I would consider a minscule amount of hours listed under different experiences. I didn't even think it would be helpful to include those until I saw people doing it. So I would say that you should include any and all experiences no matter how many hours you had doing it. Because experience is experience and each school looks at things differently. And in my opinion, it can't hurt to put it on there and have the committee decide for themselves if they think they should look at it or not. Because if you don't put it on there, then they will never know it was there to begin with.

Good luck!

 

[ckgilabert]

from what i did, and from what i hear....write EVERYTHING. i even wrote in the 10 hrs i volunteered at a sea lion rescue. and you're writing what you learned...each one should be a little different, right? or you did something different at each one. be specific....say that at one clinic you saw spays and neuters, at another you saw an amputation and anal gland expression. something like that. 🙂

 

[StealYourWords]

I was told as long as you feel you learned something from the experience, to put it down. I included several entries of ~10 hrs from shadowing different vets but they were in very different fields (Lab Animal, Research) than the majority of my experience (SA private practice)

 

[nyanko]

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't even think to add any experience that was less than like 50 hours. These are things they could ask me about in an interview, and I'm not so sure I could really intelligently discuss something I only did for the equivalent of one week.

 

[twelvetigers]

I'm listing something that only lasted 15 hours, but that was obtained over the course of 3 months. The thing I was doing (sitting in on the cytology/clin path rotation for 4th years) only lasted 2-3 hours a day in the afternoon (and I was unable to go in the mornings). So, that's all I COULD get. I can explain that, and I still want to mention it because it's an area I'm interested in.

I would mention anything that you found important that you also have a legitimate reason for stopping, and maybe even mention this in the explanation of the activity, like, "I volunteered at X practice for X amount of time, but did not continue because I was then hired part-time at Y practice." Or something like that. If it was 4 hours, then maybe leave it off. I dunno.

Seriously, we sit around and pick at things like this, but is it really going to hurt you if you list it? If anything, they'll ignore it. Why does it really matter? Just be able to explain why you thought it was important enough to list!

 

[nyanko]

Seriously, we sit around and pick at things like this, but is it really going to hurt you if you list it? If anything, they'll ignore it. Why does it really matter? Just be able to explain why you thought it was important enough to list!

I gave my reasoning above. I am not putting anything in my application that could possibly be interview fodder unless I am 100% sure I can hold a sustained conversation about different aspects of the experience. And for me, that means I had to spend a long time doing it and was extremely actively involved. For other people that might be different, but I know after a week full time at a job I probably wouldn't feel like I had enough experience to say I "know" the job, so that's just a quirk of mine and perhaps being overly cautious.

 

[twelvetigers]

Yeah, but you were pondering doing an extra 200 hours so that you'd hit the 10,000 hour mark for experience. You can afford to leave off anything less than 30 hours!

 

[sumstorm]

I believe if you can draw from the experience, it is worth mentioning. I am not sure I would mention single session or weekend shadowing experiences of a few hours if they are the same basic situation that you have for most of your other hours. IE if you shadows 7 small animal vets for 10 hours each, I might lump that into one experience (just note the variations) or not list it, especially if you have 100 hours of other small animal experience. There may be different ways to skin a cat, but how important are those variations to your understanding the the profession?

Now, if it was something distinctive, such as shadowing a specialist or an acupuncturist, or an outside field (a veterinary medical writer) or an unusual field (international marine mammal vet) or a field with limitations to opportunities (a weekend internship with a public health agency that doesn't allow more extensive opportunities) then it is worth mentioning, especially if it led you to other experience or gave you a definitive view on vet medicine. IE I KNOW I won't ever work in factory farming. I did spend 20 hours shadowing a factory farm vet. The entire feild goes against my personal beliefs, my background of growing up on a family farm, how I feel animals should be treated (even meat animals) and while I really like the vet I worked with, I despised the environment to an extent that I am unwilling to consider it (with the exception of possibly dairy work) and I think that is a valid piece of knowledge that I am willing to discuss at interviews. Some things you just don't need a lot of exposure with to judge your willingness to participate in a given field. Kind of like insisting a Brethren ought to give the military some consideration.