What Do You Consider Necessary Pre-vet Courses?

[Haitian Rat]

I have a bit of a predicament
Besides the pre-requisute courses that are required (e.g. biochem, inorganic chem, physics, etc), what would some of you pre-veterinary students consider a must in undergrad when it comes to science courses I can take at my discretion?

*Examples*
Animal Physiology
Animal behavior
Animal nutrition
Invertebrate studies
Etc.

I ask this because I have yet to make a decision on my undergrad colleges due to some of them lacking Animal Physiology, nutrition,and behavior. All of them have microbiological courses, but wouldn't the specific animal courses be much better options?

Veterinary Graduate goal is Cornell btw.
Any advice is a welcome at this point. Deposits are due May 1st.🙂

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[Lab Vet]

Do yourself a HUGE favor and take an anatomy course- ANY anatomy course (preferably with a cadaver lab requiring identification of structures), be it human, animal, comparative- or even a vertebrate morphology course. The details aren't important, the approach to learning anatomy is what's key.

Other musts (aside from gen/organic chem, gen bio, and physics- all necessary; don't discount physics; fluid mechanics are important for CV/respiratory; an appreciation of newtonian forces is helpful for Ortho; Optics will give you a leg up in Ophtho):

-Physiology; as much as you can; animal/comparative is nice, but human is fine as well for undergrad
-Microbio; vriology and bacteriology
-Cell biology
-Biochemistry
-Immunology

Would be nice:
-Parasitology
-Nutrition- again, animal is nice, but if human is all you've got- that's ok as well. Better some foundation than none.

Forget the animal specific courses for now. You want to enter whatever vet school you attend with a rock-solid foundation in core sciences. Animal specific knowledge will come later.

 

[pp9]

You can take nutrition online at a few different schools if the school you pick doesn't have it. I'd personally pass on behavior since the info covered is so variable and often not necessary the stuff you think about when you think 'animal behavior.'

 

[Filly Bay]

Anatomy and physiology was probably the most helpful. Followed by micro, cell bio and immuno. Doesn't really matter if they are animal specific. My anatomy was human but in lab we had cat cadavers. Cells are cells.

 

[Coquette22]

Biochemistry, histology and cell bio were the most helpful to me. I'm sure an embryology course would have helped too (though I shudder at the thought of any more of that course than absolutely necessary). I'll echo the statement that human is fine. A lot of it translates. My human histology course was a huge leg up.

 

[Glammyre]

Anatomy and physiology were most helpful to me, along with virology.

I'm curious about the animal nutrition - isn't that required by most veterinary schools anyway?

 

[Trilt]

Honestly... I don't think anything beyond the pre-reqs is "necessary" and would not select a university based on that. I had a humanities second major and most of my higher science courses were things like human-animal interactions, genetics in human affairs, captive and domestic animal management, etc. Things that double dipped requirements for me, and frankly, that I enjoyed more than intense science.

You gotta be able to get through vet school for sure, but if your goal is gp it's much more about people than nitty gritty science... sure you might have a slightly easier time in some vet school classes if you have more background, but I really think it's minimal. And the load of material is simply so different between undergrad and vet school.

 

[LetItSnow]

Personally, I wouldn't take anything beyond the required pre-reqs. Everything you take adds cost. I don't consider anything additional to be a 'must take' class.

I agree with other people that certain classes (like anatomy, etc.) could be useful ... but you definitely don't need them.

 

[Baer]

I would assume anything close to what you would be taking in vet school would be a huge plus but not 100% required. I've taking vet anatomy with a lab, parasitology, physiology, pathology, and genetics (only a couple schools require it). A lot of schools require upper level science classes and they typically fill that so there is no harm in taking them.

Nutrition is a bit of a gray area. It would help but there are online options that you could take. My school offers an in class nutrition but it's heavily based on livestock feed so if you're wanting a well rounded nutrition course or something more SA focused, it wouldn't cut it.

People will say it'll add additional cost but once you're full time your fees almost always cap anyway. Might as well take a class that could help you later if you can handle the class load.

You can take nutrition online at a few different schools if the school you pick doesn't have it. I'd personally pass on behavior since the info covered is so variable and often not necessary the stuff you think about when you think 'animal behavior.'

Animal behavior at my school seemed like it discussed more on things like insect mating behavior than stuff dealing with traditional small animal (cat/dog) behavior. People liked the class but I gave it a hard pass.

 

[Haitian Rat]

Thank you so much for all these great tips!
This has certainly made my pick easier.

 

[battie]

Stained glass was absolutely necessary for me. It was a great stress reliever class and got me away from being around the same people all the time.

Remember to have the for fun classes somewhere in there to help you learn how to handle intense stress. You'll need it in vet school.

 

[supershorty]

If you're at a university where there's a tuition cap after a certain number of credits, then I'd take physiology for sure. My undergrad phys class really prepared me for vet school phys well (I had a great prof in undergrad).

 

[cdo96]

You have to take some sort of humanities too right, for the application? I know okstate requires at least... 6 hours of humanities? So don't forget about them! They are fun/ required courses too!
So I was able to balance out the rougher classes (ochem 1,2&lab, biochem 1,2&lab, physics 1&2) with classes I enjoyed (music courses).

Check with your school to see that nothing else is required. OkState requires a nutrition course and a lot of schools don't.
In terms of courses I enjoyed- I really liked the content of my physiology course (didn't really like the professor). I loved my animal nutrition course.