becoming a vet
Ian Kerfoot
wanting to become a veterinarian. She ultimately wound
up going into human medicine instead. I was bouncing
back and forth between chemistry and electrical
engineering at the time. She was far better at biology
than I was, and I was better at math and physics. I
guess that is why we both went down our separate career
paths.
In high school, the curriculum choice is mostly between
college preparatory vs blue collar tracks, rather than
anything specific to what you study at the university.
You should take the college preparatory classes.
The most directly relevant course you can take in high
school is biology, where they study living organisms.
You should also take all other math and science classes
which are offered; algebra, trigonometry, geometry,
calculus, chemistry, and physics. Take the top level
English, history, and foreign language classes as well.
The classes are really not specialized for a veterinarian
at the highschool level. Everyone I know who went into
any sort of medicine got A's in all of these, but most
really preferred the biology.
Getting some experience working at the veterinarian's
office would be a good idea. Most importantly, it will
give you a good idea of whether or not you truly enjoy
the field. It may also be of some help when you are trying
to gain admission to a university, since they give some
consideration to such activities, in addition to your grades
and ACT/SAT scores.
After highschool, you will have to get a bachelor's degree
in something. It doesn't really matter what, as long as you
take a few classes that are required as prerequisites for
admission to veterinarian school. I recommend getting your
BS degree in chemical engineering, since the courses needed
for admission to veterinarian school are ones that chemical
engineers take anyhow. Plus, a LARGE number of people who
want to get into veterinarian school are not admitted. If
this happens to you, you can still find gainful employment
as a chemical engineer. (Not that I am presenting chemical
engineering as a viable alternative to competency; the
difficulty of getting into a PhD program in it is comparable
to getting into veterinarian school.)
Biology is another common thing for veterinarians to study
as an undergraduate. At the University of Illinois, we have
a more advanced Honors Biology program, in addition to the
standard biology degree. Anyone in the Honors Biology option
is a realistic candidate for admission to veterinarian school.
The only real problem with getting a bachelor's degree in
biology is that if you don't get into veterinarian school,
you will have trouble finding a good job; a PhD is essential
for employment in science.
Whatever you choose to study, you will have an academic
advisor who helps you pick classes. Tell him that you wish
to become a veterinarian, and he will help you pick the right
courses for it.
After you get your bachelor's degree, you will have to go to
veterinarian school. I am not too sure of the specifics of how
this works, but several WWW sites you may want to check out
for the University of Illinois are:
http://www.cso.uiuc.edu/ for the university in general,
http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/ for the college of veterinary medicine.
If you see someone's email address listed under a topic which
interests you, feel free to email them.
Ian Kerfoot
NMallozzi
myself (what electives should I take when I get to high school, etc)?
Also, would I need a separate degree to become avian certified? Also,
next year, I plan to do a little work at a nearby vet's office. How do I
make sure I don't transmit bacteria, etc home to my budgie? Please email
any responses to NMal...@aol.com Thanks in advance.
Nina
P.S. My budgie refuses to eat pellets. Any suggestions?
Lisa Ann Ruble
education and the necessity of having a fall-back option in a more
more traditional field like chemistry (where bachelors degreed
graduates apparently currently have good employment probability).
> Plus, a LARGE number of people who want to get into veterinarian
> are not admitted.
Approximately 2/3 of applicants were accepted in most states
during the 90's, with a progressive slight decline particularily evident
in 94-95. (Much higher than I was always led to believe.)
Probably the most important aspect is what state you live in, as
there is an unusual "in-state" acceptance policy in almost all
insitutions. If your state does not have a Veterniary Medical
College, you would be well advided to move to one that does.
It appears to me that if you i) have established experience
working with animals, ii) have better than average grades
and test scores, iii) you live in a state with an acredited
institution , you should not have a problem being among
the majority of applicants which ARE accepted in most
state programs.
> The only real problem with getting a bachelor's degree in biology is that
> if you don't get into veterinarian school, you will have trouble finding
> a good job; a PhD is essential for employment in science.
However, having a PhD in biology will at this time surprisingly
MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT to find a permanent job. Sounds perverse,
but it has been a fact for almost a decade now. A Biology BS with
some lab expereince (eg.independent research project) will find numerous
job opportunities around the country as a academic or industrial research
technician,while the opportunities of the Masters degreed biologist will
be
more limited, with the PhD finding the least number of avialable
positions,
and facing the greatest competition for an increasingly limited
number of positions.
This is not the "conventional wisdom" as it does not well-serve
the academic and government research infrastructure of the
US, which runs almost entirely by the hard work of the
"graduate students" and "postdoc interns" who are the
unrecognized crticial cog in research world. Attempts to
perpetuate what has become designated "The Myth" of
an ever-impending shortage of PhD scientists and engineers
has been a policy initiative of the relevant governmental
agencies such as the Departmental of Labor Statistics, in
spite of the facts of a explosion of qualified PhD's in the
sciences (several thousand in biology a year in the US) and
an academic job market which has been static and shrinking
since the mid seventies. Typically today there are 2-300
qualified PhD applicants per industrial research position in biology
and almost twice that for academic positions at well-known
schools.
Both the medical and veterinary fields have avoided this discouraging
situation by essentially "unionizing" (AMA, etc.) and limiting the number
of "liscensed" individuals and degree granting institutions (in the
case of Veterinary Medicine). Overall then, ones future seems quite
secure as a veterinarian, it would seem, although the pay is relatively
low compared to the training required ($30,000+ for the junior
partner) It is possible to do better though marketing and
practice ownership for the ambitious individual.
Go for it, its not as "selective" as usually suggested.
Jim
J. Graham PhD
Biology Department
Washington University of St. Louis
GRIFFIOEN, LAYLE
>From: lru...@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Lisa Ann Ruble)
>Subject: Re: becoming a vet
>Date: 25 Mar 96 19:13:55 GMT
I am a third-year vet student at Michigan State University and I thought I
should point out that contrary to what Jim says, most applicants are not
accepted. I don't know about other universities, but at MSU the year I
applied (1992) there were 650 applicants and 150 were accepted. Usually about
50 of those accepted decline and go elsewhere or do something else, and in
that case, a few more will be accepted to bring the class size up to 100. The
advice to move to a state with a vet school is very good. Tuition for in-state
students is about $5,000 a semester and for out-of-state students is $10,000 a
semester. Even if you're in state, you can plan on being $40,000 to $80,000 in
debt by the time you finish, and that doesn't include whatever debt you ran
up in undergrad. In addition, the course work is extremely difficult and the
hours are long. We have to learn the anatomy, physiology, behavior, and
medical problems of so many different animals - and they are all unique! The
amount of information we are expected to know to pass the board exam is
mind-boggling - it literally encompasses 30,000 + pages of reading material
(and we have to know it in detail). The worst part, though, is having to deal
with dying and unwanted animals. That goes without saying, I guess.
Layle