D101???

Hi guys,

I have only just found this site, it does provide a wonderful amount of info for the wannabe vet.
I will be applying next year but really don't know whether to put down D101 for Liverpool and RVC. I love science but I want to be a vet, and does it help you get a job at the end?

Clare

Reply 1

*Arwen*

Its better if you want to go inot research/science based veterinary work.

At RVC, you sepend the 1st 2 years withthe BSC (hons) vetscis (getting over 50% to pass each year), then do a transistion year then go to hawkshead and finsih the 3 years vetmed.

The rvc have stressed to us lot, that the transition year is **VERY** tough... You have to catch up on your animal handling, husbandary , also anatomy, (dissection) . All this aswell of doing your bsc nbvestigation/dissertation thingy-ma-jig!!! And apparently several peple have had nervous breakdowns with the work load :confused:

But Im seroiusly not trying to put you off!!!! :smile:

Its a bit annoying also, because you have absolutely no animal contact for the first two years...

I've known some people who applied for D101, who were then interviewed for D100 instead by the uni.

All in all you get two for the price of one degrees (although at most unis you can do a year out in e.g bsc pathology after your 2nd year anyway) and vet science is a wicked course :biggrin:

!! Although saying all that above, I am **hoping** to transfer onto the D101 course after the 2nd year so any questions about the course ask me!!

Reply 2

leggielass

At Liverpool there is technically less competition for the D101 places than D100, although there are very few D 101 places. D101 students are fully integrated and you can't tell who they are until they go away and come back to start fourth year as normal, and apart from whatever you choose to do in that year, there's no extra work or catching up involved. Quite a few people in our year started D100 then decided in 3rd year that they wanted to intercalate and now either do infectious diseases or cons med at liverpool or e.g. pathology at London. I guess this is good cos you don't have to decide right away. D101 students probably only stand better chances if they want a career in their chosen subject, e.g. to be vet pathologists or marine biologists etc. or for those that want to work in institutuions. Certainly the cons med students i know are treating it as a year of freedom and reduced workload before fourth year. some of them have time for jobs as well to fund it. They are still very much socially included in the vet faculty. Those who intercalated at London and have now joined my year said that although the research opportunities were good, they missed Liverpool's atmosphere in their year out and didn't find london as friendly.

at liverpool D101 students tend to be those who are naturally quite academic and get the top grades. Those that do D100 then choose to intercalate are just regular students that want to branch out a bit.

Hope this helps.

Reply 3

Clare L

Hi

Thanks alot for your advice but I am probably a bit more confused now! I didn't know there were so many options. The D101 course is 6 years and the London brochure says that top grades at GCSE are needed which suggests it will be really tough. I do want to be a vet but choosing before i have even got a place seems really strange.
Do practicing vets think it makes better vets?

Thanks

Reply 4

nina_100

I think d100 is exaclty the same as d101 except for the fact with d100 the extra year isnt part of the course, instead you can choose to do it if you wish to! It might give you a better understanding of certain aspects of the course (this is just a guess i'm not actually sure) but that doesn't mean you'll be a better vet!

The course is longer so you will qualify a year after the 5 year course (obviously) so this means that you'll start gaining actual experience in a real job later on. If you do the d101 or intercalate on the d100 then you just get a more indepth knowledge of one subject which will be useful if you want to specialise or are interested in one aspect.

What are you looking for from the degree?? A career as your average vet in a practice or research or what??

Reply 5

leggielass

Vets in Practice generally are looking at the person, I don't think that in general practice it makes you more employable. I wondered if it did too when I was at your stage, but talking to my mates who have they tend to have a specialised interest like marine biology, equine sports science, pathology, infectious disease- (i.e. they want to work for DEFRA), or are wanting to be zoo vets, and this is when its really worth intercalating, or if you can think of a research project you are passionate about already than go for it by all means, if not If i were you i'd pick up intercalation at a later date. Intercalation isn't really about studying a part of the course in depth - that's electives, intercalation is about doing a research or conservation project. To get a taster, cambridge runs a summer school for when you're in first year so you can see if research is for you. You're options for specialism are still very much open if you do d100.

Reply 6

Yeti-Boy

I’d choose for the D101 (review pending, 2006 entry RVC) , as I like to know the chemical background of what I'll be doing during surgeries... And I thought it be handy when you like to research tumours from patients yourself...

Reply 7

leggielass

You learn that the same as the D100's. Honest- they were in my biochemistry and Neoplasia classes!! we sat the same exams!! Unless you want to do a bsc in vet pathology at london in your year out. I like resaerching my own tumours- as the vet that removes them you're often the best person to look at them because you know the context. Liverpool's really good for histopathology and cancer if you're interested in that sort of thing. I found that part of the course fascinating!

The only thing i'd really have been keen enough to intercalate in would have been path at london, if i had my time again, i volunteer to do lots of post mortems at liverpool and did some of my EMS in the PM room here. It was amazing, we get to PM all of the chester zoo animals and lots of wildlife.

Reply 8

Clare L

I really appreciate this information, but could one of the vet students tell me what my options are from the D100, what does the conservation, infectious diseases and pathology entail you doing besides looking at these subjects in greater depth?

Thanks again
Clare xx

Reply 9

leggielass

Well, infectious diseases and cons med students are basically in classes of about 10 and they do a light, about 15 hour week of lectures and problem based learning and making presentations of their findings to eachother and then there's no exams in the january but they then do a research project for their dissertation in the summer and i think they have some exams to do on the course content too.

Its really not about doing more of the same in depth, but about doing another subject in with your vet degree, Its hard to explain really!

For exampole, this week cons med studs did wolves. they were given a hypothetical scenario about conserving wolves and thought about the different pressures like peopl shooting them, wolves competing for resources, their social behaviour and hierarchy, hows best to look after them in a zoo, what they eat, and then discussed pros and cons of rearing in a zoo as opposed to a reserve, and they did this all by PBL. and this would be a typical topic really. the guys doing it at the moment say its a bit of a doss year and time to look at interesting subjects related to vet, but that aren't really going to be useful for practice, but they seem to have a lot of fun and the projects they do at the end are thingd like electronically tagging voles to see where they go and collecting different kinds of poo for analysis, or post morteming road kill, or whale rescue, that sort of thing.

I'll warn you though, there's a certain degree of fatigue associated with the vet course no matter how much you love it- both effort and financial wise, if i were you i'd keep your options open rather than comitting yourself to intercalation so early on, especially if you're not 100% sure what you want to study.

Reply 10

leggielass

Infectious diseases is about the epidemiology, thats trends of a disease in a population and they talk about things like bird flu and FMD and hypothetically how they'd deal with it and my friend who did path at London did research and then published an article about scrapie in goats and another girl went to an equine college to do a year of equine science because she's an endurance rider, that sort of thing.

Reply 11

Clare L

Conservation sounds interesting but not a great deal of use for a practicing vet. I don't know much about the other 2 - i think i will apply for the D100 course next year.