Veterinary Medicine 2015 hopefuls!

Oh no! What am I going to do if I get to vet school... I revise BY doing lots of exam papers! I remember things really quickly, but doing the papers solidifies it all in my brain!

Please can everyone at vet school steal and save a copy of every exam paper you do for me?!

You vet students sure sound like a hard working bunch! I don't know whether to be excited or worried that that will (hopefully!) be me one day

For those of you who read about my ratty on the previous page, Rin had her surgery today. It wasn't done by the exotics specialist, but the lovely locum did say that Rin is 'quite lovely' and 'the gentlest rat she's ever seen', so she must be an expert to be able to recognise how perfect my girly is . It's good we didn't leave it any later, apparently there were a few smaller tumours developing (I think she called them 'seedlings'?), so it wouldn't have been great to leave them to develop. There's currently a very tired, very messy ratty hiding under an old hoodie in my living room, bless her. It kills me to have to keep her from her sisters, but I can't run the risk of them chewing her stitches.

You have to learn to adapt and revise in different ways so it's a learning curve, but majority of people cope fine (and yes, you can retake modules at vet school if all else fails). GCSEs/A levels are a lot about learning how to write the correct answers in a way the examiner wants you to! Doing past papers should be testing your knowledge rather than a method for learning (in theory); you have to (or should) go over you notes first before you do an exam paper.So at vet school, you do the first part and miss out the second part, bar a few nice lecturers who will post some sample questions online. There is nothing to stop you writing you own 'exam questions' via flash cards or even essay questions by using the learning objectives which should be handed out to you. I know one lecturer said she would mark my own short essays if I designed my own question & answered it, so some are helpful if you ask for some feedback.

I think the thing is is that the gap between GCSE, A level and then uni is VAST. Hence why so many people fail. Having done lots of exams at all those levels before I have found that for A-levels the best approach for me is to do and re-do exam papers over and over again. I think A-levels are more about knowing how to answer the questions than actual knowledge and understanding. Though obviously if you don't at least vaguely know and understand the material you will fail.

Uni is very different though. We were given past papers at the OU and when I was at uni last year and they didn't really help. The exams were designed to test your knowledge and understanding rather than how good you are at answering exam questions, if that makes sense.

That is where our educational system fails epic-ly in my eyes, we are so worried about grades and grade boundaries nobody seems to notice that we have produced generations of people who can pass exams, but not do much else! But that is a totally unrelated issue entirely.

I do think there is a gap, but that's naturally expected and there needs to be some sort of gap. I didn't find there to be a huge gap between GCSEs and A levels personally because I've always been an independent learner and I did some AS levels in GCSE years so had more time to get used to them. Here at Liverpool, as syllabuses vary, they do quickly cover the basics at what some where taught at A level before digging a little deeper (e.g. we learned about protein folding and 3ry structures all over again!) so they do make sure everyone is at the same level to begin with in first year.

I think the pass rate for some of our modules varies between 80%-100% in years 1-2. So it's not bad really (I've heard worse pass marks at some vet schools when they messed up their grade boundaries). From those who fail it's usually those who don't put in the work (and think "A levels were easy, let's see how little revision I can do to pass uni exams" - believe me some smart arses did think that) , have had family problems/are bereaved or revision methods just didn't work for them. And the failure rate for the whole year (ie people who failed resits and had to resit the year again) was around 5% or something like that, but I don't know the circumstances and whether they were just having a hard time with things outside of uni. So in all likelihood, you will be passing every year There's less pressure to do well too as you don't need to be top of the class anymore and even those who scrap by qualify and find employment.

I do think it is flawed how the knack for passing A levels is to do with learning how to answer questions, though, as you said, you need some knowledge. At Uni I found this still to be the case somewhat (with short essays) but not as much as for A levels, which is as it should be!


For me past papers tell me where my weaknesses lie to be honest, and gives me a kick in the backside if I don't do so well So in that sense I wish we had a bit more past papers - the grass is always greener on the otherside perhaps


And that's where uni comes in - where you can learn to actually put your knowledge and skills to good use (e.g. treating animals). GCSEs and A levels are just a hoop to jump through to get to a career where you will be learning actual skills. Exams teach us how to learn, memorise and recall information, which is important for a vet too (though most of what we learn at uni in years 1-3, aside from anatomy, will not be that important for being a vet).

x

I should make it clear that my points are made from observing people who aren't doing vet degrees. I think to study something that involved a certain level of intelligence and the ability to to self learn is needed anyway. But seeing people studying different science degrees, people who had coasted through GCSE and A-level suddenly came unstuck at degree level because they realised how much more work you had to put in, but didn't quite accept it and therefore didn't do the work and failed.

Some of my friends got awful A-levels and have just about scraped through degrees and STILL don't see what the point of it all was.

Although what silverstar says is true, I set my own standards to do well so I do a lot of work, but if you just managed to get 51%, you'd still pass and get a job at the end, the actual percentage doesn't matter as much.

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I wish Rin the best of luck and hope she recovers well from surgery. Keep us updated. I've always wanted to get a rat and am considering getting one whilst at uni actually.... mum says she wouldn't mind having a rat in the house (she said she didn't want any more rodents after my gerbils and all the health problems we had with them) . If I don't get a dog in 4th/5th year think I might get a rat, they seem to make lovely pets!

Does anyone know of any good vet or vet student blogs?

I posted a list in this very thread a short while ago. It was quite near the beginning if you want to try and find it.

EDIT: LINKY-PLINK .

'Musings of a Vet Student' is by the awesome Skatealexia

thanks! I went back and found them. Now I have something to do when I'm bored


Also, I'm going to send another email to all local vet practices for work experience and was wondering whther or not i should attach my cv?

I'm confused about it because some people say you should and others say you should not

Do you guys think that an equine dentist would count as veterinary work experience?

Does anyone have any other contacts for large animal vets in the surrounding area of Bath? Or any that may put me up should I have to travel a long way to them? Thank you!