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Boys:Girls ratio for vet courses

Out of pure interest, why do we reckon more girls do vet med than boys? Have wondered it many a time...seems odd to me as I'd have thought boys'd be into the whole hands on sciencey bit really..

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Reply 1

leggielass

Dunno, in one year at Cambridge there were no boys. in our year at Live there are about 25 out of 107 boys (not enough to go round!) and in the year below its nearly a 40:60 M : F ratio, so much better, i get the impression talking to girls i know in the other vet schools that liverpool has more boys?

Reply 2

Phaza

When I went to the RVC Open Day at Hawkshead last year in May, the lecture hall was virtually all girls - there were only 2 rows filled by guys in the middle of the lecture hall. My vet calls it the 'profession to find your wife' - great philosophy.

It may just do with some men thinking that the handling of animals etc isn't 'their thing'. I got asked in an interview about this, and they said more women apply because of their general nature and demeanor towards animals is more caring than men's nature. I don't know, it's an interesting topic.

Reply 3

)(--becca--)(

Yeah Nottingham asked me about this too and I didn't really have a very good answer. I said something along the lines of men not thinking of it as a macho career - I don't think they liked that much though cos they kind of raised their eyebrows at me. Nottingham kept throwing up questions I hadn't even considered would be asked!

Reply 4

Mad Prospective Vet

Another way to look at it- and this is coming from some guys my (not-so-little) brother is at school with...most guys cannot be arsed...all the extra work experience... being made to get higher grades etc..than the medics...and get paid less..although when they heard about the ratio's i must admit a couple of them were re-considering :p:

lol

other than that..not a clue...

And i'll admit the ratio's suck if you're female..... :frown:

unless you've already managed to nab one of the few guys that is.... :smile:

Reply 5

Botticello

Maybe its cause curing little fluffy bunnies doesnt look very manly, but being a doctor sounds quite cool to them.

do more men do medicine than women?

Reply 6

Mad Prospective Vet

nope...again more women.....(i have complaints from my mates who are medics....although it's nowhere near as bad is it is for us)

I know that engineering is dominated by men..but other than that...where the hell do they all go? :confused:

Reply 7

DartsOfPleasure

I.T and all those surrounding careers - my brother does Multimedia Design at uni where males are more dominant.

It's odd though because all the vets I have seen at clinics and farms have been male.

Reply 8

Jennybean

DartsOfPleasure

I.T and all those surrounding careers - my brother does Multimedia Design at uni where males are more dominant.

It's odd though because all the vets I have seen at clinics and farms have been male.

Yeah most of the farm vets are male I find. And also vets in practice right now might not have such a notably larger proportion of women compared with men, but give it a few years and the tide will turn when us lot have all graduated. My mum laughed about it and said my grandpa (dad's dad) would turn in his grave over the number of girls/gay blokes that do vet med these days. It used to be such a macho thing. My dad told me one of the first conversations he remembers overhearing at the practice when he was a boy was a very earnest debate between my grandpa and the other partners over the merits of hiring a female assistant.

Reply 9

lucyrobyn

i think most blokes lack real commitment. its ok getting the grades if you are smart, but they probly think they may aswell be a doctor. you dont need as much work experience.

Reply 10

nessa7

At least in North America there aren't as many large animal vets needed anymore and small animal medicine is something females can do while having a family and everything. Also, males generally need to support a family and often the salary of a veterinarian isn't enough!

Reply 11

Sarah_V

I swear it was Gary England who said that one of the problems in the profession atm though is that women go off and have kids then don't return to careers afterwards...meaning a lack of vets or something. Which was interesting...

Reply 12

nessa7

I've heard of that been a problem in some clinics, but its always temporary, since they usually come back and work at least part time. Its never seemed to be that big of an issue, but I suppose it could become one!

Reply 13

eurasianfeline

my year 80:20 ratio. typical.

Reply 14

Woppit_1

I reckon it's because girls work harder on average. Also, i heard from a vet school interviewer that a lot of lads do badly at interview as they act too confident and know-all-ish.

Sam

Reply 15

Phaza

Sarah_V

I remember him saying something like that when I went there for my interview, and for the open day. He seemed a very interesting person, someone you actively wanted to listen to and learn from. Good luck Nottingham vet students! Won't be joining you unfortunately, it's just RVC was the place I really wanted to get into, and I got in so I'm going there.

Men may get put off the profession because they feel that a conventional medical degree will be looked upon better than a veterinary medicine degree. But I think a more prudent question is 'why are these so few Asian veterinary applicants?' - that's just stereotype I think. Anyone got any opinions on that?

Reply 16

blondey

if you look over the medical profession it seems to originally be sumthing uperclass men would do to follow in their fathers footsteps, then the whole equal rights thing came a long and more women started in the career, then more background diversity came along and more ppl from different classes/backgrounds got into the career. so now it seams to be dominated be more women.

i think in veterinary medicine we are also following this pattern...
all the older vets ive met are all male, yet the younger ones are mostly female. Its just change i guess. but i dont know why sum ppl view the career as too femine for men to do, and consider all male vets to be gay!?

yes it does suck for us girls, arent we meant to be meeting our future husbands at uni (apparently thats what mostly happens!), not much choice! lucky lads have pick of the lot, so to speak, lol maybe we shud all become lesbians then we'd have no problems lol. atlest theres ppl on other courses, so there will be some men :smile:

Reply 17

tiny_tiger

Men may get put off the profession because they feel that a conventional medical degree will be looked upon better than a veterinary medicine degree. But I think a more prudent question is 'why are these so few Asian veterinary applicants?' - that's just stereotype I think. Anyone got any opinions on that?

Thats a good point actually, tho saying that I have only met 2 asian girls who have applied. It was quite a big issue last year at my school as the only applicant was an Asian guy. He was amazingly intelligent and had all he needed to be a great vet but he did have a problem with bristol. They were very rude to him to the point where they actually asked him why he was applying to vet med because surely his parents would want him to do medicine! Implying that he might have been persuaded to do medicine because of his race! Not surprising my school lodged a formal complaint and bristol withdrew his rejection and gave him an offer! Needless to say he declined it!!! That sort of thing is just not on tho.

Reply 18

Olyy

It's weird, one practise i went to, the Vets were mostly male, with one of two female vets,
and the one i'm currently at, every single vet, at all 5 of their branches, is female, apart from the owner.

I never really though about it, but i'm the only boy i know/know of that has ever wanted to be a vet.
Hopefully i'll be able to add one more to the boy:girl ratio in 2008 :smile:

Reply 19

Oren

It's just not a big career, lets face it when there arent that many uni's that do it or places on courses it's not exactly well publicised, fair enough everyone on here knows all about it, but loads of people in my own class kept asking me things like "isn't that a 7yr course?" or "where do they actually teach that?". Hell, I didnt even know nottingham was a vet school this year, which shows how bad my school was at helping me!! Also why aim for a job where there are a couple of thousand careers when if you study computing you aren't limited in career path at all, or accounting, any other science...the list goes on. Vet school doesnt put many blokes off based on not being macho, it's more that Women see more of an attraction to working with animals, therefore while it's attractive to you girls it's indifferent to most blokes. To be fair the Macho bit might play some part but I think it's more that blokes get fairly put off by things like lambing, I could use some of the graphic comments I've heard but suffice to say it appeals as much as gynaecology! anyway, thats my insight as to why there are less blokes.

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