Current vet students: what do you wish you’d known before uni

I’m a first year at Cambridge- obviously due to covid my experience is going to be quite different but I’ll do my best to answer!

What I’d really wish I’d known before I started was what revision and working methods were best for me- as I’d just gone 6 months doing no work at all, getting back into an intense course was difficult and looking back I would have reflected on what I had learned from my school exams and asked vet students in upper years what worked for them. Don’t worry about revising your a level content over the summer, they will teach you all of this.

I would definitely have been more active in getting more work experience places- I had a total of 7 weeks and did feel somewhat disadvantaged in comparison to those with 20+ weeks (although universities favour quality over quantity). I really wish I had done lambing as lots of EMS placements will only take those with previous experience so I’ve found finding a placement within our holidays that isn’t at the other end of the country very tricky.

I’d definitely approach looking at universities differently if I were to go through the process again. My school encouraged us to rank our university choices (for reasons I don’t know) and that made me not look into my fourth choice much. I am sure that my interviewers picked up on that and I was rejected after interview. I would encourage applicants to treat each choice as though it’s your favourite- at the end of the day you only need one offer and they will all give you your MRCVS! It’s perfectly fine to have a favourite, but don’t treat your other choices as though they’re inferior.

Finally, I wish I’d known how much I was going to enjoy my course at my university. There’s definitely a negative opinion about vet med at Cambridge that’s expressed on the student room and there are a lot of misconceptions spread around such as the course being impractical, boring and having a poor reputation. This gave me massive cold feet before I’d started- I knew the academic approach was right for me and the vets I had spoken to on work experience (both Cambridge and non-Cambridge vets) respected it equally to all the other vet universities. I’ve only completed one term so far but I have no regrets about my choice- we’ve actually had a lot of practical experience with a lot of dissections (typically 2-3 a week although sometimes we have to stream them online due to covid, though there are a lot of catch up sessions) and have been handling animals each week and will be assessed on our handling skills next term.

I do wonder in a way if I should have taken a gap year due to the massive impact covid has had on the social side, but to be honest I just wanted to start my course after a very long summer holiday.

My favourite part of vet med is knowing that I will be able to help animals, prevent outbreaks of disease and improve welfare. My least favourite part is probably how difficult a career it is going to be- you’ve got very long hours, the pay isn’t amazing, mental health is likely to deteriorate and you will have to deal with very upsetting and stressful situations. In saying that, I would take this career over an office job any day- I genuinely can’t imagine myself enjoying any other career than vet med and I don’t think I’d find it as fulfilling.

Hope this helps!

Hey! Thank you so much for your response! It’s really really helpful.

Something I’m really worried about is work experience- I have virtually none, since I’ve only gotten really interested in vet med quite recently, and I know there’s going to be people who have been gaining work experience for a year or two prior. Not to mention Covid which has basically wiped out all remaining work experience for the time being

I’m really happy for you in that you’re enjoying your course- I think it could go both ways for a lot of people in that they might regret their decisions.

What other things did you do other than work experience to ensure you truly wanted to do vet med?
And also, where did you do your work experience.

I really appreciate you answering my questions

No problem, glad it’s helped!

I really feel for current applicants- I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to find work experience (especially with guidelines changing every couple of weeks). From what I gather, vet schools have massively reduced their requirements to 1-2 weeks in animal husbandry or clinical placements, but I do appreciate that even getting this can be hard. You’ll probably have more luck with animal husbandry placements than in vet clinics as it’s much easier to follow guidelines there and most vet clinics are currently not even taking clinical vet students. Try calling farms, stables and animal shelters as they appear to be more available. I believe there are online courses currently available to help vet applicants (I think there’s one made by Nottingham?) so definitely look into that.

It’s not a disadvantage at all to have only recently gotten interested in vet med- I know a lot of people who only chose to do vet med in year 12. Almost every vet applicant applying this year and next will have so little work experience (and most universities only accept placements done 3 years prior to their application anyway so the extra years of wanting to be a vet won’t massively advantage someone).

I read up on issues surrounding veterinary medicine such as public health, ethics, common cases etc as there’s only so much that you’ll see in a week (and sometimes clinics can have the occasional quieter week when you’re in the practice). There was one book that I read after my application that I think would have helped as well- Animal Matters by Charlotte Rea. It gave a very realistic view into the world of veterinary medicine and made some interesting points about various ethical issues. I also looked at the vet course itself to make sure I’d enjoy studying to be a vet as it’s a long time at uni!

I did 14 days across 3 small animal practices, 2 days with a heart specialist, 3 days at an equine hospital, 5 days alpaca farm, 5 days at a dairy farm, a week of mornings at a cattery, DofE volunteering at a donkey sanctuary (totalling to 3 working days), a day at a pathology lab and a day at an exotic pet shop. The most useful placement was the dairy farm as it was so hands on and I learned a lot about animal husbandry. I made a logbook of what I’d seen and specific cases which I could discuss in an interview.

Your work experience placements sounds like so much fun!
Regarding online courses, I’ve almost completed the Introduction to Vet Med MOOC online which was interesting.

What does one of your typical uni days look like?
Also, is the first couple of years of the degree very biology heavy, somewhat like A level Biology but more detailed?

In typical pre-covid times we’d have 2-3 lectures a day and a practical, that being a dissection, animal handling session or lab work. Currently all our lectures are online and some lab work is done via online programs (which work surprisingly well!) but we still have some in person teaching.

The first couple of years are more biology heavy- I can’t say for certain how heavy it is at other universities but at Cambridge our first couple of years contain a lot of biological theory. In our first year we study anatomy, biochemistry (ie respiration, cell biology, genetics, proteins and carbohydrates), physiology, animal management and epidemiology. In the second year we study comparative anatomy, reproductive biology, pathology, pharmacology, neurobiology and ethics. It’s intense but very interesting and outlines the key concepts behind clinical practice. There are quite a lot of topics that you come up in a level biology and are taught at a greater depth.

Do you find that the information taught is quite fast paced and general, or does the course take time to delve deeply into topics. I’ve heard that vet med teaches a lot and not necessary in loads of depth because if the amount of content and information regarding all the types of animals.
The first and second year sound so interesting : all of the biology related degrees sort of combined.