Advice re Bristol vet school

Hii! I also got an offer from bristol and thanks so much for sharing your experience so far I have a few specific questions about the course so sorry for the spam ahead!Tysm in advance!

Hey I’m going to reply as a second year Bristol vet as I maybe have some more insight into this being a little deeper into the course…
Generally yes, the CBl does tie in well to lectures however in second year particularly CBL does because more independent! It’s been a very mixed opinion in my cohort but for example our neurology block we had to use CBL to teach ourselves quite a lot. I will add though due to feedback I believe for subsequent years they aren’t going to have such a heavy emphasis on self teaching for neuro because we all have really struggled.
Your CBL group will not change for atleast the first 2 years. 3rd year it’s currently up for debate but I’ll be honest they haven’t actually fully decided how 3rd year is going to be done yet😅 however you will merge with AGEP after Xmas of year 3 so it’s likely CBL groups will be altered.
Animal handling drastically decreases in 2nd year. You won’t touch an animal until after Xmas and even then you only get 3 practicals for animal handling. However in the new curriculum there is a lot more clinical skills from early on! You will start suturing in first year then when you start second year you will do suturing again, gloving and gowning, simple skin surgery and basic dentistry.
No from after Xmas of 2nd year it changes a bit. We are currently doing ‘pigs, poultry and exotics’ but it’s about 50% sustainability and public health. Then the final block of year 2 is called ‘the big picture’ which tbh I don’t really understand what it entails but like it just pulls lots of concepts like parasitology together. Even though things are taught in body systems etc there is other themes that will be dotted through eg pharmacology, parasitology, virology, bacteriology, public health etc.
The biggest plus of our new curriculum is they have cut almost all the histology!! Big win.
3rd year again as a second year we actually have no idea the structure right now, but it will build on the first two years so starts to go into treatments and specific diseases a lot more.
There’s time if you make time and manage things well. I wouldn’t go straight in with a job, give yourself time to settle in and get a rhythm before working alongside it. X

Oh wow thank you so much for this, this was super helpful!!

Hi, are you thinking of choosing Bristol? I also have an offer! Do you have offers from any where else/still waiting?
I also have notts but love the look of bristol. I’m trying to reach out to people who potentially might be on the same course and uni as me!!

Re Bristol, If one does not have an offer, rejection or on hold notification - anybody know what that means?

Ahhh im put on hold for bristol

Hey I’m going to reply as a second year Bristol vet as I maybe have some more insight into this being a little deeper into the course…
Generally yes, the CBl does tie in well to lectures however in second year particularly CBL does because more independent! It’s been a very mixed opinion in my cohort but for example our neurology block we had to use CBL to teach ourselves quite a lot. I will add though due to feedback I believe for subsequent years they aren’t going to have such a heavy emphasis on self teaching for neuro because we all have really struggled.
Your CBL group will not change for atleast the first 2 years. 3rd year it’s currently up for debate but I’ll be honest they haven’t actually fully decided how 3rd year is going to be done yet😅 however you will merge with AGEP after Xmas of year 3 so it’s likely CBL groups will be altered.
Animal handling drastically decreases in 2nd year. You won’t touch an animal until after Xmas and even then you only get 3 practicals for animal handling. However in the new curriculum there is a lot more clinical skills from early on! You will start suturing in first year then when you start second year you will do suturing again, gloving and gowning, simple skin surgery and basic dentistry.
No from after Xmas of 2nd year it changes a bit. We are currently doing ‘pigs, poultry and exotics’ but it’s about 50% sustainability and public health. Then the final block of year 2 is called ‘the big picture’ which tbh I don’t really understand what it entails but like it just pulls lots of concepts like parasitology together. Even though things are taught in body systems etc there is other themes that will be dotted through eg pharmacology, parasitology, virology, bacteriology, public health etc.
The biggest plus of our new curriculum is they have cut almost all the histology!! Big win.
3rd year again as a second year we actually have no idea the structure right now, but it will build on the first two years so starts to go into treatments and specific diseases a lot more.
There’s time if you make time and manage things well. I wouldn’t go straight in with a job, give yourself time to settle in and get a rhythm before working alongside it. X

ALEreapp

Do you have any advice for the Bristol hopefuls/offer holders in terms of anatomy resources for the vet world- something they might begin to look at in the coming months before they arrive at Bristol for the real deal?

I’ll be honest a lot of the useful resources we use are provided free through the university so it would be expensive for you guys to get access. A website called VIN for anatomy is amazing, dyce anatomy book is the holy grail and I think you can get them second hand online (we have an online version and paper through the library). However in terms of skills and handling of animals Bristol have workbooks which you can view online
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/vet-school/research/comparative-clinical/veterinary-education/clinical-skills-booklets/dog-and-cat/
There’s loads of these, if you just type in an animals handling followed by Bristol skills booklet they come up x

My son is HK student, he got offer on 8/1

Congrats! We have Liverpool, Glasgow and CityUHK offer but still waiting feed back from Bristol and Edinburg.

I applied in October and got an offer this week for Bristol vet school, hopefully any current students can give me any pros and cons with the vet school?
Or any advice that would be useful
TIA ☺️

I'm a mature student at Bristol who doesn't live in Bristol so my experience will be different to others. But you'll get on great being an RVN. Also just read the new format of teaching via more CBLs which is amazing, everyone loved the CBLs vs lectures so nice they're giving this a go 🙂
Pros: I don't get overly involved outside of uni but everyone on the course is lovely, have course mates despite not living in Bristol.
Haven't had to buy a single textbook, the resources at the uni are great.
Teachers are knowledgeable and approachable.
The city is lovely, I live nearby so know Bristol well and love it.
Cons: This isn't specific to Bristol Uni but it is frustrating this whole 'cram for exams' to pass and then forget it all! The volume of information is soooo huge that it makes it impossible to remember 80% of it the second you finish exams, just feels a bit pointless. I think if they focused more on day 1 skills rather than teaching us 40 different surgeries we will never see unless we specialise then maybe we might retain more. Maybe this has changed with CBLs.
Doesn't bother me much but having two different areas, e.g. Bristol for the first 3 years then Langford the last 2 years. This can't be helped with being a city campus but yeah, might be annoying for some.
Style of teaching - there is a huge difference between the quality of teaching between some lecturers, everyone is different so this is to be expected but some teachers can take really difficult and boring topics and make them digestible and simple, whilst other teachers will happily read off lists and lists of diseases and expect you to learn something. Overall the teachers are lovely so don't want to bash them too much but yeah you will notice this as you move through your course.
Car/expenses: Bristol is a really expensive city. Also feel like final year would be really difficult without a car with rotations.
Just an add on, although I enjoyed the limited CBLs we had, that's because I sat with a bunch of older students, like previous RVNs etc, who actually wanted to learn 😂 let me tell you when you get grouped with people who cba (each to their own) it is so annoying and unproductive, the same goes for coursework.
And yeah I work part time but only 20 hours p/m and I find that's the max I could do. I don't know many other students who work part time though.

1st is Edinburg and 2nd will be CityUHK (10% of UK school fee and not count the living expense yet)

Hi! First year student here . The course is very new atm, we're the second cohort to have this new set up but honestly I think it's great. This is going to be a long response haha.
We have a LOT of content (expected) so the hardest thing for me currently is just accepting that you'll always be behind on your work which is quite jarring but 2nd/3rd year students I know say that the sooner you accept this the happier you'll be LOL.
The CBL (case based learning) is fantastic in my opinion. Every week we're given a new case which we work through as a group with potential diagnoses and what we think is important to the case and then go away for the week and research. My group have actually organised weekly kahoot sessions to make sure we're all familiar with the content which is really fun and a great way to stay on top of the subject at hand, then an expert comes in and goes through it for 2 hours to make sure we're all on the same page.
Lectures are great, professors are engaging and clearly know a lot about their subject. I would recommend getting to speed with anki because using flashcards for anatomy/CBL cases in particular is amazing for staying on top of active recall and will help a LOT. Its a great mix of study techniques in my opinion, even though it's still quite new.
In short, we have a good balance of group work (every thursday in langford), lectures (daily, some online some in person), and practicals (every friday). We had our first osce's last week and 2 assignments handed in 2 weeks ago. Then 2 online exams in the next 2 weeks (don't count to your grade, just so you can understand where you're at and how exams work). You can do them from home as we finish content on the 3rd december so you get a good month off.
Sorry for the wall of text but that pretty much sums up everything we've done since September. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Hi, I just wanted to ask, I am in year 13, I have always wanted to do vet med, but I did not take chemistry initially. My A levels are around the corner and I hope to achieve my predicted grades of AAA. I got 4 offers, to study Animal science at nottingham , Bioveterinary science at Liverpool and surrey, and Veterinary nursing at Bristol. None of these courses are what I really want to study, however at the time of applying to vet med which was early entry (last september/october) My predictions were ABB so no chance of getting accepted to vet med and my teachers wouldnt budge. I am considering a gap year if all goes to plan and I get AAA. I went to Nottingham’s open day for vet med, and the Prelim seems perfect for me as I chose wrong subejcts ( I do biology psychology and economics) but have al the relevant work experience and have completed the online work experience form. The University of Liverpool also require AAA and see Psych as a 2nd science but I realise I will be up against A* students who also do chem. What do you think is a better idea- wait till results day, take a gap year and reapply to vet med at notts and liverpool / continue at one of my 4 places and postgrad route (expensive and not guaranteed entry to vet med) or try and do chemistry like the user above, in 1 year/ at least do AS? I did love Bristol and Nottingham’s vet schools, so yeah!! Would really appreciate your feedback.