Hello there! My name is Liz and I’ve never written a blog before, so this is going to be really, really informal. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a first-year vet student at MSU and I graduated from GVSU. I have a passion for large animals and grew up raising 4-H calves. I thought I would start these off by talking a little bit about what my schedule looks like and what classes 1st year students take. The first 2 ½ years of vet school is called the “pre-clinical” phase. During this time the vet school plans your schedule for you….like every single hour. I’m currently taking 20 credits and have 7 classes. I wake up around 6:45am and am out the door by 7:15am. I have four 50 minute lectures every morning. We stay in the same room for all of these and after each lecture a new moderator comes in. Oh, in vet school you have several professors for each class – they team teach. So the main professor – the one that would update the grades and send the majority of the emails, etc. is referred to as the moderator. After morning lectures we always have at least one hour to eat lunch. Some afternoons we have back to back labs and other afternoons we have a three hour break after lunch and will only have one lab that afternoon. There was one day this semester where I had class from 8am until 7pm with a one hour break for lunch. Talk about a mentally exhausting day. After class I usually go home, make dinner, and then study until 11pm. Vet school isn’t like undergrad where you have some classes and then wait until the week before the exam to look over the material again. There is WAY too much information for that. This is my third week of school and I have four exams. From now until thanksgiving I have anywhere from 1 to 4 exams every week. Last Friday I studied until 8pm and then “took the night off.” On Saturday I was up at 8am and studied until 6pm. I slept in until 9am on Sunday and then studied until 10pm, but I took a few hours off in the middle of the day to regain my sanity at the dog park. But I have survived thus far and am making time to write to you guys, so if I can do it, so can you! Something else that is weird about vet school is that the lectures aren’t mandatory. They are all recorded so you aren’t required to be in class. You can stream the lectures from home. An upperclassman told me during orientation that he sleeps during morning lectures, shows up for afternoon labs, sleeps until 9pm and then studies until 6am. If that works for you, great! If you’re like me and know that you would get behind on the lecture material, then force yourself to go to class. It’s just like high school again! We even have lockers! So what classes am I taking…
1 Comment
6/18/2018 02:46:43 pm
I thought it was interesting that the first two years of vet school were called the pre-clinical phase. My friend has been thinking of becoming a vet, so I think she'd like to read this article. Do you have any tips for choosing a great vet school to go to?
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Elizabeth RitchieElizabeth Ritchie, a 2017 graduate of Grand Valley State University, is a first year veterinary student at Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine. ArchivesCategories |