I have just been accepted into a vet program, and although I am ecstatic, I am anxious about. I thought there are some straight dopers who are veterinarians or vet students, so do any of you have any advice for me, to do well in vet school?
Yeah, first and foremost…stop thinking you’re such an absolute, 100% wonderful person because you whole-heartedly claim to care more about animals than people. You vets all think you relate more to animals than people. The truth is it’s your dag-gone selfishness and fat ego that gets in the way of you relating to others. So, don’t get cockey, kid. The world doesn’t need one more cockey vet wandering about. Also, always act ethically, on and off the job (and in the classroom) - although vets have a similar problem with this because they might have to humble themselves by coming down to earth to associate with mere mortals.
Secondly, post such questions on the proper message board!
Sorry for the rant, but you better learn to get that chip off your shoulder right here and now. - Jinx
Sorry
Jinx, that was totally uncalled for. Try that again and you will be banned.
-xash
General Questions Moderators
Dalchini, questions asking for advice belong in the IMHO forum. I’ll move this for you.
Please read forum descriptions carefully before posting your next question. Thank you.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
Which vet school are you attending?
When school starts, be ready to hit the ground running. It starts full-blast and revs up from there. Have everything you need for school organized and ready to go before classes ever start. Start now getting an organizational system set up; the more you work on it now, the more automatic it will be then. The more automatic organization is, the easier it will be for you to stay organized.
Have all your business type stuff taken care of as far in advance as possible. (When DrJ was in med school, he found it really helpful to get all his banking and bill-paying set up to be automatic.) Get your oil changed before school starts. In other words, anything that needs to be done during weekdays during normal business hours, get it taken care of before you get started. Your time during weekdays is going to be at a premium for the next few years, and that makes it hard to get little things like running to the bank or taking the car in for service done.
On a personal note, get used to the smell of formalin. During gross anatomy, you won’t be able to get the smell off you. Frequent, vigorous showering with strongly-scented products will keep it at a minimum, but you can’t eliminate it entirely. Don’t take it personally if only vet and med students can bear to be around you during that period. And don’t be surprised if your sex life takes a pretty sharp downturn. Between your workload and your smell, that’s perfectly normal.
Also, try to stay mindful of your dinner conversations. Most people are not in the business, and they don’t like to hear about bloodbath surgeries or that really gushy abcess you lanced while they’re trying to eat. (There’s a reason no one but our coworkers invite me and DrJ over for dinner anymore.) This will help your social life immensely, and having a good social life can help reduce some of the strain from your workload.
Recent graduate from vet school here. Congratulations and welcome to the family.
Be prepared to switch gears from the kind of schedule you experienced in undergrad. I went to one of the hardest undergrads in the country and was still caught a bit off guard by the amount of studying I had to do my first year in vet school. Also get ready to spend extra time in the gross anatomy lab after school. You’ll be smelling formaldehyde vapors so much that you’ll start thinking it smells like mayonnaise after a while, if you’re anything like me.
If you’re an introverted person (like me…and like a lot of other vets) you may want to try extra hard to break away from your natural tendency to be solitary. Make friends with your classmates; if you’re lucky, they’ll become like second family and this will be a tremendous benefit to you emotionally and perhaps professionally, later down the road. I didn’t do the study group thing very much, but having classmates as friends came in handy around test time, when having access to class notes and old tests was priority.
Here is a list of do’s and don’ts that come to mind:
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DON’T come into vet school acting as if you know everything just because you spent a couple of summers as a vet tech. I can not say this enough. Even if you do know a lot because of your previous experiences, there’s still a lot that you don’t know. Vet medicine is extraordinarily vast. You’ll get on everyone’s nerves if you keep questioning instructors at every turn because “that’s not how things were done at the clinic I worked at.” I wanted to pimp slap more than a few classmates because of that annoying shit.
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DO make friends with your instructors. See point 3.
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DON’T become enemies with your instructors. I don’t know how things work at your vet school, but I know at mine (Tuskegee), if one person in your class did something to royally tick off the prof (e.g. go tattle on them to the dean), then they’d take their wrath out on the whole class. Follow the chain of command.
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DO remember that just because you think you may want to be a small animal clinician (or whatever) doesn’t mean you don’t really need to know much about large animals and exotics. After graduation, you may never have to stick your hand up another cow’s ass again…but you still have to pass the NAVLE exam. So don’t ignore the large animals (or small ones or whatever). It’ll bite you in the ass come 4th year.
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DON’T forget to have a life. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but you can’t slack in the R&R department. Studying every night until 2:00 AM is NOT the route to go. Unless it was the night or two before a test, I didn’t study more than four hours a day.
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DON’T buy all the books on the required reading list. Wait a couple of weeks after class starts and then make your decision as to which one is worth the $150+ dollars or not. Most instructors teach from their notes anyway, so just buy the classnotes. Do get the Websters veterinary dictionary, though. And Miller’s anatomy of the dog.
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DO keep a pet. You can practice doing physicals on them and stuff. Just try not to diagnose them with every damn disease in the book just because they sneezed a couple of times.
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DON’T worry. You won’t have to learn about every single animal on the planet; just the “major” ones. So don’t keep on wondering when the class will get to Respiratory Diseases of the Rhinocerous.
Those are the main things that come to mind. You need to also get ready to deal with bizarre comments and questions that people will say to you when they find out you’re in vet school.
“Look at the bug over there! What is it, Dalchini? You’re in vet school so you ought to know.” Veterinarian != entymologist. And if I have to say it one more time…
“My daughter wants to become a veterinarian. She’s eight. Can you talk to her?” What about? How much she loves the wittle doggies and kittie cats? Get out my face.
“So do you eat meat?” Yes. Good deals of it. Keeps all those large animal vets in business, dontcha know?
“So why didn’t you become a human doctor?” Because one species just isn’t enough to satisfy my insatiable appetite for challenge…and besides, I have too high of a self-esteem. 
Good luck!
originally posted by Jinx
Yes, please tell us what “we all” think. This will be interesting.
The only reason why we choose vet medicine is because we are all egotistical, socially inept misanthropes, that right? Funny thing is, vets interact with humans just as much, if not more, than their animal patients. Anybody who goes into the profession because they want to get away from people is…wait a second, no one that stupid can even get into vet school, so scrap that thought.
[soap box]Whose shoulder do you suppose grief-stricken clients cry on when their beloved animals get terminally ill? Who does the vet have to reason with out on the farm when a herd of dairy cows come down with fulminating foot rot? Who does the vet bargain with when a dog comes in with a broken leg and the owner is too poor to afford anything more than euthanasia? Let me tell you, it’s not animals. At least not the four-legged kind. Vets interact with the public more than the average person with a desk job. So buy a frickin’ clue before to post again on the subject [/soap box]
A cocky vet is preferable to one who goes around asking forgiveness merely for wanting to be a veterinarian rather than a physician. I’m not advocating cockiness, mind you. But I’m proud to be a veterinarian and there’s nothing wrong with my pride. I’m as much of a “real” doctor as any physician and I’m sick of ignoramuses thinking they have vets “all figured out”.
So, when did you find out you didn’t get into vet school?
Jinx, Why are you so bitter? 
Here’s some simple basic information specifically answering your question, as well as several links about the profession and education:
Who Wants To Be a Veterinair(ian)?
Good luck!
you with the face, if you want to take a member to task, do so in the Pit. IMHO is not the place for this.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
Dalchini, congratulations on being accepted! I’ll be starting school for the same thing next year. 
Bad dog!
Regards,
Shodan