[MyFairLacy]

I'm in my first year of vet school at Texas A&M University right now. I've wanted to be a vet since I was 8 years old. If it's what you truly want to do go for it!

How old are you? You're going to want to graduate with high school with good grade and get into a major university with a pre-vet/animal science type of major. My major was Biomedical Science at A&M. You have to make good grades, have a lot of vet experience (I worked for a vet for over 4 years throughout high school), have a lot of animal experience (I also worked at a dog boutique for a couple years in college and have always had pets of my own). You need to show that you have leadership skills by being involved in organizations during college and holding leadership positions. Volunteer work is good to have although I didn't have much at all. You also need letters of recommendation and a good score on the GRE.

You actually don't have to graduate from college to get accepted into vet school. I graduated the semester I applied to vet school but there are a lot of people in my class that applied a year before they would have graduated and got in. They had already taken their required classes so they were able to get in earlier.

Once you apply, they narrow it down to who they want to interview. At A&M we had a panel of interviewers that asked us questions. I think it lasted about 30 minutes. Then in a few months I got my letter of acceptance.

I think about 1000 people apply to A&M every year and our class size is 132 so only about 10-15% of applicants get accepted.

I'm sure every program is different but this is what my first semester has been like so far. I am taking the equivelant of 18hours right now. I'm taking Anatomy w/lab, physiology w/lab, Histology w/lab, Immunology, clinical correlates, and Professional Development. I'm basically in class 8-5 most days. We have lecture in the mornings and labs in the afternoons. I do get out at noon on Fridays. We've had two rounds of tests so far and the third round is coming up starting in a week. It's a lot of studying and a lot of attending class. Some things get tedious but I'm learning some really interesting things as well. I do wish there were different programs for those who want to go large animal and those that want to go small animals because I have absolutely NO interest in learning about cows and all but we're doing it all right now.

I would really love to specialize eventually. To specialize in an area you graduate from vet school in 4 years. You then do a large or small animal internship for a year. And then you have a 2-3 year residency in the area you want to specialize in. Then you become board certified (hopefully anyway).

I guess I can't tell you the pros and cons of being a vet right now because I'm not actually a vet right now but if you have any questions about applying vet school or what vet school is like I'll try to answer them for you.