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Hi! I'm deciding between these three schools! Any insight in terms of curriculum, work-life balance, and early clinical experience would be greatly appreciated it! Thank you so much!
Michigan vs. Minnesota vs. Wisconsin
- Thread starter animallover4891
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Hi there! I can speak to at least the first year at UW-Madison.
Curriculum: It’s variable. Some classes aren’t great, others are super (the anatomy courses are very very well done imo). I find myself wishing more and more that we had block scheduling for units, but also “the grass is greener” mentality may be contributing to that. It sucks when we have like a 2 week span with 5 exams, but it’s not so bad in terms of content. We have lecture outlines with essentially all the information on them for each exam. Lecture capture is also well loved by many people (not me, not my thing). Even with minimal effort when I’m VERY low on motivation, I don’t typically worry about failing. The retention rate here is fairly high. There is no required GPA minimum for the first semester, and then afterwards I think it’s like maintaining a 2.0 and it rises a little every subsequent semester.
Work-life balance: So the culture here is phenomenal. People are kind and friendly to a degree that I am not used to coming from upstate NY. Our class is a bit... “extra” when compared to other classes. Meaning that our class tends to be more competitive and high-strung whereas the classes above us regularly play cards/games during lunch and go out to bars to celebrate after a big exam. I have found the work-life balance to be a bit too tilted towards work at times, but I think you’re going to have that at ANY vet school. Spoiler alert: vet school is hard. I will say that the mental health focus here is awesome, we have a wellness week once a semester and a massage therapist that visits during finals (free 15 minutes massages!).
Early clinical experience: I think this, in addition to a great atmosphere in the vet school, is where UW shines. Literally every single clinician I’ve met here has offered for students to come shadow in the hospital to see what they do. We are required to do some primary care shadowing, go to 2 large animal rounds, 1 necropsy round, and a radiographic case review with a radiologist first year. Every following year we have to do the same, but with more and more exposure. The staff is BIG on exploring your options early on in vet school and getting as much exposure to different fields before 4th year.
Feel free to as me any other questions! You can PM me as well.
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Well, I'm sold. I can't wait for the semester.
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I can speak to the first 5 semesters at Minnesota.
Curriculum: we have a traditional didactic curriculum, although it's been moving into having more case-based learning as it goes on. We don't have blocks, but the curriculum is systems-based, so you're usually covering different aspects of the same thing in every class. I found it super helpful and comprehensive compared to undergrad where you have 5 unrelated classes. We have a lot of exams, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you want to look at it. For me, it was a good thing - I liked knowing that if I had an off day for an exam, it wasn't going to sink my grade in the class, and it helped me to prioritize my studying. The administration does its best to work with us and keeps track of which weeks are bad (seriously, one of our professors compiles a huge amount of data each year based on student feedback at the end of each week and then uses that to suggest changes to the curriculum). We have lecture capture which is cherished and beloved by many.
Work-life balance: I think to some degree, this is an individual thing. I'm an extremely competitive person and had a GPA requirement for the dual DVM/PhD program, so I was a little insane about my grades. The program tries to emphasize a good work-life balance, I just didn't exemplify it lol. There is a big mental health focus within our administration: we have a full-time social worker on staff who is a literal goddess and gives us lectures sometimes, we do a Wellness Wednesday once a month, and we also have Hogwarts-style Houses for the first years, who can earn points for their House by doing wellness activities. Not going to lie, I'm super jealous because I'm a Harry Potter fan for life and the House system started when I was a second year, so I missed out. The school does put on some fun activities to encourage us to get out of the library and have some fun; there's an annual trivia night (somehow the pathology department always wins this), there's an annual skit night where students parody faculty and faculty parody students... we do a lot of fun things.
Early clinical experience: this is another thing where it's going to depend somewhat on the individual student. We have tons of shadowing opportunities - I've never met a clinician who said NO when I asked if I could shadow, but you have to be willing to ask. We start hands-on clinical learning during the first week of first year. We also have tons of clubs and some of those have great opportunities for hands-on experience, particularly our Student Initiative for Reservation Veterinary Services (SIRVS) club, but others have clinical experiences like spay/neuter labs, fish surgeries, sled dog health checks at races, and more. We also have required clerk duty shifts in both the small and large animal hospitals, where you're assigned a time and you can work on your technical skills while helping with treatments, restraint, or whatever needs the hospital has at that time.
I'm happy to answer other questions that you have on here or over PM if you think of more
Curriculum: we have a traditional didactic curriculum, although it's been moving into having more case-based learning as it goes on. We don't have blocks, but the curriculum is systems-based, so you're usually covering different aspects of the same thing in every class. I found it super helpful and comprehensive compared to undergrad where you have 5 unrelated classes. We have a lot of exams, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you want to look at it. For me, it was a good thing - I liked knowing that if I had an off day for an exam, it wasn't going to sink my grade in the class, and it helped me to prioritize my studying. The administration does its best to work with us and keeps track of which weeks are bad (seriously, one of our professors compiles a huge amount of data each year based on student feedback at the end of each week and then uses that to suggest changes to the curriculum). We have lecture capture which is cherished and beloved by many.
Work-life balance: I think to some degree, this is an individual thing. I'm an extremely competitive person and had a GPA requirement for the dual DVM/PhD program, so I was a little insane about my grades. The program tries to emphasize a good work-life balance, I just didn't exemplify it lol. There is a big mental health focus within our administration: we have a full-time social worker on staff who is a literal goddess and gives us lectures sometimes, we do a Wellness Wednesday once a month, and we also have Hogwarts-style Houses for the first years, who can earn points for their House by doing wellness activities. Not going to lie, I'm super jealous because I'm a Harry Potter fan for life and the House system started when I was a second year, so I missed out. The school does put on some fun activities to encourage us to get out of the library and have some fun; there's an annual trivia night (somehow the pathology department always wins this), there's an annual skit night where students parody faculty and faculty parody students... we do a lot of fun things.
Early clinical experience: this is another thing where it's going to depend somewhat on the individual student. We have tons of shadowing opportunities - I've never met a clinician who said NO when I asked if I could shadow, but you have to be willing to ask. We start hands-on clinical learning during the first week of first year. We also have tons of clubs and some of those have great opportunities for hands-on experience, particularly our Student Initiative for Reservation Veterinary Services (SIRVS) club, but others have clinical experiences like spay/neuter labs, fish surgeries, sled dog health checks at races, and more. We also have required clerk duty shifts in both the small and large animal hospitals, where you're assigned a time and you can work on your technical skills while helping with treatments, restraint, or whatever needs the hospital has at that time.
I'm happy to answer other questions that you have on here or over PM if you think of more
