Minnesota vs. Illinois

[RabbitsAreAwesome]

Hello! I've been accepted to Minnesota and Illinois and have a few questions.

Im very interested in exotics/ aquatics/ pathology and am trying to see which program might be better.

Does anyone know what the cost of living is like in these locations?

How do current/previous students feel about the exam schedules/courses at each place?

I appreciate everyones feedback!

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[battie]

Illinois 2nd year

Im very interested in exotics/ aquatics/ pathology and am trying to see which program might be better.

As far as exotics/aquatics goes, a decent chunk of students come into Illinois with this intent. We have extensive exotics and to some extent aquatics availability.

Curriculum-wise, we have a ton of exotics electives that would have aquatics lumped in there. Exotics do vaguely make it into core classes, but you'll be relying more heavily on the electives for the actual classroom info.

Clubs-wise, we have an extremely active Non-Traditional Species club with sub-clubs for mammals, reptiles, avian, and aquatics. We have the Wildlife Medical Clinic that is 100% student run and hands on week 2. We have turtle team every summer. Wildlife disease association as well.

Hospital-wise, we have our Wildlife and Exotics Animal Medicine and Surgery headed by two boarded exotics peeps. Students 1-3 year are welcome to come hang out and see cases, particularly over breaks. They see an extensive case load which includes two zoos and an aquarium.

Farther down the line, we have our 3 year residency with a year at a zoo, a year at the aquarium, and a year at the school.

Research aplenty as a lot of projects are going on in the WMC, WEAMS, and wildlife epi lab.

Pathology is a bit more reserved and harder to get in on. We have a mildly active path club, but a fully functioning diagnostics lab that students can get involved in pretty easily. Students are welcome to path rounds as well.

Does anyone know what the cost of living is like in these locations

I'm from Denver, so I feel like Chambana is pretty cheap. I'm currently 565 for everything house and utilities. I take out 1k per month in loans to cover cost of living while also working 10-15 hours a week during didactic weeks.

How do current/previous students feel about the exam schedules/courses at each place?

Illinois' exam schedule is a double edge sword. Just 1 midterm and 1 final per quarter for a total of 6 tests per year and 9 tests in the entire curriculum (for core classes). All of our core classes are combined for one grade per didactic quarter, so we only get 9 grades total. It's nice cause we're not going from one test to the next. But if you mess up a test bad and have one bad quarter, it's difficult to recover gpa wise.

 

[RabbitsAreAwesome]

Illinois 2nd year



As far as exotics/aquatics goes, a decent chunk of students come into Illinois with this intent. We have extensive exotics and to some extent aquatics availability.

Curriculum-wise, we have a ton of exotics electives that would have aquatics lumped in there. Exotics do vaguely make it into core classes, but you'll be relying more heavily on the electives for the actual classroom info.

Clubs-wise, we have an extremely active Non-Traditional Species club with sub-clubs for mammals, reptiles, avian, and aquatics. We have the Wildlife Medical Clinic that is 100% student run and hands on week 2. We have turtle team every summer. Wildlife disease association as well.

Hospital-wise, we have our Wildlife and Exotics Animal Medicine and Surgery headed by two boarded exotics peeps. Students 1-3 year are welcome to come hang out and see cases, particularly over breaks. They see an extensive case load which includes two zoos and an aquarium.

Farther down the line, we have our 3 year residency with a year at a zoo, a year at the aquarium, and a year at the school.

Research aplenty as a lot of projects are going on in the WMC, WEAMS, and wildlife epi lab.

Pathology is a bit more reserved and harder to get in on. We have a mildly active path club, but a fully functioning diagnostics lab that students can get involved in pretty easily. Students are welcome to path rounds as well.



I'm from Denver, so I feel like Chambana is pretty cheap. I'm currently 565 for everything house and utilities. I take out 1k per month in loans to cover cost of living while also working 10-15 hours a week during didactic weeks.



Illinois' exam schedule is a double edge sword. Just 1 midterm and 1 final per quarter for a total of 6 tests per year and 9 tests in the entire curriculum (for core classes). All of our core classes are combined for one grade per didactic quarter, so we only get 9 grades total. It's nice cause we're not going from one test to the next. But if you mess up a test bad and have one bad quarter, it's difficult to recover gpa wise.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful.

 

[battie]

Thank you so much! This is very helpful.

Not a problem! Let me know if you have any other questions, either here or via PM!

 

[outdoorsydvm]

Hello! I've been accepted to Minnesota and Illinois and have a few questions.

Im very interested in exotics/ aquatics/ pathology and am trying to see which program might be better.

Does anyone know what the cost of living is like in these locations?

How do current/previous students feel about the exam schedules/courses at each place?

I appreciate everyones feedback!

I'm also deciding between these two. Hopefully some Minnesota students/alumni can answer some of your questions.
I also was wondering what the possibility at either school is of not having a car (at least for the first two years maybe)? I know it can get pretty tough to get around, so if anyone has any thoughts about this, please let me know!

 

[battie]

I also was wondering what the possibility at either school is of not having a car (at least for the first two years maybe)? I know it can get pretty tough to get around, so if anyone has any thoughts about this, please let me know!

There is a dude in my class that rides his bike every day. He has a car for other things like groceries. But we're on the southern most tip of campus, so the bus only gets to us twice an hour, so you have to really plan out your day. It can be hard during our clinical quarters as well, depending on what rotations you get as a 1st and 2nd year.

 

[supershorty]

Hello! I've been accepted to Minnesota and Illinois and have a few questions.

Im very interested in exotics/ aquatics/ pathology and am trying to see which program might be better.

Does anyone know what the cost of living is like in these locations?

How do current/previous students feel about the exam schedules/courses at each place?

I appreciate everyones feedback!

MN third year here. Decidedly NOT an exotics person so can't help much on that front, but I've lived in the Twin Cities since 2009. If you're living with roommates, COL here is around $450-750 per month in rent - it depends a lot on your living situation. I own my house, but when I lived in a nice 1 BR apartment that was walking distance from the U, I paid $900 a month (I didn't have roommates). Some people rent houses or duplexes and then have a bunch of students living together; we have the advantage of being in a major metropolitan area so we have a lot of housing opportunities.

We have a very different exam schedule from Illinois - I think they only have 9 grades or something completely terrifying like that - whereas we have numerous separate courses and a mixture of pass/fail and A-F graded courses. The exam schedule usually comes out to having 1-2 exams per week, although sometimes in second and third year, you get a little unlucky and might have 3 (but not all of them are in person; we have a lot of online exams that we can take on our own time, which is really nice). I originally thought that I'd find having this many exams stressful, but I actually kind of like it because it helps me prioritize my studying for each week, it constantly reinforces the material, and having more exams means having more buffer points. I like feeling like I can have an off-day and not completely sink myself GPA-wise.

Edited to add: I think most people here have cars - it's just easier - but you can get around the Twin Cities with public transportation pretty well. When I lived within walking distance of the U, I pretty much only used my car for grocery shopping.