So, OSU is a great school. I love it!!! It is small enough that it is family like but also large enough that its not too small, ya know? I'm C/O 21 and still see people I don't know but it was easy to make several friends even though I didn't go to OSU for undergrad.
The school pretty much has each class in their own room and most of the professors come to us for lecture. We go to labs. So, first years have the auditorium, 2nd years have the upstairs histology lab and the third years have another room upstairs. Our class, C/O 21, is the first with the increased class size at OSU. It jumped from 88 in C/O 20 to 106 for us. Not going to sugar coat it, at the beginning it was a tight squeeze. No empty seats in the auditorium first semester. As a matter of fact, they brought in some desk and chair on wheels things. Since we lost several first semester we don't need those anymore. Assuming I have my facts right we, C/O 21, will be going upstairs to the histology lab as our classroom for second year, C/O 20 goes over to the 3rd year class room and C/O 22 is going to get the auditorium. The auditorium and histology lab are both rows of tables with chairs. Plenty of outlets for computers, its great. The 3rd year classroom is an older classroom, they have the bolted chairs with the flip up desks. But have no fear! There are plans in the works to build a new classroom building to accommodate the growing class size. From what we have been told so far the new building is supposed to be open for the fall of my third year which would be August 2019. Last I heard the new building is going to have three classrooms, trending away from traditional stadium seating, and maybe some sort of study area in the atrium. There is a website you can look at to see some of the rooms.
CVM McElroy Hall Virtual Tour
One thing I really love about the school is the number of opportunities to have your voice heard and to communicate with faculty. For instance, last semester we had a class titled "Orientation to Veterinary Medicine," taught by the interim dean. Its a ethics/welcome to vet school class, just 1 credit. I really enjoyed it because the professor would as us for opinions and we would have class discussions. I only know what I know about the new classroom because that's what the interim dean told us in class and asked us what we thought.
I don't know very much about the teaching hospital, as I am just a first year. I go over to the equine hospital once a week for equine rounds. Its a set time at 7 am on Tuesdays for the residents to meet with 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students who want to come and discuss cases currently in the hospital. Honestly, it is among my top 3 three things I get to do every week because even though we aren't doing anything with the horses we get to discuss real cases with the patients right there. It amazes me how much of it is relevant to things we are learning in the classrooms! I know there are also food animal rounds and pathology rounds. I don't know if there is anything comparable in the small animal side of things, but I bet there is. Speaking of getting involved, there are so many clubs, it was hard not to join them all. The clubs have meetings and coordinate labs for the students to get out of the classroom. Since August I did the equine castration lab (first years did TPRs, 3rd years actually did the castrations), lameness lab, fetal sexing ultrasound lab, and a bovine Theriogenology lab where we practiced embryo flushes on excised tracts. That is probably 10% of the things that there is to do, my stuff concentrates on the large animal side of things but I know there are just as many opportunities for small animal type stuff as well.
Sorry for the book of a reply! I wish you good luck and feel free to ask any other questions!
