Important Lessons from Your First Week of Vet School

Megan Murata, Texas A&M

Experiences, Entry

The first week of vet school is nothing less than enchanting, exhilarating, and ultimately overwhelming. Whether you are a first, second, third, or fourth year student (or perhaps even a practicing DVM), I am sure that you also remember your first week of school. 

Emerging from an undergraduate institution or post graduate job into a professional school is more than somewhat uncomfortable. Immediately you are aware of the unfamiliar setting of sitting in a room full of super smart people that are just as intelligent and studious as you (if not more). You begin receiving a FLOOD of emails every day and stress over reading, organizing, and remembering each one. Your calendar is in complete disarray due to the onset of new meetings scheduled and exam review sessions offered (who knew you would be reviewing for an exam during the first week?!), coupled with random clinical opportunities to further your veterinary knowledge. 

Before you know it, the weekend approaches and you are already banging your head against the table wondering how you’re supposed to complete the week’s objectives for anatomy (and/or other classes) without losing your sanity.  So now that it’s over (and thankfully everyone survived), where do we go from here?  How can we take the lessons from our first week of veterinary school and apply them to the rest of our life and tenure in veterinary science?  

The first lesson we can take is pausing and reflecting on how we each got here. We all remember working through the long and arduous application process, wondering if we really had all the qualities our veterinary school was looking for. We remember receiving an interview invitation, and preparing to answer thought provoking questions on the dime. We remember receiving a fairly large packet in the mail, and being welcomed into a dream that we all worked SO hard to achieve. Remembering is vital throughout your first week of vet school, and thereafter. If we don’t stop and remember what we we’ve gone through to get here, we cannot move forward and appreciate what we’ve been given. 

The next lesson we can glean from our first week is to move pass the stress and anxiety of our new environment, and focus on the reason why we each are here. As vet students, we are all goal oriented and driven. We each have some grand idea of why we are in veterinary school: whether we want to be the next practice owner, USDA president, physiology professor (yea right!), or veterinary missionary, we’ve formed dreams and visions of how we will impact the world as a veterinarian. If we take time in between the chaos of classes, labs, and meetings to focus on the reasoning behind all of our hard work, our perspective will change for the better. 

Finally, the third lesson we can take away from our first week of vet school is making time to keep in touch with the people who helped us get here. We all have strong influences in our lives (family, coaches, professors, and friends) that helped us achieve a spot in veterinary school. We need to share our struggles, triumphs, and new experiences as veterinary students with them. In addition we also are in need of extra encouragement and support from these special individuals, who more than likely are willing and wanting to reciprocate. We owe it to ourselves and our role models to extend our gratitude for the impact they’ve made on us, and allow them to continue touching our lives.  

So in conclusion, we must remember, keep our focus, and reach out. If we practice these simple principles, we will not only make it through our first week of vet school, but the subsequent weeks to come.