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Not this fall
I will not be applying to UCDavis veterinary school this fall. Biochem (of which I must take at least two quarters) requires previous completion of o-chem (a full year), which in turn requires completion of the chem I'm in during the spring. And no, I can't start o-chem in the summer. It's not offered.
All of this fussing around about fitting the courses in, and it turns out it never would have been possible to do them all in two years. Three = minimum.
This does kind of put the pressure on to get in on my first try. I simply don't have the financial wherewithal to go *four* years before entering vet school.
Good points:
- No GRE this spring!
- May be able to drop physics this spring (and get better grades in what's left).
- More time to gain a variety of animal experience - wildlife, etc. This is huge.
- More time to get to know veterinarians at all these places = potentially better letters of recommendation.
- Opportunity to take some really cool courses I don't specifically need. Micro! Human anatomy!
- Opportunity to beef up the transcript in the humanities.
Bad points:
- Money.
All of this fussing around about fitting the courses in, and it turns out it never would have been possible to do them all in two years. Three = minimum.
This does kind of put the pressure on to get in on my first try. I simply don't have the financial wherewithal to go *four* years before entering vet school.
Good points:
- No GRE this spring!
- May be able to drop physics this spring (and get better grades in what's left).
- More time to gain a variety of animal experience - wildlife, etc. This is huge.
- More time to get to know veterinarians at all these places = potentially better letters of recommendation.
- Opportunity to take some really cool courses I don't specifically need. Micro! Human anatomy!
- Opportunity to beef up the transcript in the humanities.
Bad points:
- Money.
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Why, yes, this did happen to me, why do you ask?
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A different kind of job would be to work at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab in Ashland, OR (currently the only lab in the world dedicated to crimes against wildlife).
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Working at a US University, I watch every semester the frustration of people who can't register for this or that until next week, or can't get a specific course they need, or can't work the courses around their job - I'm impressed that they ever get through a degree course.
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Still, the UK system sounds very different to me. No major? Does the degree program not have a specialization in one subject or course of study? And I'm sure it would be quite helpful to focus on class work rather than on what is available next semester and the dependency chains of prerequisites.
Making education into a real job might have its benefits in terms of guiding students' attitudes about whether or not showing up is important. Do you see a difference there?
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Yes, specialization and electives did occur, but within a narrow band; so you were able make those choices ahead of time, and then scheduling happened automatically. They just don't have the concept of something like a major in nuclear physics with a minor in quilt-making (which is the kind of choice students here seem to make!) And there is no concept of University College, where you sign up to do an indeterminate degree program at some point in the future.
The system certainly focused students on the academic side of things; and yes, if you failed to attend you got dropped, so it was very work-structured. It was probably more of a useful discipline in that it prepared students for the job market. But I've no idea if the system was really more effective in terms of education. I'm just glad I never had to worry about what course I needed to do next, or whether it would be open in a particular semester.
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The real answer for public schools is to learn ALL the rules and options up front, make a plan (with alternatives for the class you can't get this term), and be prepared to do some serious ass-kissing to get into that class you HAVE to have this term. :-)
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This may not apply to people going for degrees. Me, I already have all the fluff like English Writing 1 (where there are more courses than students); I need only the science lab courses. I'd have changed religions if I'd had to to get early registration.
(By now I may count as having no income, but that bucket is already full and they're not taking any more. Too bad. I had to get early reg with the honors program instead, which means an extra useless course every quarter. That doesn't do great things to the time schedule.)
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Me, I've got a goal and a big sense of urgency, but with this dependency chain in the prerequisites, suddenly I may as well take the fun stuff too. Well, unless I need to find a paying job. That's my big worry now.
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Compared to going to a expensive four year school (and especially compared to going to an expensive four year school before you really know what you want to do), I think community colleges are a wonderful opportunity for most people. But the four year schools, in my admittedly limited experience, are handling the loss of control very poorly.
Kim decided a few years ago to go to school and pursue a degree in accounting. She is just finishing up her second year at community college (will finish the Spring, plus two classes in the Summer) and has been accepted to UMKC in the fall. But the last two years have been pretty stressful. When we first saw the list of what UMKC required to approve a transfer, it was ridiculous. To do it in two years meant taking 17-18 credits every semester, plus two course each summer. No dropped classes, no repeats, no fun classes, nothing. That was just the classes that UMKC required her to have before considering the application.
Half the time, the classes barely make sense. She needed to take two classes on computer applications. Eight credits to verify you know how to use Word and Excel? Seriously? When I first got to Temple, it was assumed you would just go to the computer lab and learn that on your own. By the time I left Temple, it was a required class, but it was a one credit Freshman seminar. But now they want you to invest a few hundred hours of your life in it before they will check it off the list. Craziness.
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Good luck!
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It sure did work out well, though, when I got to take first quarter bio and first quarter chem at the same time. I did what you suggested: ask, and promise to be the best little squeaky clean student they'd ever seen. That time it worked. I'd be in deep doo-doo if I hadn't been able to start both of those in the fall.
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