Diary of a Vet Student

We have just realised how close the exams are - waaaa! They're in 1 week (ish). I'd prefer not to think of when they are exactly. Best just to stay in denial until absolutely necessary. The question is how much to revise? You could compare the class exams at the end of the term to taking a module in each subject at A level only with much more brain mangling. When I revised for mock exams at A level. It was a night before jobby. I keep telling myelf this, but I reckon that these class exams are just a little more than an NBJ. I always try to go over stuff as much as possible, whilst trying to keep up with in-coming lecture notes, but now I reckon it is the season of serious revision.

Luckily my Mum sent Mini (my flat mate Minivet) and me a choccy advent calendar in the post. It's Ok to start eating the chocolates early as long as you start from the furthest date away. That's not a problem as my calendar ends on 6th January. So I could easily make a banana and choc chunk toasty without even making and empression on December. Cosmic.

Amazing how nothing pertubes my appetite. Yesterday was rumin dissection day. Put it this way we were told to bring wellies to the lab! It was minging! Alice (matey) was not being mellowdramatic at all when she kept rushing off for breaths of fresh air. I love looking at body systems though. The rumin has got loads of different chambers and we were able to see the arrangement of the epithelium in each. This sounds boring, but they're so perfectly lad out. You gotta be impressed with whoever you think made it that way!

Today is of course animal husbandry day. Lots of very repetative stuff about vitamins and minerals and deficits and general schmer that I will have to find a way of memorising. This afternoon is a special treat as we're going to the cat and dog home. Woohoo! Real living animals - completely intact! Nice to have a little day trip. Not sure on how valuable this trip is going to be to passing the exam, but you gotta be a practical vet too.

It's the masquerade ball on Saturday (not Friday as I first thought - this lead to the whole football team cancelling training). I'd better make my mask. Bit of cardboard and tin foil should do the trick.....

This will probably be a long blog. I have a two hour lunch break, so my conscience is telling me to get my butt into the library, but I have tied to avoid this for the last hour by writing emails to various long lost relatives and friends. The next hour will probably be spent happily doing this.

Finally caught up wth my lecture notes on Sunday! I went out on Friday night. I could have felt guilty about spending this valuable study time, but I have realised that going out is actually an investment in terms of studying. This is because you feel happier the next day and study faster. This is even when you're hung over - which I was as I always am after having more than a sniff of alcohol ( hey it's cheep to be a light weight!)

So last Friday was animal husbandry day as usual. Really got to get to grips with the mass of info I have for that subject. When I said I'd caught up, I didn't include animal husbandary in this. I would have to be Superwoman to catch up on animal husbandary. Sorry to scare any future 1st years, but this subject is elephant - ous. It's massive. Not difficult, just loads and loads and loads of info, which I generally ignore until two weeks before exams. Thus last friday I didn't go on my farm trip. I stayed in the library with Minivet and read about cows for a long time. I don't normally miss anything, but sometimes you've got to know where your time is going to be best invested and I decided it probably wasn't worthwhile freezing my sox off on the farm that day.

Yesterday we started parasitology. I love learning about things like parasites and bacteria. I love the way they're so clever at evading the immune system and how well adapted they are despite being so simple. We also had a lecture in metabolism. This is interesting too, except that the guy who gives these lectures looks and acts like he's dead.

Today we're finnishing digestion in physilogy lectures and doing digestion practicals in anatomy. There's lots of overlap between subjects.

Just going to mention how great it was to win the rugby - England - woohoo! This really helped Minivet and I to get over the grief we felt when we got home last Friday night to discover all our fish had died! Not good. Very sad. We have crushed vet-egos.

Time is going so quickly. We've got a ball next Friday and when I got the ticket I thought "Och (in a true Scottish way) That's ages away!" I know it'll be next Friday before I know it. Another thing about time going so quickly is that our end of term exams are hurtling towards me. I keep thinking when will I start my revision, I'm still learning stuff for the first time.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that note writing was ruining my life and turning me into a chocolate scoffing hermit. Since then I have decided just to do lots of reading and highlighting. I scribble all over my text books. These cost me hundreds, but hey I am slowly saving money by not re-writing lecture notes and thus using less paper!

This week my flatmate, Minivet (because she's very short) and I have been studying until very late. There is so much to do and I'm bushwacked (nakered, kaput). On Wednesday we did a respiratory practical. Experiments at the vet school are always quite good as they have more equipment than in secondary school. We hooked Rob up to a lot of different machines measuring his heart rate and blood pressure. We also collected his air in a big bag and annalysed it. All done in a very technical way. He slobbered everwhere. It was disgusting.

Today I have been trying to do a computer simulation. Sadly the vet school computers are utterly crap and this one kept crashing. I've done it now though, so I just have the questions to do. We don't really get course work in the first 2 years at Glasgow (yeeehahhh) but we do have multiple choice and true or false assessments based on our practicals and computer learning. These are harder than they sound. Mcvities generally make more profit in the weeks when I'm trying to fill them in.

Apart from work work work this week, I have mostly been eating porridge. It's really cheap, only 70p a bag and you save on the cost of milk too! I may also supplement my extra curricula activites by going out for a swig or 2 tonight and of course playing football. Ahh the end of a hard week.

It’s Tuesday. That’s good because it means I’ve made it through Monday again. Monday is the day when everyone (well, my flat mates and I) feel miserable and irritable. The day starts with an hour-long hike to the main university. I don’t know if it is the same at other vet schools, but you do a shed-load of walking at Glasgow. We also have to walk 20minutes to and from the vet school on other non-Monday days. Following the hike we have four lectures. These are normally OK. They’re just harder to get through when the freedom of the weekend was just yesterday and you’re not really back into “slogging mode” again.

We finished our virology lectures yesterday. This is part of biomolecular science, which is much better as a subject than last year - Less of the glum A-level chemistry and more of the jolly exciting bacteria and virology. Very exciting. Seriously –it’s not bad. Amazing when you find yourself interested in a chemistry-related thing!
I also had a tutorial on my virology topic yesterday. These are quite useful things to have at the end of a series of lectures. Usually about 14 of you sit together and go over your answers to a lot of questions (usually – depending on motivation that week) completed earlier. They can be a bit slow-rolling as nobody wants to make eye contact with the tutor, but if there’s anything you’re not sure on you can always get it sorted.

Today we’re continuing digestion in our anatomy practicals and lectures. I has bin lookin at tongues. All the different species have different papillae on their tongues – conial, filliform, fungiform. They’re just lumps and bumps really. Wonder if I’ll ever get called out by an anxious farmer, because his prize cow has a problem with her papillae. Well, it would be nice, but I doubt it.

I have given up attempting to play volleyball once a week on account of the fact that I’m crap. However things are looking up on the football front. I’m crap at this too, but so is everyone else in my team! We played a match last night and lost 4 – 2. Yeah that’s respectable really, but they only had 5 players and we had 7. I think we’re definitely destined for the big time. Our play has improved says lovely coach Dave who never says anything bad about any of the moves we pull and always has something positive to say. I think the secret of our growing strength lies in the donuts we consume after each match. They’re worth every kick, elbow and humiliation!

Here I am again…the computer room in the vet school. I spend a lot of very tense moments here trying to force the computer to print out the hand-out lecture notes we’re given. This can be very painful when a large number of other vet students are struggling to do the same thing and there’s a big queue for the printer. I’ve just ordered a set to print. Not a lot of action at the printer though. Maybe it’s packed in…

I’ll sort it out in a minute, but first to my thoughts on the wonders of the veterinary profession. We’ve just had a lecture by a guest speaker from the Scottish Agricultural College. From what I can gather this is a research body that monitors and researches diseases in cattle, game birds, wildlife and companion animals. Yesterday we had a lecture from another guest speaker from the Royal Vet College. He was trying to get us to intercalate. This means taking a year out from veterinary to study and research another related topic either here or at another vet college. There are loads of opportunities available apparently and in lots of different subjects. Yesterday’s talk was on pathology, but I’d be quite interested in studying something related to animal behaviour or zoology. I’d love to be able to discover something new and useful. I probably won’t intercalate – I’ll probably just buy a copy of “New Scientist” instead, but these talks really made me think how diverse the opportunities are in vet science. I still have no idea about what I’ll do when I graduate!

In fact the course itself is incredibly diverse, now that I think about it (durrr). This morning I’m being lectured (mercilessly for two hours) on grass management, Monday was virology and metabolism – so chemistry and yesterday anatomy. I think it’s important to like all the subjects especially the science, because there’s a lot to all the areas we cover and “ya gott like em to get thru em”.

That’s enough thought for now. My blooming notes haven’t printed. Grrrrr. I have another grass lecture to go to this morning – they’re really not that bad. The thing with animal husbandry is there’s a lot of information and it’s more complex than you first think. Glad I’m not time-tabled for the farm today. Apparently there a storm a –brewing, with winds of 80 miles per hour. Brrrrr, still nothing a nice warm cuppa can’t sort.

Anatomy sessions are so frustrating when you have no idea what you're supposed to be looking at. Hence the reason I am now feeling ever so slightly, shall we say, "naffed off". This morning we have been dessecting dog heads. These are the heads of the same dogs which we used to explore the thoracic cavity and ventral neck quite a number of weeks ago. Not surprising then, that they are beginning to get a bit ganky. I'm quite behind in my anatomy notes (actually that's a BIG understatement). Thus I had no idea what Annie had in mind when, whilst waving a bone-saw, she declared she was going to cut the "zygommatic arch" of the skull. I do feel that I have gained something from this morning's ordeal. The trick is not to beat youself up about how little you know and to try to learn on the spot. After all you can study text books when you get home, but you have to see the anatomy for real in 3D to really understand it. It really is like doing mental aerobics though. I'm nackered, but oh joy, have another four hours to go.

Yesterday was Dick Day. This is when the Edinburgh vets come to Glasgow for sport. The Ed vets are called "Dicks" because the Edinburgh school is "The Royal Dick Vet School" and not because of any aggressive Glaswegian humour! They thrashed our women's football team and our men's rugby team and our female rugby team! So defeat all round. This was felt most sorely by the lads who have been training at 7.30am, such is the competitiveness of the whole day. Never mind. I feel I added my contribution by playing for 15 minutes in the girls game, with my hair in bunches and a rude word written on my forehead, even if I didn't score.

Better get back to the joys of anatomy then....

Ahhhh Home. Good food. Nice and warm. Electric blanket. Mmmmm. Home just gets better and better. The longer you’re away the more you appreciate what it is to live in more than 3 rooms and have your washing done for you. It’s also nice to be treated like some kind of war hero back from the frontline for a little leave. Handy hint kids: the longer you’re away the more they spoil you on your return. I’m already looking forward to Christmas man!

Yup, so this weekend I flew back to sunny Lincolnshire. Thought my head was going to explode on the aircraft actually. I have a head cold. So my Eustachian tube must have had great difficulty in equalising the pressure between my middle ear and the external environment. I learnt that in anatomy. Genius.

I’m not a hard core vet student. If I was I wouldn’t be here this weekend. I’d be in London puking my guts up at AVS. This is THE biggest weekend in the vet school calendar. It’s when all the vet schools travel to one venue on a bus for drinking plus a minimal amount of comedy sport. But I am not there, because I am a lightweight. I wouldn’t have lasted 2 minutes. The idea was to start drinking when the bus left Glasgow on Friday morning and to continue relentlessly until the Sunday night. This can only be achieved with the dog-eared determination that is found amongst the hard core. I salute them, but thank God I’m not with the 80 that went.

Have been trying to get faster at studying this week. I’m really bad at taking ages and ages over writing up my lecture notes. Think I lack the skill to do it efficiently. After spending the whole of last weekend writing up two lectures I decided to get “A Guide to Better Studying” from the library. Lets hope it helps me get my life back.

This week I have been wrestling with my embryology notes. I really like embryology, because it’s amazing how we all evolve in the same sort of way in the womb and from something so simple. The only problem is I just can’t get my head round visualising everything that happens, because it’s all in 3D. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Luckily there’s an animated internet program that might help. That’s one thing about the net. It usually has the info you need. There is often a lot of research to do, because in some lectures you really just get given the bones. In others you get next to nothing because you’re hung over or the lecturer speaks in a dialect you don’t understand – probably just an English/ Scottish problem.

Anyway better go. It’s Sunday dinner-time. Mum’s chicken.

Hi. I'm Suzanne. I 've just started second year at Glasgow. First year was surprising in that I found myself with loads of free time. I can't believe how slack I was in those long forgotten days spent mostly just bumming about after a couple of morning lectures. Don't get me wrong though. The exams were tough enough ! Second year is I'm afraid to say, a completely different story. We have 9 to 5 days for goodness sake!

I'm loving it actually. It's better this year. Ok so I've got a shed load of work to do and I haven't washed my hair for 10 days (just kidding), but we're learning stuff that's way more interesting than last year. I also like being busy. We now have two days of anatomy practicals instead of one like in last year. I found first year practicals a bit soul-destroying to be honest. I never seemed to know anything about the particular half-dog or cat I was supposed to be dissecting. This year things are better, largely due to the fact that practical days are no longer time-tabled for the day after the best night at the Glasgow Union - woohoo!

So what am I learning about? We're doing body systems in antomy and physiology. It's dead interesting. I love seeing how the body works. I was looking at the heart and lungs of a shire the other day and found myself thinking, "Jeepers creepers (or words to the effect)! It's the same size as half my body!" But hey, that's me. I'm a closet-geek. We're also beginning to look ar virology and bacteriology. In animal husbandry it's pretty much the same stuff as last year, which is a tad steady and well, boring. Even I can't get excited about pig housing.

Everyone at vetschool says they do no work at all, but really they just work like stink when nobody's looking. The social life is always pretty mental though. We're obsessed with fancy dress here. This is insane as I am too puny to be running around Glasgow in sub-zero temperatures, dressed as a scantly clad school girl or bondage-style hell's angel. Never mind it's all good.

I have taken up volley ball this term to broaden my horizons. However this is doing nothing for my ego as I managed to hit the ball four times in one hour last night. When I returned home, my bad mood was worsenned when my flatmate informed me that I couldn't have a shower, because she'd rescued a dying frog and was keeping him in our bath. That's another story though!