Well, I survived Freshers’ Week, just about! After well and truly burning the candle at both ends for the first week (out all night every night, then grabbing a few hours of sleep before being yelled at by the second year reps – with megaphones outside the window – to get up for the next talk/registration/free food event!) and contracting a lovely bout of Freshers’ flu I have made it to halfway through the first week of my course!
Freshers’ Week was busy, and I still don’t feel recovered. Going out every night was a bit of a shock to the system having lived in my little village at home for a year, but it was good fun, supplemented with plenty of weird and wacky fancy dress… Nothing like getting to know people by dressing as a complete prat! Although by the end of the week I was feeling well and truly ready to start getting on with the course.
So after a quiet weekend of recovery, and exploring the local area (we really are in the middle of nowhere… I love it!) we started the course on Monday. We have two weeks of introductory sessions, and so far the lectures have been going over things we are already expected to know (much of which is A level biology, which I know I know, but am feeling very rusty on – this worried me a bit so I’m using my Wednesday afternoon to do a bit of revision… inbetween blogging that is!). But what I love about it here is that the structure of the course is so different, and we’re doing different things all the time. It’s not solid lectures by any means, and we have small group teaching sessions and practicals to break the week up really well. Small group sessions involve discussions (with and without supervision) and working through set problems, and everyone is very enthusiastic so you get some really good discussions going. Everybody has different work experience stories, so you get a really good mix and some interesting opinions on things that you may not have already thought of.
Then yesterday we had our first practical, which was a follow-on from the morning’s small group work which involved picking up information on videos (I love how the course is integrated together so that you apply the knowledge you’ve just learnt). The practical was sooooo good – we all wore our new animal-handling tunics (so we looked like proper vets!) and had our stethoscopes, pen torches and thermometers with us, and we had talks, demonstrations and got to have a go at the different aspects of animal handling and clinical examination that we had seen in the morning’s videos. At no other Vet School do you get the hands-on approach from the start that they do here, and that is one of the main things that attracted me to this university over the others. I can’t wait to show off to friends at other vet schools how I’ve already been learning palpation, auscultation (using a stethoscope), and have had a go at taking blood… albeit from a model dog leg and not a real one… probably a good thing given the amount of poking around I had to do before I successfully drew blood!
So all in all, it has been a good first week of the course. I still don’t feel properly settled yet but realise that it will take a while before people settle down into their friendship groups, and get into a routine. As a graduate student it is all too easy to compare this university experience with my previous one, but I have to realise that it took time for me to settle down there too! I am worried about the amount of work that will get thrown at us on the course, because I am one of these people who can all too easily work too hard, so I am trying to structure my week so that I have set time for rest and relaxation… otherwise I’ll just work all the time! I joined a choir yesterday, and next week I am going along to a local triathlon club to discuss training. I am hoping to use my Wednesday afternoons to blow off some steam on my bike/in the pool/on a run.
So there you have my first impressions of Vet School! No doubt there will be more to come… if I survive vet initiations at the weekend!!
