Hi there; Birdie here!
I've never felt so official as a vet student--we had our coating ceremony this afternoon. I got my blue coat and I'm ready to put it to use! The stage in the auditorium is apparently equipped to show cows--there's a drain in the middle--but none of us tripped on either that or the raised bits at either end by the stairs. Apparently at least one person does usually, so our coordinator was proud of us. Most of the girls wore dresses, but I was in slacks and a short-sleeved button up blouse I've worn to interviews. I felt very doctorly in it, especially with my security ID badge stating that I'm a vet student clipped to my belt loop. At the end of orientation, I fully feel like I'm going to be a doctor--and that, hard as it will be, it will be worth it.
Let me back up and start from the beginning.
Our first day of official orientation (as opposed to our fun leadership activities) consisted of a lot of sitting around and listening to people. First sitting in the auditorium and being introduced to people, then sitting in our classroom and listening to people talk about the army and SCAVMA. I seriously considered applying to the army scholarship, but more of my debt is from undergrad so I'd be better off in a post-graduation repayment program--not something I have to think about right now. I'd already joined SCAVMA as soon as the email went out about how to pay dues--I'm not sure I want to be part of our student chapter of the AVMA (American vet med association), but it's the umbrella for all of our clubs. Which means you can't join clubs without being in SCAVMA, and I definitely want to join clubs. We also got our ID badges for the vet school, but unfortunately those aren't actually student IDs and we still need the student IDs from main campus. Those were a pain to get--the office is only open 8-4:30, which means it's pretty hard for us to be free to go there when they're open.
Days two and three were more of the same, except that we sat in our classroom the whole day. There were a lot of talks about stress management, about how hard this will be, etc. We got tons of free stuff (backpacks, water bottles, even a set of scrubs!) from food companies and other sponsors. I'm going to miss the free food...although honestly I'll probably still be set for a while with club lunch meetings. Four pet food companies came and talked to us--I think they all have discount/free food programs for students, too. Luckily I took notes in case I acquire a pet and those become relevant. Okay, for when I acquire a pet. I got a tablet to take my notes on, and I've been using orientation to figure it out. OneNote seems to be what most people I know use for tablet notetaking, but in my experience, it sucked. I ended up downloading LectureNotes--I paid $5 for it, but it recognizes my keyboard, is searchable as long as I type, and lets me highlight and draw, so it's better than anything else I tried.
One major talk we got that's actually worth writing about was "Your Financial Future." I was totally expecting it to be doom and gloom--I know the state of the profession lately. But actually, despite being realistic, it left me feeling positive. The average starting salary was higher than we as a class had expected, and he ran a debt calculator that showed a reasonable debt load (15% debt:income ratio) that could be paid off on a new vet's starting salary was pretty close to the debt I'll have when I graduate. And that would be paid off in 10 years, without consolidation. It's the first time I've seen anything that made this seem manageable, rather than doable with great sacrifice, and it's made me feel a lot more positive about vet school.
That doesn't do much to reassure me on employment prospects of course. I'm still worried about that, despite the fact that approximately everyone tells me I don't need to yet. One of the alumni who came in (who works in private practice, a non-specialist) could only get part time work and had to fill in with relief work. She's very happy with it, but it wasn't originally by choice. There was something promising here, too, though: apparently, there's some guy who recruits heavily from my school for vets to work in Las Vegas. They were the highest paid new graduates last year, and they get tons of respect. It's hard hours and maybe it's not what I'd want to do for long, but it might mean I can have a job right out of vet school! And if not, well, maybe the army will take me.
That logical, cautious hope combined with the feeling of signing my oath and going up on stage in my new blue coat make me more excited than ever to start vet school. This isn't just a dream anymore--I'm doing it! I hope I can make it, but for now I'm going to assume I can. Classes start tomorrow--wish me luck!
Showing posts with label orientation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orientation. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Welcome Week
Hi there; Birdie here!
This is officially the end of my first week at the vet school, even if we haven't technically started yet. I got all of my stuff here last Sunday in the family van, even if it did take until 10 at night before I was back with my own car due to a variety of family stuff cropping up.
Monday was my real moving in day, rather than just moving up here. I attempted to build a dresser and had it collapse three times until it was irreparably damaged. I got a new dresser though and managed to build it successfully with my flatmate's help, and finally had a place to put my clothes! I'm living with two other vet students: a third year and another first year. The first year, Lauren, and I bonded over my inability to put together a dresser. Once we got the second one to work, though, I concluded that it was physically impossible to put the first one together (alone at least)--totally not my fault!
Monday night was also the first welcome week activity: a barbecue in the vet school courtyard. Apparently the turnout was much greater than last year, and since everyone who came brought a food item, there was a LOT of food. Lauren drove both of us, so we stuck together, and somehow--by way of hovering until we were noticed/had something to contribute to the conversation, mainly--became part of a decent-sized group of first years all hanging out. We stayed right up until the end of the barbecue, but didn't hit up the house party afterwards--I still had to do something about all the stuff I'd tossed on my bed to deal with later.
Tuesday meant more trips to Target and STILL failing to find a nighttable. The one I bought wasn't tall enough--I finally gave up and ordered one online. Hopefully it will be here soon. And that evening, our second activity: bowling! Well, it was originally meant to be bowling, until the activity coordinators found out that league bowling was actually going on that night. Luckily, they found a new place to hold our activity. It's called Quarters, and there we got to not only do some bowling but also play laser tag and mess around on arcade games for a while. This time I drove, and my GPS took us to some apartment complex called "the Quarters" instead of the arcade before we input the address instead of the name. Luckily, another girl from our group of first years also showed up half an hour late, so the three of us got to bowl together. Laser tag was supposed to be two games until a different team won each of the rounds. My team lost the last round, but I personally was in the top players in the first two games! I think laser tag was the best part of that event. :D
I didn't actually attend the welcome week activity on Wednesday; instead, I spent the day with my sister, who is spending the week at her boyfriend's house in Prairieville. We went to the Mall of Louisiana--it's huge!--and got snowballs at a little roadside stand not too far from where I'm living. I had a flavor called "Snowman Cream" (the stand's name was related to snowman), which was light blue and tasted almondy.
I didn't really mind skipping the activity Wednesday since I knew I'd be spending all day (9:30am to 4 or so) with my vet school classmates for Tiki Tubing. It was a pretty good time. The group I'd driven up with kept floating ahead of the huge, loud, crazy drunk group. We also met up with some other cool people, including a couple of guys who took the opportunity at every sand bar we stopped on to try and throw rocks into abandoned tubes on the other side of the river and a couple of girls from my hometown. I even made sure to reapply sunscreen when we stopped, but it didn't stop me from getting an utterly awful sunburn where my bikini top didn't cover. My shoulders are RED. I'm not sure it's possible to do Tiki Tubing and NOT get a sunburn.
Then on Friday was the mandatory FLE--Freshman Leadership Experience. I thought it was amusing that we had to RSVP for it--"are you coming to the mandatory FLE?"--along with RSVPing our families for coating ceremony. For this we were split into small groups, and then had to complete little exercises like moving a pyramid of cups using only a rubber band we were each holding by a string without speaking or turning over a tarp while we were all standing on it. Our name tags had different animals on them to split us into groups, and mine was the snakes. *clap* *clap* SSSSS! We also made shields for our groups, which will be hanging in our classroom all year. Each of the challenges, if we completed them on time, won us a supply for the boat race that finished out the day. We used cardboard, duct tape, box cutters, and a trash bag to make a boat that was supposed to get across the YMCA's pool with two people in it. Our group wasn't the fastest to make it across, but we were the first to have a boat that made it all the way! The group that did have the fastest boat, the puppies, also managed to beat the facilitators' cardboard boat--and those second years cheated, with multiple trash bags and cling wrap and all kinds of stuff we weren't able to use.
Orientation officially starts Monday, but this afternoon there's one more important thing: seat picking. The classroom doors open at 5 today, but I'm going to get there rather earlier--partly because other people are already going to be lining up, and partly because we can pick up what we ordered from the bookstore starting at 3.
Bonus: all the groups and their boat names, since some of them were pretty great
This is officially the end of my first week at the vet school, even if we haven't technically started yet. I got all of my stuff here last Sunday in the family van, even if it did take until 10 at night before I was back with my own car due to a variety of family stuff cropping up.
Monday was my real moving in day, rather than just moving up here. I attempted to build a dresser and had it collapse three times until it was irreparably damaged. I got a new dresser though and managed to build it successfully with my flatmate's help, and finally had a place to put my clothes! I'm living with two other vet students: a third year and another first year. The first year, Lauren, and I bonded over my inability to put together a dresser. Once we got the second one to work, though, I concluded that it was physically impossible to put the first one together (alone at least)--totally not my fault!
Monday night was also the first welcome week activity: a barbecue in the vet school courtyard. Apparently the turnout was much greater than last year, and since everyone who came brought a food item, there was a LOT of food. Lauren drove both of us, so we stuck together, and somehow--by way of hovering until we were noticed/had something to contribute to the conversation, mainly--became part of a decent-sized group of first years all hanging out. We stayed right up until the end of the barbecue, but didn't hit up the house party afterwards--I still had to do something about all the stuff I'd tossed on my bed to deal with later.
Tuesday meant more trips to Target and STILL failing to find a nighttable. The one I bought wasn't tall enough--I finally gave up and ordered one online. Hopefully it will be here soon. And that evening, our second activity: bowling! Well, it was originally meant to be bowling, until the activity coordinators found out that league bowling was actually going on that night. Luckily, they found a new place to hold our activity. It's called Quarters, and there we got to not only do some bowling but also play laser tag and mess around on arcade games for a while. This time I drove, and my GPS took us to some apartment complex called "the Quarters" instead of the arcade before we input the address instead of the name. Luckily, another girl from our group of first years also showed up half an hour late, so the three of us got to bowl together. Laser tag was supposed to be two games until a different team won each of the rounds. My team lost the last round, but I personally was in the top players in the first two games! I think laser tag was the best part of that event. :D
I didn't actually attend the welcome week activity on Wednesday; instead, I spent the day with my sister, who is spending the week at her boyfriend's house in Prairieville. We went to the Mall of Louisiana--it's huge!--and got snowballs at a little roadside stand not too far from where I'm living. I had a flavor called "Snowman Cream" (the stand's name was related to snowman), which was light blue and tasted almondy.
I didn't really mind skipping the activity Wednesday since I knew I'd be spending all day (9:30am to 4 or so) with my vet school classmates for Tiki Tubing. It was a pretty good time. The group I'd driven up with kept floating ahead of the huge, loud, crazy drunk group. We also met up with some other cool people, including a couple of guys who took the opportunity at every sand bar we stopped on to try and throw rocks into abandoned tubes on the other side of the river and a couple of girls from my hometown. I even made sure to reapply sunscreen when we stopped, but it didn't stop me from getting an utterly awful sunburn where my bikini top didn't cover. My shoulders are RED. I'm not sure it's possible to do Tiki Tubing and NOT get a sunburn.
Then on Friday was the mandatory FLE--Freshman Leadership Experience. I thought it was amusing that we had to RSVP for it--"are you coming to the mandatory FLE?"--along with RSVPing our families for coating ceremony. For this we were split into small groups, and then had to complete little exercises like moving a pyramid of cups using only a rubber band we were each holding by a string without speaking or turning over a tarp while we were all standing on it. Our name tags had different animals on them to split us into groups, and mine was the snakes. *clap* *clap* SSSSS! We also made shields for our groups, which will be hanging in our classroom all year. Each of the challenges, if we completed them on time, won us a supply for the boat race that finished out the day. We used cardboard, duct tape, box cutters, and a trash bag to make a boat that was supposed to get across the YMCA's pool with two people in it. Our group wasn't the fastest to make it across, but we were the first to have a boat that made it all the way! The group that did have the fastest boat, the puppies, also managed to beat the facilitators' cardboard boat--and those second years cheated, with multiple trash bags and cling wrap and all kinds of stuff we weren't able to use.
Orientation officially starts Monday, but this afternoon there's one more important thing: seat picking. The classroom doors open at 5 today, but I'm going to get there rather earlier--partly because other people are already going to be lining up, and partly because we can pick up what we ordered from the bookstore starting at 3.
Bonus: all the groups and their boat names, since some of them were pretty great
- Horses: Seabiscuit
- Snakes: SS Cobra
- Cows: Cirrhosis of the River
- Chickens: The Mother Clucker
- Puppies: SS Doggy Paddle
- T-Rexes: Jurassic Ark
- Pigs: Miss Piggy
- Monkeys: SS Monkey
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