Equine Veterinarian????

Question

I want to be a veterinarian when I'm older and specialize in horses. How do I firstly BECOME a vet and then specialize in horses? I know you have to go to university but where before and after that???? Please help!

Answer 1

Becoming a veterinarian is VERY hard to do. You should start working/volunteering/shadowing a veterinarian ASAP!!!! It would be the best if you could do this for a mixed animal vet because even if you want to work with horses you need to work with everything first. You should also be focusing on your grades. You should be shooting for a state university, preferably one with a veterinary school. To become a vet you need 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of veterinary school. Veterinary school is THE toughest school to get into MUCH harder than medical school ever thought about being. There is only about 28 vet schools in the US and they only take AT MOST 100 students. The receive however THOUSANDS of applicants. Once you make it to a major university you need to be TOTALLY focused on your grades a 3.5 is considered low competitive but I have seen people with 4.0 turned down flat. You should be also getting as much experience as possible. Some vet schools require, some recommend highly (aka require), and soon most will follow in having experience of AT LEAST 100 hours in each of the following areas: Small animal, Large Animal, Research, and Exotic. This experience must be under veterinary supervision aka it can not be owning an animal, any stable work or research that is not headed by a vet. Remember becoming a veterinarian is truly a labor of love, the average salary is 60k for ALL areas of veterinary medicine however the average vet graduates with 105k in debt. There is usually little help to pay that debt off for small animal and equine students due to the popularity of the two. If you decide to specialize it depends in what ... surgery, lameness, radiography, internal medicine, etc... but it will require 2-4 and maybe more college ON TOP of vet school. This its self can be competitive in its own league since it is the best of the best competing for the spots. With a specialization you will work at a referral clinic, a highly specialized clinic, or at an university. You in most all of these settings will be working under others and will have to work your way up even with a specialization. You should not worry about that now that can wait til 3rd or 4th year of vet school. So in short remember 2 things EXPERIENCE and GRADES (A's).