vetmed - how much study?

aoifeX

hey ! sorry if this has been asked before !
im in 6th year atm and am wondering how much study i should be doing if im looking to do veterinary?
also, not saying i will get the points but if i do does that mean im able for the course? anyone iv talked to says its alot of hard work! which if i get there im prepared to do.. just afraid i wouldnt be able for it! how much study would you do per week? and also how helpful is it to have done science (chem , bio and Ag) for the LC?
thanks !

TDOie

aoifeX wrote: »

hey ! sorry if this has been asked before !
im in 6th year atm and am wondering how much study i should be doing if im looking to do veterinary?
also, not saying i will get the points but if i do does that mean im able for the course? anyone iv talked to says its alot of hard work! which if i get there im prepared to do.. just afraid i wouldnt be able for it! how much study would you do per week? and also how helpful is it to have done science (chem , bio and Ag) for the LC?
thanks !

Points for courses are dictated by their popularity not by their level of difficulty. If its for you the studying etc. wont be an issue. If a course involves science in college generally it can be a plus to have done some science in secondary although not normally required.

El Siglo

Very simple, veterinary medicine does require a lot of points and I think chemistry is a requirement as far as I recall. It's a science course so you can almost guarantee that you'll be working 40 hrs+ per week. Focus on your leaving cert for now, if you want to do this course then apply for it and see what happens. Worry about the difficulty of the course once you're in it.

Ado86

aoifeX wrote: »

hey ! sorry if this has been asked before !
im in 6th year atm and am wondering how much study i should be doing if im looking to do veterinary?
also, not saying i will get the points but if i do does that mean im able for the course? anyone iv talked to says its alot of hard work! which if i get there im prepared to do.. just afraid i wouldnt be able for it! how much study would you do per week? and also how helpful is it to have done science (chem , bio and Ag) for the LC?
thanks !

How much study is hard to quantify, obviously it depends on you. The main thing is to get enough points to get into the course. You need to be on top of all your subjects an aiming high, for A grades.
To a certain degree if you are able to get the points and get into veterinary, you are likely to be able for the course- usually.
The course is very hard, and gets harder each year... but as you progress you become better equipped to handle the study and the stress of exams.
I did biology and chemistry for LC, and found them to be the most helpful. People who didnt have biology did struggle in first year. And Ag science would definitely be a great help to you too. Personally, dont really see any need for physics.

Red_Marauder

aoifeX wrote: »

hey ! sorry if this has been asked before !
im in 6th year atm and am wondering how much study i should be doing if im looking to do veterinary?

It's not how much study you do it's how good your grades are and where you rank in your class in relation to high peroforming students likely to get about 600 is (in my opinion) probably the best indicator of your likelihood of success. I firmly believe that getting into veterinary is the hardest part of the course.

also, not saying i will get the points but if i do does that mean im able for the course?

I probably seem like I'm going to contradict what I just said, but no, definitely not. You need to really want to study Veterinary. It's not like commerce or arts, you have to be able to see a specific end-goal, be that a practicing veterinary surgeon, or a reasearcher, or whatever it is.

anyone iv talked to says its alot of hard work!

It's a lot of hard work when you need to study. There are lots of study gaps in veterinary, and then there are grey areas where you probably should study but you wing by through really going at it when you really need to. You need to know and respect your limits and your own personal study needs. Vet students typically cram a lot. I knew about 10 consistent studiers out of my year of about 70, and that's not an exaggeration. You'll find it's nothing like the leaving cert. Some people go mad after all that CAO malarky.

which if i get there im prepared to do.. just afraid i wouldnt be able for it! how much study would you do per week? and also how helpful is it to have done science (chem , bio and Ag) for the LC?

It's impossible to say how much study you need to do. As a rough guide, you need to be on May of the Leaving Cert study levels for your exams. But that's just twice a year, the rest of the time, keep it ticking over with an average of hour or so in the library every evening, most people are fine with that.

It's a science course so you can almost guarantee that you'll be working 40 hrs+ per week.

This isn't really true and veterianry isn't strictly like the science courses. There is a lot of self-directed learning and not much time in labs during the first two years as you might expect. Anatomy is the biggest lab dedication in first year and part of second year and a lot of that could be demolished by less standing about chatting!
Study wise, I'm an average enough student and I did about 5 or 6 hours study during the week, a few more hours over the weekend, and did very heavy sessions around exams. Some people do less than that and get on fine.

There are definitely not forty hours per week of lectures btw, it's probably less than twenty by now. Lecturers in the pre clinical years are very research focused and like to encourage a lot of self-directed learning, problem based learning, that sort of thing.

Hope that helps.

Oh as for Chemistry, it will be of some help yes, but don't expect to pass first year chemistry. It's a lottery and taken as a joke - LC Chemistry will be of no help!
Ag Science will come in handy for 2nd year and some subsequent general knowledge but is pretty useless for first year really