Spring semester

I'm now over half way through my second semester at vet school and I can't believe how fast it has gone! It still feels like I just got back after Christmas. The work load has been similar to last semester but I think I might be getting better at coping with it because it hasn't seemed as intense as last semester.

We still have a lot of credit tests. Last week I had three which was pretty hectic, but they all went fine in the end. We have started some new modules about bees, fish, hygiene and nutrition as well as carrying on with some we started last semester like histology, physiology and anatomy. In anatomy we're now on to the organs which I am enjoying a lot more than muscles. It's really interesting and also a little bit easier which helps! The new modules are quite interesting, I'm getting quite into learning about bees, haha. The Bees lecturer is very enthusiastic which is kind of infectious. Plus I do like honey!

Kosice is lovely at the moment. It has been about 15C every day and very sunny. It isn't usually so warm at this time of year, the winter has been unusually mild. I'm definitely not complaining though!

I have received a few messages from people applying to start here at Kosice in September which are always welcome! If you comment me with your email address/other contact info I'm always happy to answer any questions you have about the course and the city. I remember when I was applying this time last year and how difficult it can be to find information. One resource that I found very helpful was the Kosice thread on the student room forum. It's very long now but you can use the search bar to search for keywords. I actually read the whole thing from start to finish, but that can be very time consuming!

I look forward to hearing from any new applicants :)

Next update will probably be around the Easter break because I should get a bit of free
time.

Bye for now!

Lucy

First semester complete!

My first semester of vet school is over! I had my last exam yesterday and now I have 6 days of nothingness before lectures start again next week. :)

I passed all my exams thankfully, but some of them were quite difficult. Certain exams were definitely harder to pass than the ones I took for my zoology degree. I could always be fairly confident about passing my zoology exams, but here I have a feeling there’s always a chance I could fail! Most of the exams are oral here which means we get the marks back almost straight away. My final marks for this semester are:
Anatomy – C
Genetics – C
Milk Hygiene – A
Latin – A
Slovak – A

There are a few different dates for each of the final exams so you’re able to choose when you take them; you can either cram them all in before Christmas or spread them out over the whole exam period. I took 3 before Christmas (Latin, Milk Hygiene and Slovak) and I left Anatomy and Genetics until the end of the exam period. I definitely needed the extra revision time for Anatomy and Genetics; they were by far the hardest exams! It meant I got a good long time at home for Christmas which was really nice and I managed to work a few days at my job at the zoo to earn some extra tuition fee money!

I also got to get better acquainted with this little man:

He’s still a bit wary of me; I think he might prefer my mum, who looks after him while I’m at uni. He will follow Ruby over to me if he thinks there are treats but he doesn’t climb all over me to get them like she does! I’m pretty impressed with the amount of hay he eats. I’ve never had a proper hay monster rabbit. Ruby eats a lot of hay but she eats it because it’s food rather than because she enjoys it. Willow seems to really love it and I’ve tried him with a few different types as a treat. For any other rabbits out there, he especially recommends Burns Green Oat and Excel Herbage Camomile ;) 

These last few months have gone so quickly, I’m now 1/8^th of the way through the course! I’m looking forward to starting lectures for next semester now (although a bit of a break is very welcome). We got our new timetable yesterday and it looks very busy. A few new subjects we are starting this semester are Animal Hygiene and Welfare, Nutrition and dietetics, and Diseases of Fish and Bees. We are also starting to study organs in Anatomy, which sounds really interesting!

Bye for now!

Lucy

First semester of vet school

It’s been too long, I’m sorry! My excuse is that having now started vet school, I have next to no free time. 

I arrived in Kosice in the first week of September. The first week I was there I mostly spent kitting my room out, going to a few fresher’s events and exploring the town. I managed to turn my dorms room from this:

Into this:

It has changed a bit since then. I have stacked the two single beds on top of one another so I now have a high single bed and there is so much more space in my room! You’re allowed to do basically whatever you want to your room. I was slightly disheartened when I saw my room to start with but now I’ve made it feel like home. 

After that first week of relaxation we got stuck straight in with lectures. Most of what we have covered this semester has been revision from my previous degree (physiology, microbiology etc) but we also started on anatomy which I have never studied before. There are credit tests every week in anatomy which means I have had at least one credit test every week (the most in one week so far has been 4!) so it’s pretty intense. We have already covered the whole skeletal and muscular system, then next week we will start on joints, then next semester it is on to organs. I’m surprised by how much I’ve learnt already. A couple of days ago I unearthed this picture of a sheep skull that I drew about 7 years ago and I found that I could identify all the little foramen and lumps and bumps that I drew :)

I haven’t made much progress in learning the language, unfortunately! Even our Slovak teacher said we would probably never learn it. It’s very different to English, and the locals speak very quickly. I can recognise lots of words written down (which is helpful when shopping) but any attempts at conversation usually fail. It doesn’t help that when I attempt to speak Slovak, I’m usually asked to “Speak English, slowly”. My English is obviously easier for Slovak people to understand than my attempts at their own language :( I’ll keep trying with it, but to be honest studying Slovak is taking a back seat to all the other subjects. 

On a sad note, my little man Pipkin died just a couple of weeks before I left for Slovakia :( He seemed to be improving after quite a difficult year but I took him for a dental after the vet noticed some spurs and this time he didn’t survive the anaesthetic. He was such a special rabbit and I still miss him a lot. <3 nbsp="" p="">

We have since adopted another little bun to pair with Ruby. His name is Willow and he’s a nethie like Pipkin but red eyed white colour. I have only met him a couple of times so far but he is very sweet and more of a cuddle bun than any of the rabbits I’ve owned before. He is getting on very well with Ruby :) I can’t wait to get to know him properly when I go home for Christmas.  

I’ll try to make a few more posts over the next couple of days about what else I’ve been up to since I got here (no promises though!). I only have one credit test next week which is a bit of a relief! If not I will update sometime over Christmas :)

Bye for now!

Lucy

4 weeks to go!

Yesterday it was exactly four weeks until I travel to Kosice. The time has gone so quickly and I feel like I still have so much to do in the next few weeks!

I have sorted out my Caxton FX card which is a prepaid currency card. It means I can load money onto it online from my UK bank accounts and then use it in ATMs and card machines in Europe without any extra fees. I'm hoping to use this for the whole course rather than opening a Slovak bank account. It was really easy to set up, and compares favourably to other prepaid currency cards I looked at, some of which charged a fee per transaction or for inactivity.

This will make me seem a bit too keen but I've already packed my suitcase! I wanted to make sure I could fit everything in a while in advance so I'd know whether I need to pay for a second suitcase. It looks like I'll just about have room for everything, and I've paid for extra hand luggage so I should manage to fit everything else I need in there. The vacuum storage bags have been a life saver. There's no way I'd have fitted everything in without them! I'm also thankful for the 32kg weight limit with Wizz Air because my suitcase weighs in at about 27kg!! I'm used to travelling light so I think it's the heaviest suitcase I've every packed.

The bus from Budapest to Kosice is all booked! I'm travelling with some other new students so we can all get lost together.

I'm also trying to get the animals sorted out before I leave and my mum takes over their care. Pipkin my netherland dwarf rabbit has chronic dental problems and he's having a bit of a flare up at the moment. His tooth roots are very elongated which causes inflammation and infection. I've switched him from zithromax (which didn't seem to be working) to baytril today so hopefully he'll see some improvement very soon. The vet mentioned that we might have to think about having some of his molars taken out but I want to leave that as a very last resort because we've managed to sort his problems out with a course of antibiotics before (also I'm scared!).

The buns have a nice new hutch and run combo because their old one was getting a bit tatty and I was worried about bits breaking off while I'm away! My next project is to do up the aviary and hopefully get electricity installed so we can have a light up there.

I have another day off tomorrow (two in a row! :D) so I'm going to make a trip to Wickes to pick up some stuff for the aviary.

Bye for now!

Lucy

Name Change

I've decided to change the title and URL of my blog because from now on I'm hoping to make it more focused on my adventures and experiences at vet school rather than my personal ramblings. The title may be a little boring but it is more descriptive than the old title so hopefully it will help relevant readers find this blog.

I'll probably still post a few knitted objects as well because I'm hoping to start selling a few bits to raise funds for my vet studies.

Lucy

UVM Kosice

I received my start dates for September yesterday, so I know when I'll be registering, starting the course etc. It's good to have a date in mind so I can start planning my flight over :)

I've been doing lots of research on the university and the city since I applied, so I'll try to summarise what I've found out in this post.

So, the University of Veterinary Medicine in Kosice! There is a bit of information about the university and the veterinary course on its website (here) but I didn't find it that helpful so had to do my own digging.
UVM Kosice runs veterinary medicine courses in both English and Slovak, with a 6-year course for school leavers and a 4-year course for graduates with an animal/science based degree, which is the course I have a place on. Completing the course gets you a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine qualification (DVM) and allows you to register with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) to practice in the UK, same as a graduate from any of the UK universities. There is a list of qualifications accepted by the RCVS here. The course has also been accredited by the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE), the same as all the UK universities.

With tuition fees currently at €7,500 (£6415.91), studying there will work out a lot cheaper than in the UK (where tuition fees are now £9000 per year), especially because living costs in Slovakia are also a lot cheaper. A room in the university dormitories is €111 (£94.96) a MONTH, which you can easily pay per week in halls at a UK uni. I'm not expecting dorms to be the height of luxury but I'm hoping to stick it out for the four years to bring the costs down, as renting a flat seems to be about double the price, although still cheap by UK standards!

The course is in English, but I'm hoping to learn a bit of the Slovak language while I'm out there. I never really studied a language except French at school, and I only remember the very basics. There is a module in Slovak in the first year, but I'm also going to try to learn a few phrases before I get there; I'd like to be able to at least ask for directions! I've found this website which seems like it will be useful, it has recordings of the pronunciation as well as pages of useful phrases.

I'll leave it at that for now, but hopefully my next post will be about the city of Kosice.

So, dovidenia (goodbye)!

Lucy

It's been a long time...

...but I decided to revive my blog!

A lot has happened since I last posted (well it has been over a year!) so I don't quite know where to start.
After my RVC interview last year I was rejected at the end of March, so I applied again in October, had an interview this year in January and was rejected AGAIN in March. The RVC obviously don't want me, so I moved on to my back up plan; studying abroad.

I applied to the University of Veterinary Medicine in Košice, Slovakia, shortly after receiving my second rejection and... I have a place! So I'll be starting there this September. The main reason I'm restarting this blog is to help out anyone who is thinking of studying there. The course seems to be getting more popular but there's still not much information out there for potential applicants so hopefully I'll be able to rectify that a bit once I get started on the course.

In other news, I've been working in the retail department of a local zoo since March last year, and also volunteering on the Africa department which has been a lot of fun! Especially getting to hang out with newborns like this little guy.

The giraffes are probably my favourite. I think it's because I look a little bit like one!

That's all for now. I'll try to keep the updates regular from now on! Hopefully I'll post some pictures of the things I've been knitting over the past year in the next few days. I have vague plans to sell some of them off to raise funds for my studies but we'll see how it goes.

Bye!

Lucy

Interview, knitting, and CROCHET!

Had my RVC interview on Wednesday! At the moment I’m thinking I probably haven’t got in, but it depends on how everyone else did I think. Some of the stations were really good and others were really bad :( The RVC are interviewing until the 21^st March, so I won’t hear anything until after then. It seems so loooong to wait! 

Even though the interview wasn’t amazing it was nice looking around the campus. I have been to the Hawkshead campus on an open day but I hadn’t visited Camden campus before. There is a little anatomy museum inside which is really cool; lots of skeletons and pickled animal parts! Some of the skeletons spilled over into the cafe as well. I was sitting in there waiting for my interview next to an elephant skeleton which was pretty cool. 

If I get in I had been planning on travelling in every day since it’s not that far, but now I kind of want to live in halls again, lol. I didn’t really like living in halls at Nottingham but the RVC ones seem really nice and they are just 2 minutes from the uni building which would be nice (instead of being a 2 hour bus journey away).

Moving away from interview-speak: I have knit this!

 

Isn’t it cute? It is a bed bug from this book that I mentioned a few posts ago. I did make him a hat like the example in the book but it didn’t fit him very well :( Think it needs some larger needles.

Two bedbugs together

Ooh, also I tried crochet. I think the yarn I have is a bit thick for my hook size (I only have two hooks at the moment and they’re both quite small) but it didn’t turn out as badly as I expected. At first I wanted to go running back to the knitting needles but after a while I decided it wasn’t so bad. I haven’t attempted an actual pattern yet, I think I will get some better sized hooks first. I look forward to trying some amigurumi patterns though.

This picture isn’t of my very first attempt (which I seem to have lost) but is just some single crochet practice:

 Bye for now!

Lucy

Vetty work experience

I have been at work experience at a lovely mixed vet practice this week which has been a nice break from shop work (especially the week before Christmas!). I think it has been my favourite vet placement so far, I have seen so much! 

The practice sees lots of exotics so I had the chance to meet a chameleon and some bearded dragons, and watch surgery on a snake. I have always thought that exotics is something I’d really like to specialise in if I ever get to be a vet, but I hadn’t had much experience in that area before this week. Now I know for definite that it’s an area I find really interesting.

I didn’t manage to see as much equine as I was hoping (it was kind of the reason I wanted to go to a mixed practice!), just a few visits for vaccinations. I’m sad I can’t spend a bit more time there but they’re closing early for Christmas so I have only done the four days this week. If I get into vet school I’d love to go back there for EMS. 

Now it’s back to normal work for a couple of days and then CHRISTMAS, which means a day of overeating and sleeping lots. I’m going to my Nan’s house for Christmas day and she makes reeeally good mince pies. Yummeh!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Year. I will try not to leave it weeks before updating again. 

Lucy