Ashleigh Frain is a
pre-veterinary medicine sophomore at Elmhurst College majoring in biology. She
recently applied for the 3+4 affiliation Elmhurst has with the College of
Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC). Eligible Elmhurst students apply to the CVM after their first year of
college; which is two or more years earlier than most applicants. Accepted
students have the option to earn their bachelor’s and Doctor of
Veterinary Medicine degrees in 7 years instead of 8 years. Below Ashleigh shares a bit
about her preparations to apply and interview for the affiliation.
Ashleigh Frain and her golden retriever.
Around this time last year, one could not only find me
worrying about final exams and essays that I still had yet to write, but also
about the huge amounts of animal and clinical experience that I had to garner before
applying for the affiliation. Even though I volunteered at animal shelters, took
veterinary classes at Northwestern University, pet-sit, and own a variety of
animals, it was important for me to diversify my experiences further. Being
more reserved, it was somewhat difficult to cold call animal hospitals to ask
if any of the veterinarians would allow me to shadow them, but for the sake of
my future career I was able to gather the courage to do so. I shadowed multiple
veterinarians at Grayslake Animal Hospital over 6 months. During that time, the
doctors taught me anything I wanted to know from how to work with customers to the
diagnostic tests to use for each illness. In addition to gaining experience at
the animal hospital, I was also able to help out at my friend’s farm. Her
parents board and train horses, and they allowed me to do some small tasks to
care for the horses so that I could get a feel for being around them. All of
these amazing opportunities helped me learn more about the field and made my
application for the affiliation stronger as well.
After the initial application review, I was offered an
interview at UIUC. Preparing for the interview and actually interviewing at the
veterinary school were the hardest parts of my journey so far. I took questions
that I was asked during my mock interview as well as questions from other
veterinary school interviews that I found online and practiced answering them.
I practiced them with my parents, my friends, and even by talking to myself
during my commute to and from Elmhurst every day. I focused on making my
answers almost second nature so that my nervousness would not make me forget
what I wanted to say. During the interview I had a pad of paper with a few key
words and phrases on it to jog my memory in case I did forget a point I wanted
to make. The interview went well, and I was offered a seat in the UIUC College
of Veterinary Medicine! It was very rewarding and relieving in the end to know
that all of my hard work paid off. However, this is only the beginning of my exciting
journey to become a veterinarian!
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