Now, I know I should be enjoying myself since work is light and spring is here. And I am enjoying myself, in an angst-ridden, nervous kind of way. I keep looking up places to live, textbooks to buy, and student organizations to join, and reading the insightful blog of a soon-to-be second year vet student.
Notes on the latter: according to her, there are two loose groupings of vet students. One believes in study, study, study! The harder you study, the better you'll do, and the better jobs, openings, etc. you will receive. Work hard ... and that's about it. The other group believes you should get out there, join as many organizations as possible, and get as much experience as possible. Grades, schmades.
Now, I'd like to believe I fall somewhere in the middle. However, I said there are two schools of thought, and you can't always straddle the fence. Looking back on my past, I cruised through high school... didn't care much about my grades, and got As in most of my classes. In undergrad, I believed grades weren't a big deal and it was whether or not you finally grasped the material (which I did) that mattered, rather than your grades (which didn't really indicate I understood a whole lot). Then I graduated, worked for 2 years, and here I am now.
There's a lot I want to do in vet school. I'd like to start horseback riding again. I want to join a wildlife medical center, which takes orphaned babies and injured animals and nurses them back to the wild. Then there are a handful of other clubs that look like fun. In between these activities (and apparently the wildlife one takes up a lot of your time), I need to find time to learn a lot of material. Not that I'm biased, but veterinary students have to learn as much as medical students - and then learn the nuances of 3 or 4 other, completely different, animal species. And keep them all straight. That's a lot of information for a brain to store.
Along those lines, all that information is important. It's very important to an animal that probably hasn't been born yet that I remember the symptoms of vitamin D, or E, or A deficiencies. Grades really do matter this time. (Okay, grades really did matter in college too, but I got along fine and came out with a very well-rounded eduation, in my opinion.) I want to be near the top of the class so I can choose my internships and choose my job. And salary.
How to find time to do everything? If only I didn't need 8 hours of sleep a night...
I'm hoping that I can get some textbooks ahead of time and familiarize myself with some anatomy, to make future memorization a little easier. Everything's a bit clearer the second time around.