Question: What degrees will I need to become a veterinarian? Study years? Etc...

  1. A few universities have veterinarian studies. Essentially, you should study science in years 11 and 12. It takes about 5 years to complete the university study. However, some universities are changing their veterinarian studies to postgraduate degrees, which means you first finish a 3 year degree and then do a second degree in veterinary science.

    0

  2. Yes, Uni webpages can give you advice on this stuff. You need to study chemistry and maths, and biology helps. Do science.

    Being a vet is pretty competitive – you will need good grades to get in to the course because a lot of people want to do it.

    Kieran is right that some places do vet like this: regular undergrad course for 2-3 years, then the vet stuff. This tells you something. It means that you need to make sure you have a good general science background before you start worrying about animals. It may seem odd to you now, but it’ll make a lot of sense when you’re doing it!

    0

  3. A Bachelor of Veterinary Science is a 5 year Undergraduate course which you can be accepted into straight after high school. The other option is an Undergraduate science degree (3 years) then postgraduate Vet (4 years at Melbourne University, don’t know about other courses). It’s a lot of study, and you have to have really good marks to be accepted, so you’d better work hard!

    This website has some good information:

    http://www.webwombat.com.au/careers_ed/education/vet.htm

    Did you know that you can also become a veterinary nurse? The qualification for this should be a one year Certificate that can be done through TAFE. You still get to care for, examine and treat animals, and it won’t require as many years of study.

    1

  4. Not all universities offer the Veterinary Science course that you need to complete in order to become a veterinarian. The link that Aimee has provided lists which universities in Australia offers the course. It does take 5 years to finish the course and it is also quite tough to get into the course. Your ATAR score needs be high and this will change from year to year and from uni to uni so it’s best to check on this for what is expected. And what they would like you to study in high school to prepare for being accepted into a Veterinary Science course will also be different between universities.

    Good luck!

    0

  5. Yes, you need to do a Bachelor of Veterinary Science, which is usually 5 years. You can also do it as a graduate degree, which means you need to have done some other uni degree first. Graduate vet science is only 4 years at Melbourne Uni – that’s the shortest course I’ve heard of.

    There are other uni degrees you can do if you want to work with animals. Remember, animals that go to the vet are often sick or injured and often have to be put down. Do you think you would handle putting an animal down? I considered doing vet and I decided that I didn’t want to work with sick animals all the time and have to put them down. I decided to study zoology instead. That way I get to work with animals in the wild that are healthy.

    1

Comments

  1. Thanks guys, this made me serious contemplate what I want to do as my major career 😀

    0