Career Attitudes of First-Year Veterinary Students Before and After a Required Course on Veterinary Careers

Abstract

Careers in Veterinary Medicine is a required, one-credit-hour course at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine (NCSU-CVM), which meets once weekly during veterinary students' first semester. Lectures in this course are presented by one or more veterinarians representing diverse career areas. A voluntary, anonymous survey was distributed before the first class meeting in 2011 (PRE) and at the end of the semester (POST) to assess if students' career interests changed during the semester. The survey collected basic demographic data and students' preferences (on a Likert scale) for 17 veterinary career paths. Out of 63 students, 36 (57%) in the POST survey said that their career interests had changed during the semester, and 17 of the 26 students (65%) who gave a reason credited the careers course as one factor in reconsidering their career choice. Only 3 of the 17 career paths had statistically significant PRE/POST survey differences in Likert response frequency (equine practice, pathology, and wildlife medicine), but both informal discussions with students and responses to open-ended survey questions indicated that many students valued the introduction to unfamiliar veterinary career areas. Careers in Veterinary Medicine is a vital component of recent career-planning initiatives in the college, which will be especially important to veterinary students as they face continued changes in the profession, such as the increased debt load of the new graduate and the threat of veterinary workforce oversupply.