Lindsey Klem

There’s definitely opportunities to find connections and friends outside of the vet school through joining sports clubs (like run clubs hosted by school-wide organizations, typically undergrad clubs), signing up for workout classes (which is what I did!), or meeting people organically at coffee shops, farmers markets, etc. I would say, most of who I hang out with are my classmates, but one way to also make connections outside of your own class/cohort is to make friends with upperclassmen. This can be done by joining the vet school clubs such as VBMA, where a lot of networking happens.

My greatest advice is to push yourself out of your comfort zone during vet school. There’s so many opportunities to work with new species, learn about new technologies, and get out and network with doctors and other students. My goal for my first year of vet school was to work primarily with large animal and exotics, since I did not get that experience during undergrad. It paid off, since now I am interested in going into mixed animal practice. Had I not pushed myself out of my comfort zone, I might not have found the confidence to pursue more for myself and take advantage of all that WSU’s CVM has to offer.

WSU’s DVM program is preparing me to critically think through cases with the Clinical Reasoning and Evidence-Based Medicine elective, as well as giving me confidence with technical hands-on skills through our Principles of Surgery and Clinical Skills Labs. This has already helped me as a student- I was able to apply what I had learned from Clinical Skills Lab to scrub into a pyometra surgery at a small animal ER and perform cat neuters at my clinic back home. I have no doubt that my future years in vet school will also lead me to be successful.