Abstract
A one-credit hour, elective, professional development course was created at North Carolina State University to introduce pre-veterinary track students to the admissions process and the breadth of the veterinary profession. The course was designed to facilitate career exploration while building self-efficacy through vicarious learning, interacting with speakers in various veterinary subfields, and addressing misperceptions about veterinary admissions. To evaluate the student learning objectives and improve upon the current practices of the course, data from two pretest and posttest course surveys for 235 course participants between Spring 2014 and 2017 were analyzed. The results of the study showed that students experienced significant gains in self-appraisal (Cohen’s d ranged 1.88 to 2.53), gathering occupational information (Cohen’s d ranged 1.59 to 2.53), goal selection (Cohen’s d ranged 2.14 to 2.53), and planning and problem-solving (Cohen’s d ranged 1.88 to 2.77) as well as experienced a decrease in five misperceptions about veterinary admissions. This novel course is presented as a prospective course for other universities.
Highlights
Appropriate training and education must be obtained from a College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), which has competitive admissions processes that vary per school (American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, 2020)
Student learning objectives for the course utilizing the pretest and posttest surveys served as the basis for evaluating the degree to which the course objectives were achieved
The results showed a 62.5% decrease in students who did not know whether an advanced degree was favored by admissions committees, and a 97.1% decrease in students who did not know whether engaging in a study abroad was favored by admissions committees
Summary
Appropriate training and education must be obtained from a College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), which has competitive admissions processes that vary per school (American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, 2020). Research shows that undergraduate students have a tendency to focus on perfectionism and building resumes rather than on career exploration; they exhibit a tendency to create a weak career identity (Sterle et al, 2016). These weak career identities cause concerns for students in their early graduate career when they are utilizing graduate school as their first opportunity for career exploration (Lehker and Furlong, 2006). The authors speculate that, by providing opportunities for students to engage with vocationally and racially diverse speakers, pre-veterinary students may be better able to develop their self-efficacy and to create attainable and personalized career goals
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