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“The decision is finally made: I want to be a vet! But where do I study it?”
It’s going to be 5,5+- years of your life. Better make them some good ones! (The best years of your life?!)
Why not Norway?
As a Norwegian one might wonder why I did not pursue vet school in my own country. I guess for me (and most other countries) vet school is very difficult to get into. We have one vet school in Norway (or 1,5) - so you can see how the competition is very high. You basically need straight A’s (or grade 6 in my country) to even get in to the school. There is one other vet school that serves the first year and a half in Norway, and the rest in Slovakia. Personally I was never really interested in studying in Norway, and therefore never applied. Since sometime in middle school I felt a call, a call to leave the country - and find what was waiting for me out there! And this call ended up being the best gut feeling I ever followed.
A whole world of vet schools
And so the search began. You have the world to choose from; where will you go?
At first I was looking at the big famous schools. Maybe I will study in Australia? Or go to Harvard University in America?! I quickly found out these schools were hard to get into as well, alongside the 9 years it would take me in the states to become a vet. Not to mention the financial problems as I wouldn’t even get the loans big enough to pay the school & live there. (I am not saying it is impossible if you have the financial support and the time, but it seemed unrealistic to me at that point). And so I started to change up my options, and started looking at one of the best vet schools out there - “The Royal Veterinary College” in England. I started emailing some friends and “acrossthepond”, and realized this school also was very hard to get into, on top of being very expensive as well. Don’t get me wrong, Norwegians do get a generous loan/scholarship from the government, but as far as I could see at that time, it wouldn’t be enough to cover school fees and support a living. I was looking at other schools in the UK/Scotland as well, but they all seemed quite hard to get in to as well as expensive. I also started to ask a friend about the vet school in South Africa - but put it aside quickly as it sounded like it also was expensive and hard to get into.
A warm recommendation from a friend
And as it remains the most credible form of advertisement today - I got a warm recommendation from one of my friends back home. “Come study in Poland with me!” She said. “You will not regret it!”. And so I started looking into vet schools in central Europe. I realized a lot of these schools were a lot easier to get into, and was within my financial budget. These countries offer a cheap living as well, which can serve for a decent student life. Also they had an English division, which is a must for me. I met the subject requirements for all of them, and most of the schools were only 5,5 years long (which is a lot shorter than what I would study in America). I was thinking about Hungary and Czech Republic as well - but hearing that the schools in Poland had a lot of transfer students from there, made me question it. Poland mainly has two vet schools with an English division - one in Warsaw, and one in Wroclaw. Warsaw’s vet school is quite big, and has pretty big classes compared to Wroclaw. I prefer smaller and more familiar groups - and decided to go study in Wroclaw together with my "horsie" friends from back home. Wroclaw also has a slightly cheaper tuition fee than Warsaw's school.
I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER WITH MY CHOICE!!
Like I tell all my friends at home as well; I honestly wouldn’t be anywhere else, even if I could. All the reasons why I love studying in Wroclaw will be revealed in my next blog, “11 reasons to study in Wroclaw”! <3 If you want to see what my life and travels look like, check out my instagram at @travelingvetstudent.
Questions are welcome in the comments!