Whenever we go to veterinary meetings, we always meet lots of vet students. These are some of the nicest, smartest, and poorest people we know. So we said to ourselves: what if we sponsored a vet student? And that’s how Cheyenne Sams, a 3rd year veterinary student at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, came to be the first-ever “SmartPak Vet Student Class Rep!” For her first blog, we thought we’d let her introduce herself:

I’m originally from Bluemont, VA. I’ve known I wanted to be a veterinarian since I was in kindergarten. For the longest time it was because I liked animals and just wanted to help them. When I was 7 years old my parents bought me a large pony named Eddie (an Arab/Welsh) that I did Pony Club with, rode in the local hunter shows, and even had the opportunity to swim with in a lake. When I was a freshman in undergrad, Eddie passed away due to colic. From that point on, I realized that one of my reasons for becoming a veterinarian is so I can help take care of people’s horses so they can have the time and opportunity to form the kind of bond that Eddie and I had shared. I think that the bond between an animal, especially a horse, and a human is one of the most unique bonds that there is because there is a huge trust component with it that other relationships don’t always have.

I went to undergrad at the University of Virginia and graduated in 2016 with a B.A. in Biology. For extracurriculars I volunteered at the local SPCA and also at a horse barn working with children and horses. I enjoyed mentoring to the children and watching their comfort level grow with both the horses and the other volunteers from school.

Applying to vet school was stressful — working your hardest to get the grades that you did during undergrad and then sending them off to schools to judge them and decide if you should receive an interview based on the paper-version of yourself. When I read the letter saying that I had an interview at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine I had a moment of disbelief, then I felt pure excitement that a school wanted to get to know me better, and then I had a feeling of horror when I realized that this meant that I had to interview with a panel of THREE people at school! Waiting to hear back about my acceptance was even worse than waiting to hear about an interview, but when I finally got that letter, I nearly cried with joy.

The first year of veterinary school was a complete change from undergrad — the courses were completely different, the material was different, and I could no longer drive the 2 hours home over a long weekend if I wanted to. The first-year curriculum was focused mostly on anatomy and how things are supposed to function. The second-year curriculum focuses more on what happens when things go wrong — pathology. Third year has been great because it has been the first chance that we have really had during school to work with live animals – junior surgery – our spay/neuter lab. I said that I was never going to adopt a junior surgery animal (I already have one dog, Roo, and one cat, Gonzo, with me at school). Of course, this didn’t work out and I adopted our first Junior Surgery kitten, Sam. I also told myself that he was going to be my parent’s cat, but I’m planning on bringing him back to school with me after winter break.

I will be starting clinical rotations in the spring of 2019, so I will be one step closer to graduation and DONE with classes! This is exciting and nerve-racking for me because this means that I am one step closer to becoming a veterinarian. I’ll get to apply everything that I have learned the past 2.5 years of vet school and will be tested every day with my knowledge and practical skills. All of this will help me prepare for the NAVLE (North American Veterinary Licensing Examination or “boards”) that I will be taking in 1 year (my roommates both took the NAVLE this winter, so I was able to watch their stress levels rise until they took their exam, and now they just have to wait to see if they’ve passed! I’m sure they both did).

After graduation, I hope to do an equine-exclusive internship, hopefully somewhere on the East coast. By doing an internship, this will give me more experience under the mentorship of other equine practitioners and this will help me figure out what I am interested in with regards to equine medicine, whether that be sports medicine, internal medicine, surgery, or something else!