I have just finished the intense and rewarding 5-day retreat at UC Davis for first year veterinary students. Many of you may be wondering, what is a “retreat”, what was the purpose; why not start learning the material and veterinary coursework right away?
There are many reasons for not just diving straight into the course material. One of the main reasons for establishing a retreat before coursework is to break the ice. Let’s face it, we hardly know each other. Since I went to Davis as an undergrad, I knew some people, but after the retreat, I found I had not known them that well. My fellow students were from all over the US and even one from Canada! During the retreat, we were put into many different groups and introduced to all 133 people in our class. In our various groups, we worked on team-building strategies while at the same time having fun doing it. We were making the transition from being competitive undergraduates striving to be accepted to veterinary school, to a collaborative team that shared a common goal: to GRADUATE from veterinary school.
Team building was the focus of the retreat. It was highlighted during every minute, every hour, every day. Although a team cannot be built in a single day, it is vital that each member understand each other and themselves. What you bring to a group is important in the veterinary profession.
Networking is vital to your survival as a future veterinarian. We learned that sometimes it is not always, what you know, but whom you know. Networking offers the opportunity to learn new things and expand your knowledge and skill set. By making connections with your peers, friends, professors, or colleges, you can greatly benefit. During the retreat, we had networking lunches with our student mentors (second and third year students), our professor mentors, and the CVMA (California Veterinary Medical Association). These lunches were a great way to ask questions about being a veterinary student, opportunities available to us as students, and personal opinions and preferences of current veterinarians on the cutting edge of the profession.
During the retreat, we learned that trust is a critical factor to your team’s success. Trust is like glue and is what holds a team together through the good times and the bad. A team’s strength is seen by how it copes with failures and setbacks, which are inevitable in veterinary school. Trust is relying on one another to reach a common goal or purpose. Building good teams requires the building of a solid foundation built on the foundation of trust. During orientation, actually on our first day, we did several trust-fall exercises. We were able to fall back and trust that our team members would be there to catch us. At first, I thought it was a silly exercise, but when you look at the underlying principal, it is vital to success in veterinary school. One person without trust in others cannot make it in this type of profession.
Being able to understand and work with different personality types is also vital to your success in veterinary school as well as the veterinary profession. Using the Myers Briggs (MBTI) personality typing was super fun. I learned a lot about my own personality as well as how I can adapt to work better with others. It is funny because my boyfriend and I are exact opposites in several categories identified by Myers-Briggs, which may indicate why we often butt heads. I think realizing and remembering that you are working with a mesh of different personality types is important in even being a member of society. I encourage everyone to take the free test online and discover what you may or may not know about yourself, your friends, or loved ones.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Reflection was a major part of the retreat. After every exercise, time was allotted for reflection on the activity. These points of reflection allowed us to think critically about what each specific activity taught us individually and as a group. Although sometimes many of us were more focused on if we accomplished the task rather than how we worked to meet our goal (myself included). Our retreat instructors always pointed out that it didn’t matter if we actually saved our Parvo Puppy, or made a perfect square out of rope, but that we had worked together to do everything in our power to try. As the retreat went on, people who seemed shy at the beginning came out and were freely speaking their feelings.
During the retreat, we also learned how to use our computers and the CERE veterinary site which houses all our class lecture material, some quizzes and podcasts. These skills were rudimentary compared to those I learned about teamwork and trust. I am glad that I shared the retreat experience with my classmates and excited to start my first real veterinary classes on Friday.
There are many reasons for not just diving straight into the course material. One of the main reasons for establishing a retreat before coursework is to break the ice. Let’s face it, we hardly know each other. Since I went to Davis as an undergrad, I knew some people, but after the retreat, I found I had not known them that well. My fellow students were from all over the US and even one from Canada! During the retreat, we were put into many different groups and introduced to all 133 people in our class. In our various groups, we worked on team-building strategies while at the same time having fun doing it. We were making the transition from being competitive undergraduates striving to be accepted to veterinary school, to a collaborative team that shared a common goal: to GRADUATE from veterinary school.
Team building was the focus of the retreat. It was highlighted during every minute, every hour, every day. Although a team cannot be built in a single day, it is vital that each member understand each other and themselves. What you bring to a group is important in the veterinary profession.
Networking is vital to your survival as a future veterinarian. We learned that sometimes it is not always, what you know, but whom you know. Networking offers the opportunity to learn new things and expand your knowledge and skill set. By making connections with your peers, friends, professors, or colleges, you can greatly benefit. During the retreat, we had networking lunches with our student mentors (second and third year students), our professor mentors, and the CVMA (California Veterinary Medical Association). These lunches were a great way to ask questions about being a veterinary student, opportunities available to us as students, and personal opinions and preferences of current veterinarians on the cutting edge of the profession.
During the retreat, we learned that trust is a critical factor to your team’s success. Trust is like glue and is what holds a team together through the good times and the bad. A team’s strength is seen by how it copes with failures and setbacks, which are inevitable in veterinary school. Trust is relying on one another to reach a common goal or purpose. Building good teams requires the building of a solid foundation built on the foundation of trust. During orientation, actually on our first day, we did several trust-fall exercises. We were able to fall back and trust that our team members would be there to catch us. At first, I thought it was a silly exercise, but when you look at the underlying principal, it is vital to success in veterinary school. One person without trust in others cannot make it in this type of profession.
Being able to understand and work with different personality types is also vital to your success in veterinary school as well as the veterinary profession. Using the Myers Briggs (MBTI) personality typing was super fun. I learned a lot about my own personality as well as how I can adapt to work better with others. It is funny because my boyfriend and I are exact opposites in several categories identified by Myers-Briggs, which may indicate why we often butt heads. I think realizing and remembering that you are working with a mesh of different personality types is important in even being a member of society. I encourage everyone to take the free test online and discover what you may or may not know about yourself, your friends, or loved ones.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Reflection was a major part of the retreat. After every exercise, time was allotted for reflection on the activity. These points of reflection allowed us to think critically about what each specific activity taught us individually and as a group. Although sometimes many of us were more focused on if we accomplished the task rather than how we worked to meet our goal (myself included). Our retreat instructors always pointed out that it didn’t matter if we actually saved our Parvo Puppy, or made a perfect square out of rope, but that we had worked together to do everything in our power to try. As the retreat went on, people who seemed shy at the beginning came out and were freely speaking their feelings.
During the retreat, we also learned how to use our computers and the CERE veterinary site which houses all our class lecture material, some quizzes and podcasts. These skills were rudimentary compared to those I learned about teamwork and trust. I am glad that I shared the retreat experience with my classmates and excited to start my first real veterinary classes on Friday.
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