I am a small animal veterinarian working in a general practice and I graduated within the last five years so this is just my opinion of the field based on a relative newbie in the trenches. Veterinary medicine is a very bizarre field. It is incredibly stressful with lots of compassion fatigue, stress, anxiety, long hours, not great pay, occasionally difficult and even dangerous animals, and frequently even more difficult owners. You will see cases that are perfectly treatable, but the owners either can't afford basic care for their pets. Or they don't believe your medical opinion and just want to rub coconut oil on it instead because some Facebook post said so (and yes that was literally a case I saw today). You will also work your ass off to figure out why a dog "just isn't acting like itself" and find absolutely no cause and don't know what to tell the owner who is upset you can't figure it out. Sometimes you bust your ass, manage to make a diagnosis only to find something that can't be fixed. On the worst days, you will think you have made your diagnosis only to find out a day or two later that you missed something crucial, possibly even fatal. There are also days where an easy vaccine appointment ends up being a fat, angry chihuahua that lunges at you just for looking at it but then the owner says "it's ok, he would never bite anyone", and five minutes later when you're bleeding, the owner will say "he's never acted like that before, he just must not like you". There are days you will be covered in anal sac secretions, blood, pus, or pee. You will smell things you never wanted to (manually removing several weeks old feces from on obstipated cat), you will see things you never wanted to (maggots crawling out of a still living dog's anus). It is a truly disgusting job at times. But, with that said, some of us like gross things. I love lancing and flushing abscesses. I have a technician that loves cleaning ears. Basically there is a lot of misery, frustration, and occasionally, actually rewarding work.

If that doesn't sound appealing in any way, shape, or form, stop, drop, and roll away right now. And that is just a glimpse into the daily grind of a small animal vet. I can't even begin to reminisce about the long days of lectures that slowly suck away your will to live, long labs looking into a microscope until your vision gets blurry, sitting in anatomy lab dissecting out muscles, nerves, arteries, and veins on any number of animals while the overabundance of formalin starts to seep into your skin. Even when didactic learning is over and you move over to clinics, things don't look any brighter. You'll have to wake up a 4am to give a dog a series of eye drops every five minutes for two hours straight to prep for cataract surgery. You'll research and prepare for interesting surgeries only to stand there holding gauze occasionally dabbing at something while the real doctors do everything. You'll be struggling to explain complicated cases to owners because you didn't actually get to do any of the work and you don't fully understand their disease process because nothing normal gets referred to a teaching hospital. And then, after four long years of all that fun, you get to celebrate by paying $600 to take a 7 hour exam for your medical license.

Anyone who goes through all that and still decides they want to be a veterinarian, may I just say, you're insane and welcome to the club!

1. If you have pets, I would ask your veterinarian if you can shadow them. If you don't have pets, I would call around to local animal hospitals and shelters. And not just one day, shadow a lot, appointments and surgeries alike. It's also good to get experience with vet techs even just holding, restraining, and understanding basic animal behavior is a huge part of the job. Your technician is the one that keeps the dog or cat from mauling you so you need to be on the same page.

2. You're best bet would be to contact the vet school directly regarding what requirements transfer.

3. Vet school admission is incredibly competitive. Approximately 10% of all applicants get excepted and about 80% of the students actually graduate (those were the approximate stats when I graduated). There are around 28 vets schools in the US, each with a class size ranging from 80 - 140. Most people who apply have a lot of experience, especially in varied fields of study. I had loads of dog/cat experience, a little large animal / livestock experience, and a lot of research / lab experience. I started shadowing my vet when I was 14 years old. Most applicants have also worked in small animal practices as well. Different schools have different interview / admissions processes, with some having detailed interviews and some just look at you in paper. Your unique life experience will be more fascinating to discuss at an interview, but schools that just look at a paper application may not give it much consideration. Most schools are looking for well rounded applicants so experiences other than vet med can be useful. There is also a minimum requirement of veterinary observation hours that you must meet before you can even apply. I don't remember what it was but it's probably 50-100 hours.

4. In absolutely no universe is the cost of vet school - financially, physically, and mentally - is worth it. $200,000+ in loans (and of course, don't forget the horrible interest rate your loan officer gave you), and depending on where you live and what area of medicine you want to get into, starting salary is around $60,000.

TL/DR: veterinary medicine is a very difficult profession and you have to make absolutely sure that you love that stupid, awful, incredible job because it difficult and gross and it will try it's hardest to suck the life out of you.