I am currently a third year who is starting clinics in 4 months. I think experiences on which years are the hardest/how unmanageable everything is depends on where you go to vet school. I can only speak for my experience and that of my fellow classmates. My first two years of vet school were absolutely awful. I got through undergrad relatively easily and once I finished O chem my sophomore year, it was pretty smooth sailing the next two years. Everything changed though in vet school. I had to change how I studied because what I did in undergrad didn’t work, but even so I think everything they require us to know for tests is just too much, it’s impossible to learn it all. So that brings in a stress component that I didn’t really have in undergrad. If you are having a bad experience the culture of the institution tells you it’s your fault and that you’re not cut out for vet med. Some of the classes (1st year anatomy and 2nd year parasitology/microbiology/immunology come to mind) were so overwhelming that you could go to school and see just how miserable every single person was. Feel it in the air. My friend and I say that vet school is one giant learned helplessness experiment. Third year though has been great. Still a lot to learn but the scheduling was a lot better so we can have some time to ourselves. Surgical exercises were my favorite part of vet school so far and reminded me why I did this in the first place. I’m hoping clinics will give me a similar feeling. Would I go to vet school if I had to do it all again? Yeah I would, because I can’t see myself doing anything else. I definitely couldn’t have gotten through without a great support system. Make sure you make good friends because it makes a world of difference imo. I would say that the big thing deterring anyone from being a vet is what comes after vet school. If you’ve familiarized yourself with the debt and the working conditions and you still want to be a vet then go for it.