How To Feed And Care For Your Ram

Veterinary school isn't all puppies and kittens. Here's how you help can set your Ram up for success. (Tips provided by CSU's Dr. Gretchen Delcambre, Dr. Laurie Fonken, and DVM student Marta Karn.)

Welcome to the Ramily 💚

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Congratulations on adopting your new Ram. This makes YOU part of our Ramily, too. Your Ram is going to experience a lot of great and new things in his/her four years at CSU. But, it won't be easy. For example, he/she will face:

👉 20-24 credits per semester

👉 1-3 tests per week

👉 Long hours

👉 Financial stress

👉 Work-life balance struggle

👉 Academic pressure

Rest assured, we'll take care of your Ram. But here are a few ways you can support your Ram, too.

Do: Work with your Ram to set aside a check-in time.

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"Students will struggle to find a work-life balance. They probably cannot play video games with you every evening or call every day. Make a plan early to figure out how to set aside some time in advance."

Do: Know your Ram is living on a budget.

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"Loans cover the basic student needs tuition and living, however many of our students work additional hours to help pay for those dinner-out nights. Loans are not the lottery and are a large source of stress for our students. We do have a financial planner available for our DVM students free of charge, so they can get assistance/advising."

Do: Ask your Ram how you can help him/her.

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"How can I best support you? Do you want me to listen? Do you want me to help you? Do you want me to handle it?" You might be surprised by their answers.

Don't: Expect your Ram to go into study mode just at midterms and finals.

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"Tests are a regular occurrence. Sometimes up to three in one week."

Don't: Expect your Ram to always answer your messages right away.

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Don't: Take it personally.

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Your Ram is doing the best they can to take care of him/herself and keep up with school and work. Just remember, they love you!

Don't: Just take our word for it. Here is some additional advice from current students.

“I wish that they knew I want to be present for them and involved in their lives, but I don’t always have the time I would like to spend time with them.”

”I wish they knew how stressful it is to be in this much debt--I want to be able to come visit people around the country, but I just don't have money for the plane tickets.”

“Budget is incredibly shoestring. I'm not missing your wedding because I'm a jerk, I just literally have no money to fly out.”

“The exams are tough and school is hard, so when I seem stressed it isn’t because of you, but because of school.”

“Making phone calls back to friends and family gets very difficult in the middle of the week, so a text FROM my support group saying, 'I know you are swamped so I just wanted to text and remind you I love you!' would be helpful.”