The Wildlife Vet Online Course: My Experience
November 2020 blog by Yashaswini Modak, third-year vet student at the Royal Veterinary College.
Hi, I’m Yashaswini – President of the Zoological Society here at the Royal Veterinary College. I have been a part of The Expedition Project Ambassador team since 2019.
Welcome to my second in a series of monthly Veterinary Student blogs.
Read all my blogs here.
Since August 2020, alongside The Expedition Project, we’ve been doing live streams about conservation medicine with Dr. Peter Rogers and students from Nottingham and the Dick Vet School in Edinburgh. Our latest livestream with Dr. Peter Rogers as part of the Wildlife Vet Online course gave us loads of insight into the life of a wildlife veterinarian and I thought I would share some of the key bits of advice that we heard from Dr. Peter Rogers about getting into conservation and the skills you’d need to thrive.As we’re coming to the end of 2020, I’ve been working with The Expedition Project for nearly nine months now, especially on their Wildlife Vet Online Course – I thought I would share my experiences on the course so far plus some of the fun things me and my fellow ambassadors have learnt in the process!
For those who don’t know me, hi! I’m Yashaswini – President of the Zoological Society at the Royal Veterinary College. Over the past nine months alongside The Expedition Project we’ve been doing live streams about conservation medicine with Dr. Peter Rogers and students from Nottingham and the Dick Vet School in Edinburgh. You may have seen my blogs over the last three months (no worries if you haven’t, you can catch up on them here). We’ve talked about all things wild and wonderful, from pangolins to rhinos to cheetahs and elephants.
When Roger first approached me about the online course, I could hardly believe that a wildlife vet like Dr. Rogers really wanted to spend time teaching us and sharing his hard earnt and highly sought after knowledge with us. To say that I was excited would be an understatement. The fact that I was able to help fellow students in this learning experience and spread the word about how we can pursue learning outside the classroom made me extremely passionate about the work being done at The Expedition Project.
The Wildlife Vet Online course turned from being a hobby of mine in the summer, to an active interest in the autumn, to one of my favorite parts of the week in the winter. As students, we seldom think out of the box the way Peter’s course modules have allowed us to. With the entertaining anecdotes, to the practical information guides, to the well thought out videos and pictures, the modules have been a delight to learn from as a student. The time it took to design these modules was pretty evident right from the start – there was an incredible amount of effort and consideration put into every single module. The field of wildlife medicine and conservation can seem intimidating and unapproachable to many, however what these courses got right was the easy to digest and practical approach that Peter took in teaching these modules. Peter’s experience did not stop him from teaching us in a way that not only made sense, but engaged us. Not once in the module was I left scratching my head at scientific jargon.
Perhaps the quality I’m most fond of, though, lies slightly beyond the Wildlife Vet Online course, but is a direct consequence of it: the community we build with every single module developed. The monthly livestreams have been a delight to take part in, and have provided everyone doing the course an opportunity to interact with Peter. It gave us the opportunity to talk to the people that have been enjoying the course content, and it allowed us to build a wider network of students that are enthusiastic about proactive learning, and more importantly: ambitious about conservation.
I’m so excited to see what 2021 brings for the Wildlife Vet Online course, and cannot wait to watch our TEP community grow even wider. Want to contact me and ask me questions about the Wildlife Vet Online course? E-mail me at [email protected] and be sure to join our TEP family by following us on Instagram, you can find us @theexpeditionproject on Instagram, and for a special behind the scenes from me and the rest of the TEP ambassadors, follow @tep_ambassadors on Instagram too!
I recommend you check out these courses:
Wildlife Vet Online Module 1: Cheetah Management
Wildlife Vet Online Module 2: The Rhino Revolution – Part 1
Wildlife Vet Online Module 3: The Rhino Revolution – Part 2
Wildlife Vet Online Module 4: Pangolin Protection
And I even have a course that i was involved in developing here:
Junior Wildlife Vet and Ecology Module 1: Animal Identification
Livestream Audio
November 2020
Music intro until 6:53 sponsored by CONFLUENCE.