I have lived in Virginia my whole life and have been planning on going to vet school as long as I can remember. The biggest challenge I faced during high school and college was that I wasn't allowed to be hands on with patients or learn any technical skills. After the summer of my first year of vet school, I went and worked in a practice in Baltimore, MD. I learned so much during this 10 week program and my technical skills improved tremendously. Students don't have a lot of opportunities in vet school to learn these skills which is why it's so important they have the opportunity to do so outside of school and even before they enter vet school. I think it would be extremely beneficial if future students had the opportunity to be hands on with patients and give vaccines, place catheters, etc so they would be better prepared in vet school and they wouldn't have to leave the state to learn how to improve these skills. Many students experience a lot of anxiety and stress knowing they have only a handful of chances to learn how to properly place a catheter, for example, before having to perform this skill proficiently in their fourth year. If they could learn how to do this before school or during the summer, they could use the labs to better their skills with the guidance of clinicians rather than learning everything brand new and then trying to become proficient at it.