Vet Tech school

Posts about my experiences while taking the Penn Foster Veterinary Technician program via distance learning.

Thursday, September 13, 2007 , the wee hours

Kudos for St. Petersburg College

Lest you think that all I do is complain about things, I thought I’d blog about how impressed I’ve been with the great people at St. Petersburg College in Florida.  I enrolled at SPC a few months ago, because I wanted to take the classes which comprise their ”Veterinary Hospital Management” certificate program.  The classes are all offered via the Internet, and with a certificate of completion, I might actually be eligible to work as an office manager in a vet’s office.  I know my physical limitations may mean I’m not the world’s strongest or energetic vet tech, so I’m trying to ensure I’ve got other skills to make myself employable.

Before I enrolled in the program, I emailed the program head to ask some questions.  The woman in charge is a veterinarian, and she was so nice and enthused and excited for me to enroll.  I emailed her again a few days ago, to tell her I’d enrolled but wouldn’t be able to register for classes until January (I missed the fall deadline), and she claimed to remember me, and told me to try to register in November, and said she looked forward to having me in her classes.  She signed her emails with just her first name, not even “Dr. So-and-So”.  I’ve also emailed with two advisers in the Registrar’s office, and they were making jokes in their emails, saying encouraging things, etc.  When I’ve emailed anyone at SPC with questions, my emails are answered within 24 hours.

So, contrast the above with how I’ve been treated by Penn Foster.  The head of the PF vet tech program doesn’t even write in complete sentences, let alone use a polite salutation or act encouraging.  I’ve always felt like I’m receiving some sort of lecture from her, and she’s never, ever said anything to suggest that she cares whether I’m enrolled or not.  When I write to student advisers at PF, it can take a week or more to get a reply, and there’s no way to have a conversational “give and take” because it’s just a bunch of generic people on the other end.  When I was finishing the exams for my Vet Assistant certificate and had a question about one of the answers, it was over one month before anyone wrote back to me.  When I’ve phoned PF, I’ve been left on hold for as long as 45 minutes waiting to speak to someone to simply make a payment.

St. Petersburg College is one of a handful of schools with a fully-accredited veterinary technician program you can complete via the Internet.  The only reason I chose PF instead of SPC for enrollment was because the SPC program requires that you work at a vet’s office at least part-time while you study.  When I first started going to school I didn’t have my green card, so there was no way I could have a job.  The SPC program is also substantially more expensive, because they’re a regular community college with multiple campuses in Florida, so I have to pay non-resident tuition.  PF has no “campus”, so the costs are lower.  Nevertheless, I’m gradually realizing that you get what you pay for.  The Penn Foster program will eventually grant me my Associate’s Degree, and I’ll be eligible to be a licensed vet tech, but the school really feels like a diploma mill where you’re nothing more than a number.  When I’ve asked for help I’ve either been kept waiting for weeks or insulted for asking, so it’s certainly not a positive learning environment.  If you want to study vet tech via distance education, and you’re able to work and perhaps have student loans to help with tuition, please don’t just run to Penn Foster because it’s so cheap and convenient.  Yes, they accept practically everyone, and enrolling just requires sending them a check (I had to send SPC all my official transcripts), but I can definitely say that I’m not having much fun.

I’ll be taking one class at SPC this semester, but it won’t be related to vet tech.  I’m hoping to get into either an Intro to Business class, or Macroeconomics, or a computer programming class.  I’ll know more in the next day or two, and within a couple of months I’ll be able to write more about my experience as an SPC student.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/13 at 02:30 AM
Vet Tech school • (1) Comments • Permalink

Monday, September 10, 2007 , early morning

Penn Foster’s version of Tough Love

I’m still enrolled in Penn Foster, although I’ve done little coursework over the summer months (the joy of “work at your own pace").  I did, however, take three or four Continuing Education classes via VSPN, including “Triage and CPR” and “Pain Management for the Canine and Feline”.  I was trying to enroll in a new CE class, “Nutrition for the Canine Geriatric”, but if I wanted the registration student discount, I’d need to get a new confirmation of my enrollment at Penn Foster from the program head.  I’ve never seen a photo of the program head, but in my mind she looks like Cruella de Vil, so that should give you an idea of how she comes across in email.

She’s just always so terse, and it comes across as rude.  She never offers up any extra information which could be construed as helpful, but sticks to the shortest, most simple response, forcing me to write again if I need details.  When I’ve written to suggest a technical problem with some Penn Foster software, I was told I was the only person having the problem, thus proving I was either stupid, or a liar.  When I offered up very ingenious ways to prove the problem I was having, all my suggestions were somehow faulty or unacceptable.  She’s never come out and called me a “liar”, but it’s certainly implied.  For example, today I said that I’d logged into the message forums on August 30th (which I had, and I could prove it because I could recall a post I’d read which the program head had written on August 29th).  The program head wrote back a line which said, “You last logged into the forums on July 31st”.  I don’t know how you’d take that, but I feel that it’s condescending to not even discuss the log discrepancy, and to just keep repeating a date which I think is incorrect.  In fact, I think it’s somewhat bully-ish, like the person who sticks their fingers in their ears rather than hear your side of the argument.  Adding to today’s problem was that I was asking the program head to please confirm for VSPN that I’m a current Penn Foster student, and she just kept telling me that I wasn’t a current student because I hadn’t been to the forums since July.  I asked if that meant I had to withdraw from the program, and she didn’t answer.

Finally, I wrote a last email to the Penn Foster program head, and I included this line:  “I’m really bothered by how condescending you are whenever I have to go over an issue with you in email. “ In response, she wrote this to me, ”I do not appreciate your nasty attitude. I have no control over how you misinterpret my emails...Future rude and hostile emails of this nature will be forwarded to academic review”.  Ain’t that sweet?  Isn’t that just how you want a program head to respond when you write and ask for assistance with a problem?  To top it all off, in this final email, she said that she HAD verified my academic status with VSPN immediately when she received my first email about it.  She apparently just forgot to mention that to me, and kept telling me that I wasn’t an active student because I couldn’t prove I’d logged into the forums in August.  Sadistic, much?  She led me on for three or four emails, making me think I was on the verge of being kicked out over a missing forum login, when she didn’t need to do any of that.  I’m really sensitive to issues of emotional abuse and manipulation, and I think the way this was handled was completely unprofessional.  The program head deliberately mislead me about my student status to jerk me around a bit, then acted like I was over-reacting.  A professional would have replied to my initial request and said, “I’ve verified you, but I can’t find a forum login for you for last month, so don’t forget to login this month.” Or something like that.  Instead, she dragged me around for four emails, didn’t tell me she’d verified me, implied that I was lying, and then threatened to report me to the school for being “nasty”. 

Even I barely believe what I just wrote up there, but it’s all true… I’ve got the emails.  And I’m keeping them.  I’ve never called anyone on being condescending before, but you know, one can choose to be polite as easily as one can choose to be mean.  Even mere “students” deserve to be treated with respect, and I have always been respectful first.  I always say “please”, “thank you”, “I appreciate your time”, etc.  I don’t think I’m asking too much to be spoken to that way in return.

Ah, it’s looking grim for me sticking around in this program, especially because Cruella de Vil would be one of my instructors in the third and fourth semesters!  Ack!  Why do I think I’d probably fail a few of those classes for not meeting the participation requirements?!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/10 at 07:00 AM
Vet Tech school • (1) Comments • Permalink

Thursday, May 17, 2007 , late at night

Penn Foster: Live classrooms are a pain in the butt

You all know I’m enrolled at Penn Foster in the vet tech program.  I try to write regular blog updates about the experience, because I get a lot of emails from folks who are considering enrolling and want to know what it’s like.  I’ll tell you what it’s like right now… it’s frustrating!  I’m required to attend at least two hours of online “classroom” (chatroom) time for each month I’m enrolled, which seems reasonable.  There are two, two-hour classroom sessions scheduled each week, so it’s theoretically easy to fulfill the two-hour attendance requirement.  Unfortunately for me, the time I’m spending in the classroom isn’t being recorded/credited by the system, so I’m now stuck, unable to progress through more courses.  My records apparently show I haven’t been attending my required online sessions, even though I have.  Flippy has seen me attend these classes.  Flippy has seen me miss watching hockey games because I’m forcing myself to sit in front of the computer, in class.  I record all the days I’ve attended on my desktop calendar, and according to my records, I’ve attended nine hours of class (out of a required eight).  The director of the vet tech program tells me that her records show I’ve attended four hours, and none since March.  It makes no sense—I was in class on May 6th, and can recite the entire lesson taught, yet I’m not being credited for it because “the logs don’t show (me)”.  I’ve asked the program head if I could take screen shots of the classroom, and she told me that “A screen shot is not evidence of attendance at a two hour class”.  I asked if I could have the instructor note my attendance, and she said, “Instructors do not and will not record individual student attendance”.  So gee, what on earth am I supposed to do?  The program head is snotty and condescending—prospective students please note that as I’ve mentioned in other blog entries, Penn Foster is not the school to be attending if you have a problem of any sort.  Your emails will go unanswered, and in the long run you are nothing but a number with a bank account.  The vet tech program head had the nerve to pull on me the old standby, “There are thousands of students enrolled and you’re the only one having problems.” Yes, because I’m a moron who doesn’t know how to use a chatroom or read instructions, obviously.  I’m sure she hasn’t bothered to stop and consider that maybe I’m the only person who’s noticed a problem.  With each month that passes, the problem multiplies—the school refuses to send me more study materials until I’m caught up on classes, and two more hours of required chatroom time are tacked on for each month it takes me to complete the course.  You see the mathematical problem which presents itself.

I don’t know if I’ll ever finish this program now because I’ve been stumped by technology.  The saddest part of the situation is that the online classroom is nothing more than “busywork”—it’s about fifteen minutes of information and an hour and forty-five minutes of the instructor typing.  The last class was about the metric system (not that I’m supposed to know that, as I guess I wasn’t there), and it’s terribly redundant to a Canadian.  A Canadian being forced to skip a hockey game to sit there, and who then didn’t even get credit for it.  I’ll give it another week since stirring up shit and then I suppose I’ll just “unenroll” from the program, because there’s no reason to continue.  I’m quite sure that as soon as I threaten to shut off the money fountain, someone at the school will sit up and pay attention.

In the meantime, I’ve enrolled (and been accepted) at St. Petersburg College in Florida.  They have an acclaimed online vet tech program (and it doesn’t have a chatroom requirement!), and going into that program would make me eligible for financial aid (it’s very expensive, if only because I’m a non-resident), and all my classes would be transferable to other colleges if I ever wanted to try for a higher degree. 

One final word to Penn Foster for this evening:  Getting an education shouldn’t be this difficult.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 05/17 at 11:02 PM
Vet Tech school • (2) Comments • Permalink

Monday, March 05, 2007 , late evening

Penn Foster update for March

I haven’t written much about the vet tech program at Penn Foster because so far, there’s not much to say.  I’ve received a few emails asking for information, however, so I’ll do my best to pass along what I’ve experienced.

I’m taking a self-paced course composed of four semesters.  Each semester includes an average of six classes, and I have a study guide for each class.  At the end of each study guide, I have to pass a test (open book/online/multiple choice), before I can proceed to the next class.  For all the specific veterinary technology classes (as opposed to classes like English Composition or Introduction to Psychology), I have to attend at least two hours of online discussion in a chatroom, and I’m also supposed to participate in online forums.  There’s no specific rule defining “participation”, but I’ve tried to read many of the forum threads even though I haven’t posted.  There’s also no participation rule for the chatroom, you just have to be in the room from start to finish during a specified classroom meeting time.  With over 100 people in the chatroom at any one time, and students in different stages of the program, it’s impossible for the chat to be in sync with the study guides.  From what I’ve seen, chats contain material which is supplemental to the study guides, and which won’t be tested.  The chats are interesting, but very slow, and each two hour chatroom session would probably translate to about 30 minutes of time in a real classroom.  My biggest problem with the chatroom sessions has been remembering to attend, but the twice-weekly sessions are held at reasonable times (my current class is held Sunday and Wednesday evenings).  When I finish up a few more classes, I’ll finish a semester.  At the end of a semester, I have to take a proctored, closed-book exam.

Someone wrote and asked about the practicum, and I’ve got no answers for that.  The practicums are the “real world experience” which must be completed at the end of semesters two and four, and as I’m only halfway through semester one, I haven’t been given any information about them.

The program is definitely fitting my needs and schedule, and there’s no way I’d have time (or transportation) to go to the local community college for their vet tech program.  However, Penn Foster’s program requires a lot of self-discipline, and students need to feel comfortable “teaching themselves”.  If you need charts and handouts and notes written on a blackboard, obviously a distance education program might not be your best choice.  There are instructors available via phone, live chat, and email, but there are literally hundreds of students enrolled, so an instructor may not have much time for “one on one” assistance.  I’ve been annoyed by the inability to communicate with administrators at Penn Foster about certain things—I’ve phoned in and been greeted by hold times of half an hour or more.  I’ve had more than one email completely ignored by the administrative offices, too.  If you sign up for this program, you’ll either have to be content being almost entirely on your own, or you’ll have to be comfortable making a lot of noise to be noticed.

I just want to finish my classes, complete my practicums, and study for my licensing exam.  That’s really what it all comes down to.  A person now needs a degree to sit for the licensing exam, but otherwise passing the exam is the whole point of this experience.  Penn Foster can certainly help me conveniently (and inexpensively) attain my degree, but I’ve got no idea how prepared I’ll be when it comes time to sit for a national exam.

I hope someone searching for information about Penn Foster will find the above information helpful.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 03/05 at 10:52 PM
Vet Tech school • (3) Comments • Permalink

Sunday, January 21, 2007 , early evening

Veterinary Assistant books and study guides for sale

I’ve listed some of my Penn Foster Veterinary Assistant program for sale on eBay">textbooks and study materials from the Penn Foster Veterinary Assistant program for sale on eBay.  The materials are duplicates—a lot of the books in the Veterinary Technician program (which I’m taking now) are identical, so I’ve got some extras to get rid of.  There’s never enough room on the bookshelves for everything!  Bid high, bid often—the textbooks alone are worth about $85.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/21 at 06:18 PM
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Wednesday, January 03, 2007 , the wee hours

I’m going to vet tech school!

It’s January 3rd and I’ve already worked my way through two of my goals:  I got my first donation for Wee Paws from a very kind blog visitor, and I’m enrolled in vet tech school.  I’m taking the Penn Foster distance learning program, as it’s the only program which fits into my schedule, as well as the only one I can afford!  There are two programs available in Las Vegas, but one is completely on the other side of town (and expensive), and the other is a limited-acceptance program at the community college, which wouldn’t allow me entry until 2008 at the earliest.  The Penn Foster program is a mix of textbook studies, proctored exams, and two nine-week-long practicums, so I think it will give me a good overview of what I need to learn and master.  To work as a vet tech I’d need to pass a national exam after graduation, so I think if the program teaches me enough to pass the exam, and if the on-the-job-training gives me a good working sense of the basic skills I need, I should be able to find a job.  I know it will take a few years of real work to really become competent, but I’m content to finish the course, pass the exam, and then to restrain animals for years if need be.  I think I’d probably only want to work part-time, depending on my health, but I’ll just play that part by ear.  The fastest I could graduate is in 18 months, and that’s only if I can pay the tuition that quickly.

Maybe I could graduate from this program, and then some bigwig publishing company or TV producer would want to pay me to go to veterinary school while I wrote about it or they filmed it for a reality show.  I’d be the 40-ish gay vet student with fibromyalgia.  Showtime, HBO, Mark Burnett, anyone?!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/03 at 12:08 AM
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Saturday, October 14, 2006 , late evening

Penn Foster Veterinary Assistant program

In November 2005, I started taking a correspondence course at Penn Foster to be a veterinary assistant.  I didn’t really know if the program had any value or credibility (it’s hard to trust places which offer classes in such diverse areas as “gunsmith” and “floral design"), but I figured it would be a good chance for me to try out the distance education concept to see if I liked it.  Surprisingly, I ended up being impressed by the Penn Foster program.  Even though my course was only a certificate course and it didn’t necessarily have much real-world value, I thought the classes and teaching materials were professional and challenging.  All 38 modules were graded using open-book tests, but they still required a high degree of understanding of the materials.  I’ve taken biology, anatomy, and physiology classes many times, so a lot of the material was just review for me, but I feel I learned a lot in the modules about actual techniques used in veterinary practice (restraint methods, instrument sterilization, bandaging methods, anaesthesia basics, etc.).  From the small amount of time I’ve spent in a vet clinic, I’d say that these materials were up-to-date and accurate.

My complaints and criticisms of the course are problems inherent in the “distance learning” concept.  The course materials were sent by media mail (until I called and complained about it), so delivery was slow at first.  I ended up paying for the entire course ahead of time, in-full, just to get them to send me ALL the lessons at once so I could truly work at my own pace and in the order which interested me.  While most of the materials were interesting, the required “course options” seemed thrown together haphazardly and were of limited value.  For example, when I selected an optional module about cats, I didn’t expect that I’d end up learning about “breeding cats” and “showing cats”.  The optional modules seemed like a complete waste of time, nothing more than “busywork”.

My biggest concern was that it was next-to-impossible to have contact with an instructor to ask questions.  There was no way that I found to email an actual person with questions—I was limited to using the generic “contact us” form on the Penn Foster website, and as of yet, I haven’t received answers to any of the three questions I asked.  The questions I asked related to my other complaint: some of the test questions were vague and confusing, and at least three of them were completely incorrect.  On more than one occasion, the text would contradict the supposedly “correct” answer on a test, yet there was no real person I could confront about this.

I don’t know how useful the course would be if I was to use it to seek employment, but I may end up using it as a jumping-off point to take Penn Foster’s Veterinary Technician degree program.  This program has just been accredited by the AVMA, and it’s supposedly a lot more professional.  I’ve read that there are message boards where you can interact with instructors, and online classrooms/chatrooms with mandatory sessions each week.  My tests would be supervised by a proctor, and I’d have required interships at veterinary clinics where I’d have to learn certain tasks.  If I want vet tech training here in Nevada I only have two other choices: “Pima Medical” on the other side of town, and the community college, where I’d have to complete the program on a fixed schedule and couldn’t start until the fall of 2007.  I also haven’t heard anything good about the community college program—the one vet I asked about it said that the students don’t seem to learn anything of value, so that’s not really a glowing review!  I just love learning, and I’ve been taking classes off and on since I graduated from high school twenty-two years ago, so the vet tech classes would be just one more thing to keep my mind busy, and to enhance my employment opportunities.

Oh, the point of writing this entry (besides its information value) was to say that I’ve finally finished the veterinary assistant program, and I should be receiving my certificate in the next couple of weeks.  38 modules of material, 755 test questions… I finished with an average of 97.4%.  The radiology module gave me brain cramps, and it was very difficult, so I don’t relish the thought of encountering it again in a vet tech program.  I’d wanted to complete the program more quickly, but with the occasional batch of foster kittens, Flippy’s surgery, mortgage agent school, regular work, etc., it ended up taking me 11 months.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 10/14 at 10:05 PM
Vet Tech school • (8) Comments • Permalink

Monday, November 21, 2005 , early evening

Stratford Career Institute - Veterinary Assistant program rant

A few weeks ago, I posted that I’d decided to sign up for an online “Vet Assistant” class.  I did it because I wanted to see if my brain could still handle studying and learning new things—I had no expectations that a certificate in such a thing (or from such a place), would make me highly employable.  The course I chose was with the Stratford Career Institute, and I checked them out before I signed up.  They are accredited by the Education Licensure Board of the District of Columbia, which also accredits such schools as Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown, so I figured they must be reputable.  I couldn’t find anything negative written about them online despite a number of innovative searches.

So, I signed up, and gave them a $10 deposit.  The deal, as I understood it, was that they’d send me my first set of lessons, and then I’d have 14 days to peruse the lessons and decide if I wanted to continue.  If I didn’t want to continue, I just had to write to them and cancel.  That was how I interpreted the contract I signed online when I filled out their enrollment forms, anyway, but they didn’t send me a copy of the contract via snail or postal mail.  After 12 days had passed, I still hadn’t received any course materials.  I was given a student login number to login to their website, but everytime I tried to access the site, I received an error message (a grammatically poor, misspelled error message), telling me that part of their site was unavailable.  Seeing a lot of warning signs, I sat down and wrote SCI a letter telling them to cancel my enrollment.  I dated and mailed the letter 12 days after I signed up.  A week after I’d sent my letter, someone from the school called me and tried to talk me into staying with the program, but I ignored the phone call.  They’d obviously received my cancellation letter and that was all that mattered to me.  Two weeks after I’d sent my letter, someone sent me an similar letter via postal mail, offering to resend me my course materials and asking if I wanted to change my mind.  I ignored that letter, too.  Today, a full 22 days after I mailed my cancellation request, I finally received an official acknowledgement that I had been unenrolled.  However, they dated my cancellation request as being the same day they wrote to me, meaning that they accused me of cancelling three weeks too late.  Because of that, they want me to pay $100 in tuition fees and $147 in course materials fees (materials I didn’t receive).

There are LOTS of shady things about Stratford Career Institute.  So far they’ve written to me on letterhead containing four different return addresses, so I never know which address to write to.  None of those four addresses are the same as the “contact us” address on their website, which is where I sent my cancellation request.  Today with my tuition bill I received a copy of my student contract, and it contains yet another address I’m supposed to write to if I want to cancel my enrollment.  Funny how they didn’t provide that until well after I actually needed it.

I’m of course fighting this bill, as I don’t believe I owe SCI a penny.  I think they actually owe me a refund of my $10 downpayment.  They haven’t sent me materials, the student login section of their website works intermittently, their site contains grammatical errors, they fudge dates in order to make it seem as if students owe more money than they actually do, and they hide behind a number of different mailing addresses.  Also, they don’t give you any detailed course outlines on their website, and once you’ve enrolled, it’s impossible to go back to see a signup page where you can take another look at your student contract.  My warning to any potential students is to STAY AWAY.  There’s something not right here.  I’ve filed a complaint against SCI with Education Licensure Board of the District of Columbia and we’ll see what happens.  Today was a very stressful day for my blood pressure.

In good news, I did decide to enroll in the program offered by Thomson Direct, and so far I’ve been happy with it.  Their shipping methods are a bit slow, but they let me access some lessons via the website, I take all tests right online and get instant results, and they seem to have good communication.  I’m on lesson four, and so far I’ve found that I know about 60% of the material without reading the coursebooks—I guess all my reading, and the time I spent as as vet assistant in San Francisco, has been helpful.  Still, I’m learning some new stuff, and it’s good practice for me.  If I can tackle this, I’ll seriously consider enrolling in the vet tech program when I’m through.  I’ll write more good things about Thomson Direct in the future… right now I want to take some time to enjoy being pissed at Stratford.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/21 at 07:44 PM
Vet Tech school • (11) Comments • Permalink
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