As a second year Veterinary Nursing Diploma student, life at times can be a little hectic and stressful. As I’m sure everyone in my cohort agrees, the COVID outbreak this year has completely up-ended all our personal lives, and also our professional. With changes being made worldwide within the education and veterinary profession, it seemed like we would never see normality again when it came to learning and being in a lively classroom. Yet despite all challenges, the staff at Sparsholt have been understanding, caring, hardworking and have gone above and beyond for me.

When I started my Diploma, I was travelling once per week to college from the Isle of Wight, as long and tedious the journey was, I would be filled with joy when I saw my peers and lecturers. I was energised after every lesson and day at college and took back to practice everything I learned that day, (which was a lot!).

I feel incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic place of education, as balancing long hours of work and copious amounts of study is the hardest challenge I have ever undertaken, yet it has been made easy by Sparsholt.

Yet when the COVID outbreak made me unable to travel and all the public transport halted, the staff at Sparsholt came up with creating interactive, engaging and supportive lectures. At this time I was about to take the dreaded Paper 2 exam, yet the distance didn’t make a difference. I was supported by everyone with phone calls and emails of checking to see if I was ok and extra revision materials, just to name a few. We were all kept in the loop about possible exam date changes and no one was left behind within online lectures. I feel incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic place of education, as balancing long hours of work and copious amounts of study is the hardest challenge I have ever undertaken, yet it has been made easy by Sparsholt.

I hope to complete my Diploma in 2022, and cannot wait to be an RVN. It challenges me daily and encourages everyone in the profession to be constantly evolving with new knowledge and research, in order to provide Gold standard care for every patient I nurse. This way of training is certainly not for the faint hearted, but for everyone that works in the veterinary profession, we find caring for the publics pets the most rewarding, beautiful and worthwhile experience and wouldn’t do anything else.