Vet students scramble to make up time after four-week UPEI strike

The strike may be over, but students at the University of Prince Edward Island are still feeling the impact of 26 lost days.

With the semester extended by just a few weeks, students have been left scrambling to finish course work ahead of what will be a busy summer for many.

Some veterinary students say the extended strike interfered with important material they will need to know to complete their licensing exams.

“I’m moreso concerned about how prepared we would be to write our board exams at the end of our program,” said first-year veterinary medicine student Yana Maiorova.

Now they will have to learn that material somewhere else in their degree, or independently.

Critical clinical rotations and important lab training have also been disrupted for some students, particularly in their second and third year of vet school.

The university extended the semester to April 28, and further extended it to May 5 for the Atlantic Veterinary College, but classes and assessments during that time must be virtual.

Vet students often also take summer jobs and internships in their field for career development during the break. The delay to the end of the semester cuts into that time for some.

“I was supposed to start work May 3, but now I’m not even leaving the island until May 6,” said Jalisa Reneau, first-year veterinary medicine student. “So I had to push work back by a week-and-a-half."

She said she’s lucky her employer was very understanding of her situation.

“They could of easily been like, ‘Well, we’ll just find another vet student,’ so it’s kind of stressful there,” said Reneau. “Because I feel like I’m creating a bad brand for myself, like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t be there,’ when I said I was going to be there.”

These vet students are particularly concerned about a potential tuition credit. As international students, both of them are spending around $75,000 a year to attend AVC. That’s roughly $500 per day.

The university has yet to release details on how much a promised tuition credit for time lost will be, but neither of these students say they expect it will cover what they've lost.