If you join our veterinary programme, after completion of your degree you will be able to practice in a field of your choice, from production to wildlife medicine. Our veterinary nurses are also able to select their field of practice, from providing nursing care at welfare organisations to working at state-of-the-art veterinary hospitals.
With us you will become the best you can be through training within our excellent facilities, including a clinic at the Orpen Gate of the Kruger National Park as well as through the superior caseloads our veterinary academic hospital manages annually. A unique feature of our programme is that in your final year, as a veterinary or nursing student, you will be responsible for the primary care of patients under the supervision of our specialist veterinary staff.
While studying with us, you will also learn about the agricultural and commercial role that animals play in society, the importance of their care, and compassion towards them. Your teaching will be grounded in the principle of One Health, which teaches you the importance of both healthy animals and healthy environments in helping people stay healthy. The COVID-19 outbreak is an excellent example of what can happen when this balance is interrupted.
Our faculty is self-contained on the Onderstepoort or OP Campus, which has access to state-of-the-art laboratories, an amazing skills lab and excellent animal management facilities where you will gain the necessary experience to work with a variety of different animal species. Our nursing students will spend their entire time at OP, while our veterinary students will spend their first year at the Hatfield Campus and the next five years at OP.
As a UP student, you’ll also be part of THE UP WAY of life. This means you will receive a high quality of teaching and learning support that will ensure that you graduate on time and are able to apply your knowledge and skills so you are ready to start your own business or land your first job.
THE UP WAY of doing things means that you’ll be an innovative and critical thinker who has a positive impact on the world and lives with compassion, respect and care for humans and animals. In our faculty, we are compassionate and we care for society by caring for animals and ensuring the sustainability of food production in poultry, sheep, or cattle farms.
I hope you’ll consider joining our profession, as there’s none better. It’s not everyone who can wake up in the morning and choose to work outdoors, and perhaps walk a rhino or even drink a cup of coffee with milk from a certified healthy herd of cows!
So Choose UP, and we hope to see you next year!
