We're a lively campus community brimming with opportunities to enrich your studies, connect with peers and grow intellectually and personally.
A Caring, Collaborative Culture
Our college has unparalleled academic programs — but what happens beyond our classroom walls is pretty exceptional, too.
Students study and socialize alongside a welcoming, tightly connected cohort of peers who, like them, are inquisitive, empathetic and ethically driven. They engage with faculty and staff who are rooting for their success. And they discover countless exciting extracurricular options.
Ignite new passions while studying abroad in spots like South Africa or the Galapagos. Build your skill set with research projects conducted in world-class labs. Kindle lifelong friendships with close-knit classmates. It all happens here, and we want you to be part of it.
For our veterinary students, new experiences can reinforce their interests or lead to the realization that something they thought they would love just isn`t for them.
At her externship at Hilltop Animal Hospital in Fuquay-Varina, Kristen Folk from our Class of 2028 happily learned that surgery does indeed fascinate her — especially when it ends in puppies!
She also notes the importance of working in a culture that supports exploration. Thank you, Hilltop! #FromtheField2026
Get the rest of her insights at the link in our profile. @hilltop_animalhospital/
Welcome to From the Field 2026! 🛣️ This summer five of our amazing veterinary students will be reporting from their internships, externships, preceptorships and other places where they are putting their NC State College of Veterinary Medicine learning into action!
1️⃣ First up is Sydney MacDonald, who will be writing primarily about her preceptorship with the NC Aquariums at @CMAST, the our college`s coastal campus. She also will be reporting from Morehead City, NC, about her work during the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament in June! 🐟🐟🐟
This week, the Currituck County, North Carolina native gives us a peek at her research project involving mahi-mahi. She hopes to create a baseline health database for the commonly caught game fish, which has a huge economic benefit for many coastal NC communities. 💲
👉 Find more information about Sydney and the rest of our correspondents and the link to Sydney`s first post in our profile.
It was the 1960s when animal lover Mary Frances Backherms was ecstatic to earn a seat at a veterinary college — and then devastated when she was pressured into giving it to a man.
To honor her late sister`s dream denied, Kathy Backherms recently decided to create a scholarship at one of the nation`s veterinary colleges. NC State stood out, Backherms says, for its clear focus on student achievement and well-being.
Now, the new Mary Frances Backherms Memorial Scholarship Endowment has paid out its first scholarship to a young woman who, just like Mary Frances, dreamed from childhood of becoming a veterinarian.
Kathy Backherms, a decades-long educator, recently got to meet Isla Farrow, a Greenville, North Carolina, native and daughter of educators. You couldn`t have orchestrated a better moment.
Read about the women, the scholarship, the story at the link in our profile.
Photos courtesy of Kathy Backherms and Isla Farrow
The students of the NC State Class of 2026 came from South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Arizona, California, Florida and Guam to join scores of North Carolina residents, including 25 from Wake County, in Raleigh to become doctors of veterinary medicine.
The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine has been home base for four years. Now, the next generation of innovators, problem-solvers and life-changers is scattering across communities near and far, ready to leave the world better than they found it.
#PackStrong
Find more details about our Oath and Hooding event at the link in our profile.
Celebration X 2! Many of our newest #NCStateVetMed doctors ... doctors! ... participated in the NC State University commencement event at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh today, joining 7,000 other Wolfpackers getting degrees. #ThinkandDone
(Psst. You can tell the DVMs by the inflated pink breeder sleeves.)
#Classof2026, we know you`ll make a big difference to your new communities wherever you land. #PackStong
PHOTOS BY JOHN JOYNER / NC State Veterinary Medicine
Congratulations are in order for our #classof2026 Doctors of Veterinary Medicine! We`ve oathed. We`ve hooded. We`ve hugged and hollered! Go forth and change the world for the better! Your @ncstate Pack is cheering you on! #ncstatevetmed #thrivingcvmcommunity #dvm #newdoctors
Oath and Hooding has ended, and 108 new Doctors of Veterinary Medicine educated at the finest veterinary college anywhere have headed out into the world to do all they can to make it better for humans and animals of every species. We`re so proud of you! @ncstate
From nerves to NAVLE, the past four years have been marked by a swirl of internal questions for Hannah Dion: Am I good enough? Will I fit in? What if I let someone down?
The Class of 2026 native of Raleigh, North Carolina, has her answers now.
"We’ve been accepted. We belong here. We know more than we think we do. We passed the test. We matched. We got hired. We are graduating. We did it. We are going to be veterinarians."
Don`t miss the rest of her remembrances at the link in our profile. #Classof2026 #NewDVM #vetschool #OathandHooding
The College of Veterinary Medicine is home to a multi-talented group of students from a wide variety of backgrounds. No matter who you are or where you’re coming from, there’s a place for you on our campus. Fostering community and belonging is critical to our university’s mission. Within the college, we have a dedicated Office of Community and Culture that organizes events and initiatives to enhance the sense of belonging in the veterinary profession and the cultural competence of our students.
We believe varied perspectives and experiences are what make this college strong. We also believe in building our community as a team, so your input and ideas will be valued, and every part of you will be embraced.
“We’re wildly supportive of one another. We also have a lot of fun together. We can find a reason to celebrate almost anything.”
We focus on supporting the whole student, mind and body, so you’ll have access to holistic resources that reach well beyond your coursework.
Whether you’re expanding your mind, mapping out your future, making new connections or teaming up with staff ready to help you face any challenge, you’ll find ample ways to better yourself and thrive here.
