Penn Vet’s graduating Class of 2026 is the first cohort to graduate its revamped four-year program designed to begin shaping their professional identities as animal care practitioners.
2 min. read
In 2023, Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine launched the most sweeping overhaul of its curriculum in more than 50 years. Now, with the Class of 2026 on the verge of graduation, students reflect on what held up, what changed, and what it meant to be the first class to go through the integrated framework.
Penn Vet’s Mary Lyle guides Class of 2026 student David Buckwalter through a successful tracheal intubation.
(Image: Courtesy of Penn Vet)
The Class of 2026’s first year was also the start of the School’s modernized curriculum. “We knew we were first,” says Kiera Zimmerman. “Many of us had anxiety about whether we’d be prepared at the end of four years, but we also knew the changes were necessary.”
Zimmerman—who will soon commission as a U.S. Army veterinarian at Fort Hood, caring for military working dogs and providing general practice support for service members’ pets—can pinpoint exactly when she realized things were clicking.
“Early in our third year, I found myself observing classmates,” she says. “I’d watch them work and give off ‘doctor vibes.’ We had a lot to learn still, but it was all coming into focus—they were so obviously stepping into being professionals.”
The new curriculum takes an outcome-based, learner-centered approach, teaching students to find, assess, and integrate information across disciplines, think through complex problems, and arrive at sound decisions—whether in patient care, research, or practice management. Year one explores Animals in Health. Year two revisits the same systems through Animals in Disease. Years three and four are spent in clinical rotations and elective clinical coursework.
Knowledge remains foundational, but the framework places equal weight on its practical application: building competencies that layer atop one another, so graduates can continue learning and excelling long after they leave the classroom.
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