Hi rahh,
I'm a current jcu vet student going into 3rd yr. It's pretty awesome!! I had reservations at first about going all the way to townsville, and it being a smaller uni etc but It has been an amazing experience! Just a bit of history, the jcu undergraduate vet course began in 2006 so this year there will be 4 years going through. Although a new course, there has been a graduate and research vet school at jcu for many years (since the 70s I believe) so it is quite well established. We have brand new facilities, which is a bonus, compared to sydney, melbourne etc whose facilities are older. We have just finished building our small and large animal vet clinic which if not open already will open early this semester. We also are poaching the best staff from other unis so we have some awesome lecturers and year coordinators!
As for social activites etc, townsville is basically full of three kinds of people, uni students, miners and army people so its a awesome city to go to uni as there are so many young people and all the clubs and bars go off just about every night of the week. There are also heaps of people who go to jcu from large cities such as melbourne, sydney, brissie etc so your bound to find someone you know. Its a really pretty city with lots of parks and a really nice beach area (although no surf, so that sucks and killer jellyfish too!)
We also have a great placement course through all the years, where you an required to do work experience at different places. This sets us apart from other unis as we start placement in vet cinic/hospitals from 1st yr and the vets I have worked with say it gives us a real advantage (so much so that the particular sydney vet hospital I did my 1st yr placement at now hires me during the holidays to do vet/nursing work for them).
Long story cut short, I'd really really recommend doing vet @ jcu. Being a smaller vet school too, we are really friendly and everyone is pretty much friends with everyone in all the years. We have an awesome mentor program too (I'm a 1st yr mentor, so if you end up comming to jcu you could end up with me as your mentor lol!) and they can give you awesome advice and assitance etc. We like to party so we have heaps of pub crawls, balls, general random drinking outings and vet camp which goes off!! Long story cut short, come to JCU! If you have any more questions feel free to ask!
