u/Eyeballitis

I am enrolled in a highly rigorous veterinary medicine program. Over the years I have seen many students passing along study materials, many of which included the so-called "past year questions". A lot of professors seem to be unfazed by this practice, since only a handful of them care to change the exam contents so much to render those materials useless. My stance on using those materials has been that it helped me to get a gist of the exam format, as I couldn't be bothered memorizing the specific questions that might come up.

However, I have recently grown more cautious about the practice of sharing exam specificites to one's group of friends right after the test, so that they could do better later on. I feel it's dishonest not only towards the professors, as it also gives an unfair advantage to those who have access to that kind of information (having friends in parallel groups etc.).

The most conflicting part of this whole enterprise is that the said practice is so widespread that it almost feels unnatural to do otherwise, and I can't picture myself saying no to my friends in the parallel group should they ask for test specificities.

As a veterinary student, I recently experienced a moment during an artificial insemination practical that fundamentally challenged my perspective on animal empathy. We were practicing with 'AI guns,' and one cow in particular (highly receptive and clearly in heat) became the primary subject for half a dozen students. After thirty minutes of repetitive palpation and probing, she finally retreated to her pen and collapsed into the bedding.

In that moment, my 'clinical mode' evaporated. I felt a sharp pang of guilt, imagining her exhaustion and the likely discomfort of our amateur pokes. I was certain I was witnessing an animal pushed to her limit. However, only minutes later, she stood up and approached us, licking our coveralls and displaying the standing reflex once more.

This immediate shift back to heat-driven behavior acted as a stark counterweight to my earlier sentiment. It left me wondering: to what extent is our empathy toward livestock merely an act of anthropomorphism? If her behavior is so purely dictated by an endocrine cycle, was my 'pity' for her a biological insight or a human delusion?