
The Standing Committee on Career Attributes (SCOCA) was founded in July 2019 to work toward improving the professionalism and soft skills of IVSA members worldwide and provide structure to the previously established IVSA Trainer’s Network. SCOCA aims to complement veterinary education with opportunities to improve career attributes to allow for a successful future career in veterinary medicine for all veterinary students worldwide.
Our Mission
- Facilitate the development and enhancement of Soft-Skills (i.e. communication, leadership, teamwork, time management, etc.) of veterinary students worldwide.
- Provide veterinary students with tools to develop the necessary attributes required for a successful career in veterinary medicine.
- Promote and coordinate the IVSA Trainer’s Network allowing IVSA members to become Trainers to share their knowledge and skills with other students.
Our Projects
Trainers Network
The IVSA Trainer’s Network was established in July 2016 to improve professionalism within IVSA and enable students to develop Soft-Skills they can utilize to train fellow IVSA members. The first ‘Training New Trainers’ (TNT) event occurred in Brno, Czech Republic, in July 2016 in collaboration with the European Pharmacy Students’ Association (EPSA).
Training New Trainers Events (TNTs)
Training New Trainers (TNT), events are opportunities for IVSA members to become Candidate Trainers and begin the journey to becoming an IVSA Trainer! TNTs aim to guide candidate trainers into discovering who they are, what they want to achieve, and how to share this newfound knowledge with others.
In the first portion of a TNT, workshops are focused on candidates’ self-discovery and self-improvement by using specific outlined tools delivered by the presenting Trainers.
The second part of a TNT is focused on utilising this newfound self-development to instruct and guide other individuals toward achieving this same self-development (how to train others). A TNT event ends with the candidates delivering a graduation workshop to individuals not associated with the TNT.
Trainers Library
The “Trainers Library” (TL) collects useful resources, documents, lesson plans, etc., for IVSA Trainers. The TL has separate folders containing documents on how to organise training events, explanations of training content, promotional materials, minutes of the meetings, etc.