As students seek activities outside the classroom for real-world experience, especially for international and non-traditional topics and contexts, this sometimes necessitates students to pursue experiential learning beyond traditional academic pathways. This study explored the landscape of third-party veterinary educational providers (TVEPs) and examined student perspectives on global engagement at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine (OSU CVM). Quantitative data were compiled from publicly available TVEP listings from the years 2017 to 2025 ( n = 222 trips across 47 countries) and analyzed for geographic scope and training structure. Qualitative data ( n = 319) were drawn from three sources—student course essays, travel scholarship applications, and post-trip reflections—spanning the years 2018–2025. Thematic analysis identified six dominant themes: Academic and Skill Expansion; Global and Cultural Competency; Career and Connection Cultivation; Ethics, Health, and Safety; Personal Growth; and Equity and Accessibility Awareness. This study demonstrates the prolific nature of TVEPs and students’ desire for opportunities for practical learning, cultural competence, and career guidance, especially in fields that traditional curricula do not fully cover, such as wildlife medicine and global health. Students showed positive attitudes toward their experiences but did not mention ethical concerns until specific prompts were given, which correlate with human medical education concerns about unstructured international experiences. Overall, this research provides a novel overview of TVEPs and veterinary student motivations, reinforcing the importance of structured, reflective, and ethical global learning. Veterinary schools are encouraged to adopt or enhance frameworks that assess and support ethical, accessible, and educationally impactful experiential learning opportunities.
Bessler et al. (Thu,) studied this question.