UF College of Veterinary Medicine
Public Relations Office

Veterinary student develops computer-based
study aid in a flash

By SARAH CAREY

News flash: At age 33, Mary Gardner, a sophomore veterinary student, is fast becoming an entrepreneur, marketing a computer-driven flash card study program to students not just at the University of Florida , but all over the country.

The program enables students to create flash cards on their personal computers. They can organize the cards by subject, attach pictures, test themselves, print out cards on paper and swap cards between friends.

For example, animal science majors might quiz themselves with cards that ask questions like “What is a nutrient?” “What are the six classes of nutrients?” or “What type of cattle is this?”

“If you have a PDA, you can put the cards on the PDA version of the software to study away from your PC,” Gardner said.

This may not exactly be news to members of the class of 2008, who first heard about Gardner 's program a few weeks after starting veterinary school in the fall of 2004. At that time, Gardner had reserved a classroom after hours to present a demonstration of the product she developed with help from her father, a computer programmer, and her brother, a webmaster.

“The pitch was, we have to memorize all these facts, so let's split up the work,” Gardner said. “Everyone takes a chapter and we swap the cards.”

Although only about 20 of her classmates wound up buying the $29.95 software package, called PC Flashcards, nearly the entire class of 2009 purchased the program, Gardner said.

“That's because my class by then had done all the work and created so many flash cards, over 20,000 to be exact, that were then automatically available through our Web site to anyone else who purchased the program,” Gardner said.

One of PC Flashcards' key selling points is that a portion of the proceeds from each sale go to a student club, class or organization the buyer designates.

“My class has earned more than $500 just from sales,” Gardner said. “It's been our best fundraising event to date. There is no overhead and no inventory, and we've learned while we made the cards.”

Prior to being accepted into veterinary school, Gardner traveled the world as a software training and design expert employed by the global firm Ecometry, a company that specializes in creating software for mail, phone and Web-oriented businesses such as Nordstrom, Nine West, Ross-Simons, Coach, Lego and other household names.

As she explains it, the program she trained people to operate encompassed just about every aspect of a direct-to-consumer business: advertising, order entry, customer service and shipping, to name a few.

But after a few too many red-eye flights and fluorescent lights, as she puts it, Gardner burned out on corporate life and decided her true dream was to attend veterinary school.

“The flash card business all started because before I was able to apply for veterinary school, I had to complete my prerequisites, which naturally involved a lot of study,” Gardner said. “I was making handwritten flash cards and I'd have stacks of them in my house. I thought, this is ridiculous, there needs to be a software product to automate all this.”

So Gardner drew up specs and conceptualized the product “on paper.” Then she asked her father if he would write the software.

“Within a week, he had a prototype,” she said. “He did it to help me study for my own education, but it was soon working so well, some of my friends wanted it. My dad and I then decided, let's make this into a product we can sell on the Internet.

“That's when we enlisted my brother to help build the Web site,” Gardner added. “I take care of customer support, marketing and product design, while my father programs the changes and my brother takes care of the Web site. It works out really well.”

Students from six other veterinary schools, including those in Hawaii , Puerto Rico and even Canada , are now using the program.

“The program is not just for college students,” Gardner said. “We have real estate agents, pilots and high school students using the program. It's a great feeling to know that so many other people have found the product helpful in their studies.”

Alexis Schulman, a foreign veterinary graduate from the Dominican Republic , had worked in scientific research for 15 years before deciding she really wanted to return to veterinary medicine.

“I started a NAVLE study group in Yahoo and to my surprise, it grew to around 700 members from all over the world,” Schulman said. “When I found out about PC Flashcards, I immediately contacted their Web site and purchased the program.

“For me, the most helpful part was going through my study files slowly and instead of making outlines, by making question and answer cards I was able to cover a lot more information,” Schulman said. “Being able to add pictures is great, particularly when covering topics like radiology and parasitology.”

Schulman was happy to say she recently passed the NAVLE.

“On a side note, my seventh grader is involved in Academic Superbowl at her Middle School and is also going to be using the program,” she said.

Sophomore UF veterinary student Jaime Barta likes the ability PC Flashcards gives her to test herself and keep track of her progress.

“I like that I can split up material to study with my friends and that we can e-mail flashcards to each other,” Barta said. “Some subjects of just rote memorization I can learn in minutes, such as all the instruments used in surgeries. Other times I study a subject on my own and then come back to the program to test myself if I'm learning it or not.”

Gardner 's goal is to make $1 million by the time she's 40 to help fund the cost of starting her own small animal clinic.

For more information about PC Flashcards, go to www.pcflashcards.com .