Do I continue?

[bambiboo]

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Hello there.

So for a little background, I am a junior in college and have two majors. My first major communication which was my first major and pre-vet which I recently added. I wanted to give pre-vet a try. I am so passionate about animals that I would have hated myself had I graduated and not given it a whirl. I am about to start on my first semester into real pre-vet courses and i'm taking around 20 credit hours. It's alot. But the whole problem here is that I started working at a veterinary office as a vet assistant for the summer to gain some knowledge and experience and I absolutely hate it. It's a combination of the work and the people. Almost nothing about the job interests me. I am worried that this is an early and immediate sign that this won't work out for me. Have any of you experienced this right off the bat? Or is this truly the early and probably merciful sign that I should reevaluate my semester plans.

 

[Coquette22]

Passion for animals does not have to equal "be a veterinarian". There's definitely merit to trying out other vet fields besides small animal general practice (laboratory animal medicine, large animal medicine, specialties if you have a referral center nearby), but if you're really that turned off... Well, you tried. That's the whole point of getting experience, that's why the schools want you to have experience so you get at least some exposure to the field so you can figure out if you like it. There's plenty of other ways to be passionate about animals.

 

[Doktor Timo]

Coquette is right. But at the same time, being a vet assistant is a very different than being a vet. Just because you hate your current job doesn't mean you'll hate vet med in general. I honestly disliked my vet assistant job in undergrad, but I love vet school and I love the clinical work I'm doing right now. Don't be discouraged just because of that. Try to get a variety of experience in other clinics and other scenarios. That will give you a little bit better idea of what you really want.

 

[bambiboo]

Every day I go I feel a little more unmotivated to continue. Should I quit this awful assistant job and just try and get something during christmas break or would burning that bridge really hurt in the way of applying to vet school?

 

[bambiboo]

Coquette is right. But at the same time, being a vet assistant is a very different than being a vet. Just because you hate your current job doesn't mean you'll hate vet med in general. I honestly disliked my vet assistant job in undergrad, but I love vet school and I love the clinical work I'm doing right now. Don't be discouraged just because of that. Try to get a variety of experience in other clinics and other scenarios. That will give you a little bit better idea of what you really want.

Every day I go I feel a little more unmotivated to continue. Should I quit this awful assistant job and just try and get something during christmas break or would burning that bridge really hurt in the way of applying to vet school?

 

[Lab Vet]

What exactly do you dislike about it? When folks ask for advice regarding careers, I tell them the following:

You need to identify the functions of a role that do or don't interest you. That's very different than the subject matter of the job. All veterinarians (irrespective of specialty) need to enjoy complex problem solving and interpersonal interaction. For the average veterinarian, technicians have far more one on one contact with animals than the vet ever will. They also do the majority of blood draws, vaccines (with the exception of Rabies), and nursing care. What interests you about the field? Is it hands-on, manipulation of animals? Are you interested in the science driving the diagnoses that veterinarians make? Thinking about your career aspirations from a more neutral position (take animals out of the equation) may better help you to determine why you're unhappy and how to reorient yourself to a role better suited for your talents.

 

[WulfpackChica]

Every day I go I feel a little more unmotivated to continue. Should I quit this awful assistant job and just try and get something during christmas break or would burning that bridge really hurt in the way of applying to vet school?

Maybe not quit, try finding a different place to shadow. Try calling a large animal vet to do a ride along, call a local shelter and volunteer, etc. There are plenty of other areas that require veterinarians... lab animal, public health, education, research, pharmaceuticals, etc. Then reevaluate how you feel about the field.

 

[bambiboo]

What exactly do you dislike about it? When folks ask for advice regarding careers, I tell them the following:

You need to identify the functions of a role that do or don't interest you. That's very different than the subject matter of the job. All veterinarians (irrespective of specialty) need to enjoy complex problem solving and interpersonal interaction. For the average veterinarian, technicians have far more one on one contact with animals than the vet ever will. They also do the majority of blood draws, vaccines (with the exception of Rabies), and nursing care. What interests you about the field? Is it hands-on, manipulation of animals? Are you interested in the science driving the diagnoses that veterinarians make? Thinking about your career aspirations from a more neutral position (take animals out of the equation) may better help you to determine why you're unhappy and how to reorient yourself to a role better suited for your talents.

It's very difficult to decipher exactly what I dislike. I don't enjoy what veterinary assistants do except for seeing the animals. Taking animals out of the equation makes it quite a bit different for me. I am very passionate about them but when I take a look at my life I probably wouldn't be a regular doctor. Just about the only thing keeping me interested is my love for animals.

 

[Lilly63]

Maybe you should try to shadow a vet in another field of veterinary medicine. If your that turned off already about working in the field, I would suggest looking at other careers. People tend to assume that they want to be a vet, vet tech, or vet assistant because they love animals and don't like dealing with people. In reality vets, techs, and assistants deal with people (the owners) most of their time. Can you give specific examples of what you don't like?

 

[Jess Monster]

Were I in your situation, I would start applying to other veterinary related jobs before making my mind up.

My first vet assistant job was awful. I actually did like the duties of the job and interacting with clients, but I had little support from staff in terms of training and the head vet was always in a rage over something. I didn't last long in that position, but I had previous experiences in public health/government/regulatory medicine so my perspective and my desire to be part of the veterinary profession didn't change.

 

[Doktor Timo]

Every day I go I feel a little more unmotivated to continue. Should I quit this awful assistant job and just try and get something during christmas break or would burning that bridge really hurt in the way of applying to vet school?

The only way burning this specific bridge would hurt is if you think the vets there could write you a high quality reference letter. But just based on what you've said it sounds like that may not be the case.

If you're going to quit, you need to find a way to replace that experience. You're a junior now, so you don't have a whole lot of time left to get high quality vet experience. If you can't find anything else, then you need to evaluate whether or not you're willing to bite the bullet and stay or not. If it's going to completely kill your desire to pursue vet med at all, then you should probably quit anyway, though.

 

[battie]

Like Jess Monster, I had a horrid vet assistant position for a while. The first two months were great because I was just a volunteer and treated as such. As soon as I was hired as an assistant, my quality of life went downhill fast. The vet was a great doctor and I saw some really cool (though sometimes horrible) things, but being under-appreciated for a long period of time does wear on you. However, I have also had some great experiences at other clinics as an intern/shadow/assistant. This may be a situation where you need to find a better fit for you clinic/doctor wise.

I would recommend a couple of things if you're going to start looking for a different location to be.

1) Go online and check local vet tech school websites and look at their job boards. Here in Colorado, our largest one is Bel-Rea and they have a job board that a ton of local clinics post ads for open positions from 10 hours a week as kennel techs to 40 hours a week for LVT/CVT/RVT. I frequent the board just to see what's around, and there is always a posting for vet assistants/kennel techs up for privately owned clinics, chains (VCA/Banfield), specialty hospitals, and shelters. Whether or not you get one of those jobs is up to debate, however. When my parents lost their jobs and I had to get one, I applied to 40 jobs in two days, 20 of which were vet assistant/kennel tech jobs posted on the job board. I didn't get a call back from a single place until three weeks later from a doggie boarding facility. A week after I started there, I got a call from a vet clinic. So it may take some time as far as that route goes.

2) Because of this, I recommend a second step. When I was looking for just a place to shadow a few summers ago, I made a list of the 100 closest vet clinics within 20 miles of my house. I drove to 20 of them the first day and got two bites for volunteering/shadowing. I also got phone calls from three other clinics within about a week. One was the scary horrid vet, the other was a relatively cool vet. Had I not gotten those two bites, I would have done the next 20 the next day, and so on and so forth until I got a clinic willing to take me.

Having one bad experience doesn't make the entire notion impossible. There are really crappy jobs in every industry and I am pretty sure every vet that still frequents these boards have their horror story of a heinous place they used to work for 6 months before they found a better fit. Keep at it. If you find yourself still hating everything vet med after trying several different clinics in several different vet med fields, then I would consider a career alteration.

 

[Felixor90]

Not all veterinarians work in a cat/dog hospital. After working for an avian/exotic animal hospital, I found small animal hospitals to be excruciatingly boring. There are so many vet jobs that might interest you. Look around and see if that works. If not, you don't have to be a vet to help animals.

 

[that redhead]

Echoing everyone else that another veterinary job may interest you more, but I'll also add that there are plenty of other ways to work with animals other than veterinary medicine. Many people I know get great fulfillment doing rescue/fostering/transport, volunteering at the animal shelter in their free time, working at therapeutic riding centers, training/behavioral work, doing visitor education at the zoo/aquarium or just owning their own pets. Like Coquette said, passion for animals does not mean you must become a veterinarian or even have a "real job" with animals; plenty of ways to be around animals in your life 🙂 I think the general perception is that being a vet is the most prestigious, official way to work with animals, or allows you to do the "most" good but frankly I don't think that's always true.

 

[pp9]

I wouldn't necessarily say that hating your assistant position means you'll hate being a veterinarian. I hate being an assistant when I have to clean up after the doctors/techs, when patients have blowout diarrhea, and when I have kennels on the weekend. I particularly hate my current position because my bosses are terrible and they just begged me to keep my shift on Tuesdays after I quit. Quitting a job doesn't mean you have to burn those bridges. As long as you stay professional when quitting and during the last two weeks, they wouldn't have a reason to cut you off like that. Don't let your first veterinary experience define the field for you. If you're unhappy, keep looking.

Also, for the record, a few weeks in a veterinary clinic won't make much of a letter of recommendation, if that's what you're worried about losing out on. I've been told by a few schools that they look for you to have worked for someone for at least a year for a letter to hold any real merit, excluding internships and the like.

Not all veterinarians work in a cat/dog hospital. After working for an avian/exotic animal hospital, I found small animal hospitals to be excruciatingly boring. There are so many vet jobs that might interest you. Look around and see if that works. If not, you don't have to be a vet to help animals.

This is a great point. I started out in small animal and disliked it for the most part. Although I'm back in SA right now, zoo medicine is where my interest lies. With that being said, if zoo med doesn't work out for me, where will I most likely end up? Small animal. It's important to be aware of the reality of the different careers you can have as a veterinarian, and the odds of being successful in the particular career you end up wanting.

 

[DVMDream]

First:

Hello there.

So for a little background, I am a junior in college and have two majors. My first major communication which was my first major and pre-vet which I recently added. I wanted to give pre-vet a try. I am so passionate about animals that I would have hated myself had I graduated and not given it a whirl. I am about to start on my first semester into real pre-vet courses and i'm taking around 20 credit hours. It's alot. But the whole problem here is that I started working at a veterinary office as a vet assistant for the summer to gain some knowledge and experience and I absolutely hate it. It's a combination of the work and the people. Almost nothing about the job interests me. I am worried that this is an early and immediate sign that this won't work out for me. Have any of you experienced this right off the bat? Or is this truly the early and probably merciful sign that I should reevaluate my semester plans.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Because I had to...


Second:

Do you like and enjoy medicine?

I ask this because you can love animals more than anyone else in the world but it means jack **** if you don't love medicine. You need to love medicine to be a vet. You also should love animals too, but a love for medicine is needed just as much as a love for animals.

If you decide that you don't like medicine or that it isn't for you, that is fine. There are more people in this world that love animals but not medicine than those that love both and turn it into a career. Just because you love animals doesn't mean that you should become a vet. There are a bunch of things that you can do with animals and to help animals without becoming a vet should you decide that veterinary medicine isn't for you.

 

[CombatVeteranVeterinarian]

Look my friend,

Hating the people you work with has NOTHING to do with the job-description, necessarily. Hating the people you work with has to do with your own attitude. Do not quit a job because you hate the people you work with, or because you "feel" like it's not something you should do.

Ask yourself these questions:
Do you enjoy animal welfare?
Do you find things as more MEANINGFUL within the animal kingdom?
Can you tolerate science?
Does exploring science make you interested?
Do you see the value in medicine?
What else would you do in your life so that you may live a meaningful life?



Be careful in your evaluation of a job that you claim to automatically hate.

 

[CombatVeteranVeterinarian]

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Because I had to...

Now, that is funny.

 

[wolfpackprevet]

Try some large animal work if you can and see how you feel about that!

 

[Lab Vet]

It's very difficult to decipher exactly what I dislike. I don't enjoy what veterinary assistants do except for seeing the animals. Taking animals out of the equation makes it quite a bit different for me. I am very passionate about them but when I take a look at my life I probably wouldn't be a regular doctor. Just about the only thing keeping me interested is my love for animals.

By 'regular doctor,' do you mean a human physician? Human medical doctors have a lot in common with veterinarians, in terms of their actual job description. Several folks have pointed out that vet med is a broad profession. There's all sorts of things you can do with your DVM, from private practice to public health. That being said, there are some commonalities. I would argue that vet med may be the wrong career choice if you don't enjoy science. Vet school is a lot of science, all the time. If you don't enjoy thinking about science and solving problems involving science, I would hazard a guess that you wouldn't enjoy being a vet. Whether you work as an equine practitioner in private practice, or a veterinary medical officer for the USDA, you're solving problems using science. Maybe some folks can progress through vet school with a genuine distaste for science. I couldn't do that. Vet school is just too hard. If I didn't enjoy it (the actual scientific content), I would have bailed a long time ago.

You say that it's difficult for you to take animals out of the equation. I urge you to try. A love for animals (in and of itself) is insufficient to drive a veterinary career for a person's lifetime. No matter the specialty, you'll deal with clients whose concern for animals is different than your own (i.e. less value). What drives you then?

Have you explored other careers involving animals- zookeeping, kennel management, etc.? These are wonderful careers that involve a lot of up close and personal contact with animals. I'm not advocating that you drop the ambition to pursue veterinary school, just that you enter the profession with open eyes. Vet school costs a fortune, and the job market is weak in many parts of the country. You may explore other animal related professions, and find that you're more satisfied. Don't be hesitant to consider all of your options before you commit. In exploring several options (vet and non-vet) you may discover a common thread which, for you, equals career happiness (what you're actually doing on the job- not the fact that the jobs all involve animals). This is the 'sweet spot.' It can take a lifetime for a person to discover it.

Best of success with your journey.